‘Actually a very good thing’: KIRO host says Seattle’s slowed population growth gives leaders time to tackle housing

Seattle’s population growth has slowed significantly. While the city is still growing, its population increased just 0.8% between April 2025 and April 2026, bringing the total to 823,400. That’s a sharp drop from the 2.7% growth rate between 2021 and 2022, 2.2% the following year, and the 2.4% jump seen in both 2023-24 and 2024-25, according to The Seattle Times.

KIRO fill-in host Mike Lewis had a positive outlook on the population slowdown, saying that now fewer people are coming into the city, leaders can focus on affordable housing.

“For 10 years it was such an unbelievably painful growth rate in Seattle,” he said on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “So I think that this is a weird opportunity. I mean, because the way the underpinning oftentimes of the city’s growth has stagnated, or those sort of stories, is like somehow that’s a bad thing. I think this is actually a very good thing. If the city wants to try to tackle the issue of affordable housing, this is your chance.”

Mike added that a telltale sign of more affordable housing is when apartment buildings start dropping the one-month free rent banners.

“They start hanging that banner immediately upon having units staying open for a period of time that are too expensive,” he said. And they’ll do the one month, or they’ll do free gym membership, or they’ll do something along those lines. When you start seeing those banners, it’s going to be directly a result of this slow growth rate.”

Smaller Washington cities see higher population increase than Seattle

Surprisingly, smaller cities in western Washington were seeing a higher population growth rate than Seattle. Snohomish saw a 2.57% increase from 2025 to 2026. Woodinville had a 2.06% increase, Marysville’s population went up 1.56%, Shoreline up 1.52%, and Tukwila up 1.44%, the Seattle Times reported.

However, Mike was surprised that Bellevue didn’t see any growth, only adding 300 people — a mere 0.2% increase.

“That one caught me a little off guard,” he said. “That’s like eight busloads. That’s shocking because everyone’s always talking about the flight from Seattle, and people don’t want to deal with Seattle politics, blah blah blah.”

Mike believes Bellevue will start to see a larger increase in the next couple of years because of the new light rail.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.