The Boomtown Blueprint: Seattle's 1877 Real Estate Pitch
As lumber prices cratered and labor became cheap, local papers urged investors to stop building shoddy shacks and start constructing 'neat, commodious cottages' for high-interest returns.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As spring approaches, the prospect for extensive building improvements here during the coming season brightens up greatly. There are many advantages now presented for building operations on an extensive scale. Rough lumber is now down to $1 per M in the San Francisco market, and at that rate it hardly pays to ship it there. Mechanic's wages here are now much lower than they have been in the past, and there are many good mechanics ready for an engagement. Rents remain good and are in fair demand, with no prospect of any considerable decline in the rates. These are among the advantages now offered to builders here, and they can easily be seen and appreciated.
At this time, no better investment could hardly be made than in tenement houses and residential lots in Seattle. Houses can be constructed now cheaper than at any previous time, and the builder may safely count on ten per cent per month on the money invested in them from the rents. On the other hand, the increase in the value of the lots upon which they are constructed, unless the location be very bad, will amount to at least two per cent per month on the purchase price. Of these facts, we are well assured by those who have already invested in that way. In order to insure those profits, the investor should select his sites judiciously and put up neat, commodious cottages, instead of little 'seven-by-nine,' roughly finished tenements, as are already out of demand.
“The builder may safely count on ten per cent per month on the money invested in them from the rents.”
This 1877 pitch reads like a page from today's headlines, highlighting the persistent tension between profit-driven development and the quality of housing stock. Just as investors then were encouraged to move away from 'seven-by-nine' shacks to maximize returns, Seattle remains a city where housing is treated primarily as a financial vehicle, echoing the same cycles of boom and demand that have defined the city for over 140 years.
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