King County
Property management in Seattle, run remotely for a flat $109 a month.
Seattle is the most administratively demanding city in the state to own a rental in — and almost none of that work requires anybody to be standing on the property.
What's different about managing in Seattle
Seattle asks more of a landlord than anywhere else in Washington, and what it asks has changed repeatedly over the last few years. Keeping current with it is a real part of the job here rather than a footnote, and it is the part we take off you. The single thing most worth checking early is how many rental units the city considers you to have — owners with a rented basement apartment or backyard cottage are regularly treated as having two, and find out at the worst possible moment.
Requirements change, and keeping current with them for your specific property is part of what the fee covers — not something you need to follow yourself. Everything we handle is listed in full, along with how the model works.
What we manage in Seattle
Seattle’s rental stock skews older and smaller than the metro average — craftsman and box houses in Ballard, Wallingford and Beacon Hill, mid-century stock in West Seattle and Greenwood, and a large and growing number of backyard cottages and basement conversions since the city loosened its accessory dwelling rules. That last group matters more than owners expect: a detached cottage on a single-family lot is usually a separate rental unit in the city’s eyes, and plenty of people who built one as family space and later rented it out have never registered it as one.
Neighborhoods we manage in
- Ballard
- Fremont
- Wallingford
- Green Lake
- Capitol Hill
- Queen Anne
- Magnolia
- West Seattle
- Columbia City
- Beacon Hill
- Ravenna
- Greenwood
Why remote management works in Seattle
Seattle is the clearest case for remote management in the state, because the expensive part of the job here is paperwork. Getting a notice right, keeping the registration current, documenting a decision properly — that is administrative work, and it is where owners actually lose money. What genuinely needs a person, like a burst pipe at 11pm, needs a coordinated local trade either way. No manager in this city fixes that personally.
$109 per unit, per month to manage. Flat.
Not a percentage of your rent, so it does not rise when your rent does. No markup on vendor invoices and no charge for talking to us. The fee pauses while a unit is vacant. Two things sit outside it, both flat and both only when they happen: $499to place a tenant, $299 to draft a renewal.
Seattle landlord questions
Do you manage backyard cottages and basement apartments in Seattle?
Yes, and they are one of the more common things we take on here. The thing to know is that the city generally treats a separate entrance and a separate kitchen as a separate rental unit, with its own obligations, whether or not you think of it that way. If you have one, tell us at the outset — it is much cheaper to sort out at the start of a tenancy than during a dispute.
How quickly does someone get to my Seattle property when something breaks?
Tenants can report an issue at any hour. Genuine emergencies get a vetted local trade dispatched the same night; everything else is triaged and scheduled the next working day. Seattle has the deepest vendor pool of anywhere we work, which in practice means shorter waits here than in the outer suburbs.
Do you run showings or screen tenants in Seattle?
We screen; we do not show. Marketing the unit and standing in it with a prospect stay with you or an agent of your choosing, in Seattle as everywhere else. Everything after that is ours — the online application, background, credit and eviction history checks, pet and assistance animal screening, the Washington lease and its addendums, and the tenancy from there. That is our tenant placement package at $499, a flat one-off charged only when a unit turns over rather than a slice of the rent. It is worth talking to us before you have an applicant, so the lease is drafted the way we would want to manage it.
What does the $109 cover on a Seattle rental?
The full running of the tenancy, per unit, per month — and it does not scale with your rent, which matters more in Seattle than almost anywhere else because Seattle rents are high. Repairs are billed to you at the vendor’s actual invoice with nothing added, and there is no statement fee and no charge for talking to us. Two things are priced separately, both flat and both only when they happen: $499 to place a tenant and $299 to draft a renewal.
We also manage nearby
Managing a rental in Seattle?
Tell us the address and the current rent. We'll send back what Palace would charge, what a percentage-based manager would charge, and the difference over five years. No obligation, no sales call unless you ask for one.