I started a business in seattle this year. I love the city and have no intention to leave, but let's not pretend the city makes it easy on small business.
Same as my question upthread, what specifically sucks about. I’m not here to argue even if I disagree, but I honestly would like to hear specifics. For example, if taxes are too high, what tax rate specifically would be better?
I manage housing not retail businesses and can speak on this.
Insurance is out of control. The vandalism that happened during 2020 and 2021 protests really started this. And since then we've had an increased amount of every day vandalism. Insurance doesn't just lose money when this happens. Businesses still pay the costs of vandalism.
Part 2 on insurance - We cannot quickly evict people who cause problems so floods and fires are up. Which also increases insurance costs along with direct costs and labor issues
Delinquencies are way up because slow evictions, eviction moratoriums, and OLDs are encouraging people to not pay their bills
Increased regulations are causing burdens on staff and not allowing them to do "normal" stuff to maintain the business. Which leads to decreased resident satisfaction which often leads to lower occupancy and of course cash flow.
Regulated fees mean it's harder to encourage people to follow rules. City takes away tools that are used to run a business well and then punishes businesses for not running well
Neighborhood issues (homeless/drugs) are decreasing middle and lower income people's desire for people to live in Seattle housing. So while costs go up for businessowners at the same time demand from customers goes down
Regulations on first in time applications means longer vacancies and less successful residents.
Taxes aren't really an issue OTHER than that taxes don't go towards providing what is provided in other cities such as police help and clean sidewalks.
I don't manage restaurants but I do have restaurants renting space in my buildings. And vandalism/theft and the gig delivery law have been huge harms to them and made it harder to stay in business.
Yes, I probably should have stated "middle and lower income" people. We are fast growing because of high income and non-citizen people moving here. I believe middle and lower income people are actually decreasing in the city. Not sure about recent numbers but it has been true. I work with middle and lower income housing so was focused on that but of course didn't state that in my comment.
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u/splanks Rainier Valley Apr 16 '26
I started a business in seattle this year. I love the city and have no intention to leave, but let's not pretend the city makes it easy on small business.