Washington SB 1110/5364 - Adding middle housing and easy subdivision

[Marc Sudd]

Hi all,

I currently own a rental in a suburb of Seattle that is a ~1000 sqft home sitting on a 20k sqft lot. There is a small detached garage on the lot, but most of the lot is flat lawn, with a bit of the land classified as a critical area sloping down into a greenbelt. Recently, the Washington State government has pushed through two bills that are very likely to pass, which will remove single family zoning from most of the Puget Sound Area, as well as enable homeowners to divide lots into 2 smaller lots. Pretty similar to California's SB 9.

Before, I had been thinking about making an ADU down the line to be able to get some use out of the empty land, but it seems like these two laws will allow me to develop the lots pretty significantly. I was thinking about subdividing to keep the existing house on a smaller portion of the lot, and build a fourplex on the subdivided portion to get some use out of the land.

My question is two-fold: In this real estate market, will building a fourplex be a good investment? I understand that this is highly dependent on a multitude of factors, but based on the trend of interest rates and the chilling of the housing market, is this maybe something I should pursue? Also, would it potentially be worth eliminating the existing home to make room for more housing?

Any other commentary on the bills is welcome!