Google has halted its plan to construct a fourth building for its Kirkland campus, according to a research report released Tuesday. 

The Broderick Group, which monitors commercial real estate in Seattle and Bellevue, noted the pause in its quarterly report of the Eastside office market. Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont did not confirm or deny the news but said Thursday, “We’re working to ensure our real estate investments meet the current and future needs of our hybrid workforce.” 

“Our campuses are at the heart of our Google community, and we remain committed to our long-term presence in Kirkland,” he said.

Google had planned a 760,000-square-foot campus with four buildings in Kirkland. It opened the north building in April 2021 and the second phase of the project in 2022 with a splashy eight-story building in Kirkland Urban that featured a dog lounge, movie theater and kitchenettes on almost every floor. At the time, it planned to open another building in 2023 and the last in 2025.

Now, Google has completed construction on the south building but has opted not to “build out the space” and to pause its plans for a fourth building in the complex, according to the report from the Broderick Group. 

Google also removed Tableau, a software company owned by Salesforce, from 120,000 square feet of space on its campus that Tableau had hoped to sublease. Google has also not built out that space, the Broderick Group said.

Lamont did not disclose how many employees Google currently has in Kirkland and how many had been slated for the fourth building that is now on pause. Google shed 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, in January 2023. The company also laid off hundreds of workers at the start of the year, though it’s not clear how those job cuts affected Google’s workforce in Seattle and Kirkland.

The Eastside office market overall has an 18.2% vacancy rate, compared to a rate of 5.7% in 2019, the report said. Tenant demand this year has exceeded the norm in the first quarter, the report said.

In the world of service businesses, your pricing model can significantly impact your business’s profitability and sustainability.

The most common types of service pricing strategies include hourly, project, value-based, and performance pricing.

Each strategy has unique merits and challenges, which we will explore in the following sections.

Hourly Pricing

Most people understand hourly pricing.

You provide a service and charge by the hour to complete it.

Advantages of Hourly Pricing

Hourly pricing is considered “fair” because you’re compensated based on your time on a project.

This strategy also allows for the flexibility to accommodate changes and additions to the project scope.

Disadvantages of Hourly Pricing

However, with hourly pricing, you can run into estimation difficulties, and it’s less predictable from a pricing model perspective (feast or famine).

Moreover, there’s only one hour in one hour. This presents challenges with scaling your business. You’ll always be trading hours for dollars.

Project Pricing

Project pricing is another common pricing model where you charge a set fee for a specific service or project.

Advantages of Project Pricing

Clients see Project pricing as attractive because it offers high predictability regarding cost.

They know exactly what they will pay at the outset, irrespective of the time you spend on the project.

Moreover, it allows you to leverage your efficiency; if you can complete the project faster than estimated, you can increase your effective hourly rate.

Disadvantages of Project Pricing

On the flip side, project pricing can be risky for service providers.

If the project requires more time and resources than initially estimated, it can affect your profitability.

Plus, it may lead to client disagreements if additional work is needed beyond the defined project scope, leading to (dreaded) scope creep.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing is a strategy where the perceived value of the service drives pricing rather than the actual service cost or market rate.

Advantages of Value-Based Pricing

One of the significant advantages of value-based pricing is its potential for high profitability.

If your service can deliver considerable value to your client, you can charge a premium price for it.

It shifts the focus from cost to the unique value you offer, allowing you to differentiate your services from competitors.

Disadvantages of Value-Based Pricing

However, one of the challenges with this pricing model is determining the value perception of your clients.

It requires a deep understanding of your clients and their willingness to pay for the value you provide.

Furthermore, it may be challenging to quantify the value of your service, especially for intangible benefits, which can lead to pricing disputes.

Performance-Based Pricing

Performance-based pricing is a strategy where your fees are directly linked to the results or performance your services deliver to the client.

Advantages of Performance-Based Pricing

The primary advantage of performance-based pricing is that it aligns the interests of the service provider and the client.

It creates a win-win situation where the provider is incentivized to deliver optimal results, and the client only pays for the achieved outcomes.

Additionally, this model can differentiate your services by demonstrating your confidence in delivering results, making your offer more attractive to potential clients.

Disadvantages of Performance-Based Pricing

However, the performance-based pricing model also comes with its share of challenges.

Firstly, defining what constitutes ‘performance’ can be tricky and can lead to disagreements.

Secondly, external factors beyond your control may impact the results.

Finally, this model can create cash flow instability, especially if payment is only made upon reaching certain performance milestones.

6. Never Make Housing Rules Involving Children

Several years ago, many property managers had policies such as “one bedroom for every child.”  If a single parent and a child shared a bedroom, for example, the property management would require them to lease a two-bedroom unit instead of a one-bedroom. Unfortunately, you can’t do this anymore, as it has since been ruled as discriminatory.

However, do not confuse this with local occupancy regulations. For example, some towns allow landlords to limit a two-bedroom apartment to four occupants.

Likewise, property managers can’t put families on one side of the apartment complex and people without children on the other.  Pets?  Sure.  Children?  No.

HUD has been aggressively pursuing discrimination cases for the last five years. In 2013, they launched a mobile app to help people report Fair Housing violations. They want to make an example of landlords and property managers, gain publicity for these cases, and win money in court.

Other Things You Can Do To Avoid A Hefty Fair Housing Lawsuit

Six situational tips won’t cut it. As a landlord, it’s your job to cover your behind as well as you can, and there are other things you can do to avoid a Fair Housing lawsuit, like:

Educate Yourself (And Your People)

If you’re a solo landlord, you must stay on top of fair housing law developments to avoid ugly surprises like lawsuits and complaints.  (Sidenote: You might also want to make life easier by using Spark Rental’s landlord app.)

If you have people on payroll, it’s also important to keep them in the loop. Remember, one mistake from one person can land your whole operation in hot water. 

Have Your Policies Lined Up

The first order of business in renting out is to get your policies in order and accordance with state and federal laws. The second order of business is applying them consistently across all tenants and applicants—no exemptions. 

This way, even if you are sued for Fair Housing discrimination, you can easily state that your policies are uniformly applied to everyone you deal with. However…

Always Consider Reasonable Accommodations

…there are instances where the law would call for reasonable accommodations. According to HUD, “a reasonable accommodation is a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service that may be necessary for a person with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces, or to fulfill their program obligations.”

Reasonable accommodations include the following:

• • Installing ramps for wheelchair access
  • Modifying existing facilities for easier access by disabled persons
  • Allowing service or emotional support animals despite a “no pets” policy
  • Providing a reserved parking space close to the entrance for tenants with mobility impairments
  • Installing grab bars in bathrooms
  • Modifying kitchen cabinets for a tenant in a wheelchair
  • Allowing a tenant with PTSD to break their lease early without penalty if they need to move for treatment

However, as the word “reasonable” implies, there are limits. Again, as per HUD, you can deny any modifications that will cause you extensive financial or administrative burden. You can also deny a request if it’s not made by or on behalf of a disabled person. 

Document EVERYTHING

Though paperwork seems like a necessary evil, it’s a good friend when avoiding Fair Housing Lawsuits.

Always keep a detailed record of all interactions with tenants and applicants. Have them sign an official document if any decisions or concessions are made. Don’t leave things to chance here; always have a paper trail. 

Final Thoughts

Be very, very careful when advertising your rental unit and screening your rental applications. 

If there is even a suspicion that you may have rejected an application based on something other than their financial or credit history, expect a lawsuit.  If you show any inclination toward one group of applicants over another, expect a lawsuit.  Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.

So, apply these tips to avoid a Fair Housing lawsuit and save yourself from expenses and headaches. 

An increase in homes for sale across the Seattle area offered more choices to shoppers last month but brought little relief for the many buyers struggling with high costs and a still-tight market.

New single-family home listings climbed by 17% from February to March in King County and even more in some outlying areas, according to new data the Northwest Multiple Listing Service released Wednesday. New condo listings jumped 22% in King County, with the largest number of new condos hitting the market in one month since summer 2022.

Weary home shoppers may welcome that influx. Along with a typical spring pickup in home listings, Seattle is seeing an increase in newly constructed town homes hitting the market, some just finished and others that didn’t sell last fall, said John. L. Scott agent Kimberly Shaeffer. “All of a sudden, we have this really large influx of new-construction town homes,” she said.

Despite this increase, the overall supply of homes for sale remains slim compared to the market’s recent high years. The number of single-family homes newly listed for sale in King County last month was the lowest level for March in at least seven years. 

Stubbornly high interest rates are keeping many homeowners who scored low rates during the pandemic from listing their properties for sale. Mortgage rates averaged nearly 7% in late March, a bit lower than the peak last fall but still high enough to squeeze many people trying to afford a home and keep homeowners on the sidelines.

Without a bigger influx of homes for sale, the market is tightening as home shoppers emerge for the usual spring rush. At current levels of demand, it would take about a month to sell all the single-family homes for sale in King County, the shortest period in nearly two years.

Meanwhile, home prices are holding steady across the Puget Sound region, with a small uptick from February to March, and substantial increases compared to a year ago. 

In King County, the median sale price in March was $945,500, 13% higher than in March 2023. The median single-family home sold for $760,000 in Snohomish County, up 5% from a year ago; $550,000 in Pierce County, up 5%; and about $535,000 in Kitsap County, up 3%.

The median Seattle home sold for $925,000, up 6% year-over-year, and the median home on the Eastside sold for $1.7 million, up 19%. Home prices also climbed about 7% in South King County and 11% in North King County.

Last month, two Seattle-area cities — Snoqualmie and Bothell — last month joined Zillow’s list of “million dollar cities,” where the typical home is worth $1 million or more.

Condo prices were a bit more volatile: In King County, the median condo price in March, $540,000, was down slightly from a month earlier after jumping 11% from January to February. In Seattle, where condos include those in multifamily buildings and some accessory dwelling units that resemble small single-family homes, the median condo sold for $587,500. 

Still, some anxious buyers are enduring bidding wars and paying well over the list price for homes throughout the region.

In the first few months of this year, buyers “wanted to take advantage of getting in earlier,” said Jen Cameron, an agent with The Agency in Kirkland. “They thought, ‘Well, once [mortgage] rates come down even further, the market is going to be flooded, so I would rather take my shot.‘”

The number of pending single-family home sales picked up across the region in March, eclipsing last year in most areas. Pierce County is a bit of an outlier in the region, with sales volume still 12% lower than a year ago.

Between high mortgage rates and high home prices, today’s market continues to shut out many potential buyers and keep would-be sellers from letting go of their homes. Across the U.S. between 2000 and 2022, a homebuyer upgrading to a 25% more expensive house would have needed to boost their monthly payment by about 40%. Now, that same upgrade would more than double the buyer’s monthly payment, according to a national mortgage data tracker. 

To lower their monthly costs, some buyers are putting more money down — a tough prospect for middle-class and first-time homebuyers. The median down payment in the Seattle area in February was about $165,000, up 31% from a year earlier, according to Redfin. And nearly a quarter of home purchases were all cash.

“The developers and dirt buyers are back out in full force,” said Shaeffer, with John L. Scott in Seattle. More affordable homes are drawing cash buyers, she said, who “are back out there kind of swooping in and pushing out the first-time homebuyers.”

7 Steps to Build Credit Fast

All right, now that you understand how credit works, let’s explore the nuts and bolts of building your credit score.

Step 1: Check Your Credit Report & Fix the Errors

The credit bureaus process billions of transactions every single day. You’re smoking crack if you think they don’t make mistakes all… the… time.

And look, it’s not their responsibility to ensure your credit report is accurate. It’s yours.

So, check your credit report for errors before you do anything else. Once a year, you can pull your credit report for free from AnnualCreditReport.com—it’s mandated by federal law.

While it’s free once a year, it’s not a complete credit report. It doesn’t include your credit score and isn’t particularly user-friendly. And once a year isn’t enough if you’re looking to build good credit.

Fortunately, you can run your own credit report (and other background checks) using the tenant screening feature in our landlord app. Depending on whether you’re using a free or premium account, the report costs between $9 and $15 and includes your credit score and complete credit history.

What do you look for when you pull your credit report? Look first for accounts that aren’t yours or accounts that should be reported but aren’t.

Next, look for incorrect late payments. If you paid on time, but your payments are showing as late, you need to contact the credit bureaus to let them know.

Lastly, look for any negative public records (bankruptcies, liens, foreclosures, etc.) that aren’t yours.

Credit bureaus make mistakes, and you must fix them if you want to build your credit.

Step 2: Get a Credit Card If You Don’t Have One

Yes, many people abuse credit cards. In fact, the average household credit card debt is up to $6,295  as of the end of 2023. Ugly.

But to establish your credit history, you need to have some credit records reporting. As a first credit card, don’t expect to be approved for the ritziest cards with the best rewards. Your first priority is building credit, not rewards.

If you get turned down for a traditional credit card, you have two options:

1. Get a cosigner, such as a family member, to sign as a guarantor for your credit card or
2. Get a secured credit card.

Secured credit cards require a deposit from you as collateral against default. If you fail to pay them, they just take the collateral. Then, they ruin your credit by reporting your default to the credit bureaus.

Use your credit card sparingly. As a first credit card, just put one recurring monthly bill on it and set up recurring monthly payments to your card to cover it. That way, it’s all automated, and you don’t even need to remember to pay for it.

Later, you can get fancy, like using your credit cards to buy real estate or score free travel, but right now, you just want to establish a credit history to build credit fast.

Bonus Option: Become an Authorized Signer on Someone Else’s Card

One alternative to having someone else cosign your credit card is becoming an added signer on someone else’s credit card. The credit bureaus report the card balance and payments on your credit history, too.

Just make sure the person is responsible about paying their card on time every month, and don’t use them unless you have their express permission. Building your credit isn’t worth ruining relationships over!

Step 3: Get a Credit Builder Loan

One credit card isn’t cut it when you’re looking to build credit quickly. Remember, part of your credit score calculation is based on your mix of credit accounts.

So, open a credit builder loan as another type of credit account. “Loan” is a misleading term, as you’re the one who’s lending the money. It works like this: you agree to make a series of payments over a certain period, say $40 monthly for 18 months. The “lender” reports your payments as on time throughout the loan, and you get your money back at the end of the loan term.

Well, most of it, anyway. They keep a little for the trouble of reporting your payments to the credit bureau. There is no such thing as a free lunch, after all!

But as you look for how to build credit fast, credit builder loans offer another tool in your kit.

Step 4: Diversify Your Credit Types (To A Degree)

Diversifying your credit accounts can be a good way to increase your credit score. The reason is self-explanatory—if you can juggle multiple credit lines simultaneously without dropping any of them, you demonstrate the type of financial responsibility lenders want to see.

Here are some of the different credit types you can try:

However, you shouldn’t go gung-ho with your applications. You need to space them out in a reasonable time frame (which we’ll discuss later.)

Step 5: Ask for a Credit Line Increase

Remember how the credit bureaus look at the ratio of credit used to credit available?

For rotating lines of credit (like credit cards), you can improve this ratio simply by getting a higher credit limit. If you routinely put $1,000 on your credit card every month, but your credit limit is only $2,000, then you’re using 50% of your monthly limit. Bump the credit limit to $5,000; suddenly, you only use 20% of your monthly credit.

As you build your credit history, creditors will be more willing to raise your credit limits.

Step 6: Have Your Rent Payments Reported to the Credit Bureaus

If you’re a renter, one way to build credit fast is by reporting your rent payments to the credit bureaus.

Of course, you don’t have complete control over this. You’ll need to ask your landlord to collect rent using a service that reports your payments. But it helps them, too, since it serves as an additional incentive for on-time rent payments.

We’re preparing to add this feature to our online rent collection service – hint hint!

Step 7: Consider Credit Repair Services

While not everyone needs credit repair services, they can be an effective tool for improving your credit faster.

They’ll handle credit reporting errors and disputes for you and show you exactly what to do to boost your individual credit score. In some cases, they can even negotiate on your behalf with creditors.

If you’d rather get some assistance than go it alone, check out Credit America, a great example of a credit repair service.

Credit repair services work by reviewing your credit history with a fine-tooth comb and identifying discrepancies and inaccuracies, including unfair and unverifiable claims. The timeline for results can vary from thirty days for simple issues to longer for more complex ones.  

Sidenote: Any credit repair service that claims they can fix your credit score immediately is not to be trusted.

Pfizer’s closure of a Seagen plant in Everett will cost 119 workers their jobs in June, according to a notice released Wednesday by the state Employment Security Department.

The long-anticipated Seagen pharmaceutical manufacturing plant was nearing completion until Pfizer, the pharma giant that recently acquired Bothell-based Seagen, announced in March it would halt construction.

The 119 impacted employees were working on the setup of the site, according to Pfizer, which paid $43 billion to acquire Seagen in December. The oncology medicines Seagen intended to produce at the new plant will be manufactured in Pfizer’s North Carolina plant, “which will have increased capacity with ongoing expansion of the facility,” the biotech giant said in a statement.

“The expanded (North Carolina) site will have the technological capability and available capacity for the manufacturing of these essential products,” New York-based Pfizer said in a statement in March.

Laid-off employees can be placed at Seagen’s Bothell site or apply to roles within Pfizer, the company said.

Seagen, formerly known as Seattle Genetics, first announced the new 270,000-square-foot facility in April 2022. According to regulatory filings that year, the company expected to spend $350 million to $400 million building the facility. 

At the time of the announcement, Seagen said it expected to employ up to 200 highly skilled workers to produce cancer medicine for clinical trials and for the commercial market.

Seagen specializes in cancer treatments. The acquisition enhances Pfizer’s presence in the oncology market and contribute to its financial goals, Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, said in a statement in December.

Pfizer said it is considering selling the property.

Here is a list of my favorite Psychological pricing techniques you can implement TODAY.

Price Anchoring

Price anchoring refers to the practice of establishing a reference point (the “anchor”) for a product’s price, which consumers then use to assess the value of other options.

It’s effective because consumers tend to rely heavily on the first piece of information offered when making decisions. E.G., a higher price.

This strategy works when showcasing pricing OR when on a sales call.

Charm Pricing

Charm pricing involves ending the price with .99 or .95 rather than a round number.

In their minds, consumers round .99 down to the nearest dollar amount.

That means they perceive a product priced at $4.99 to be closer to $4 than $5, making it seem like a bargain.

Decoy Pricing

Decoy pricing is a strategy where a company presents an option that is not meant to be chosen but serves to highlight the attractiveness of other choices.

The decoy price makes the target product appear more valuable, encouraging consumers to choose it over competing products.

Haven’t you ever been in a store and thought “Duh, it’s obvious which to choose”?

That might have been decoy pricing!

Artificial Time Constraints

Artificial time constraints involve creating a sense of urgency to prompt immediate purchase decisions.

Examples include limited-time offers or flash sales.

This strategy capitalizes on consumers’ fear of missing out, encouraging quicker buying decisions.

Price Slashing

Price slashing involves a significant reduction in the original price.

By showing both the original and the reduced price, businesses can highlight the value a customer is getting, increasing perceived value and encouraging purchases.

This strategy is interesting because the showcased price IS typically the price.

Price Appearance

The way a price appears can also influence purchasing decisions.

For instance, a price presented in a smaller font size or without a dollar sign can seem less daunting to consumers, subtly encouraging sales.

Or by removing the .00 from the end of a price, it can be perceived as less (because it’s got fewer numbers).

Innumeracy Pricing

Innumeracy pricing takes advantage of consumers’ struggle with processing numerical information.

For instance, “buy one get one free” deals may seem more attractive than simply 50% off, even though the value offered is the exact same.

Heard that you can score a great deal when you buy a foreclosure home for real estate investments?

Buying foreclosed homes soared in popularity during the Great Recession as a wave of foreclosures hit the market and drove down prices nationwide. While foreclosure rates since then have fallen—270,222 in 2023, a steep drop from 2019’s numbers—there are always people who default on their mortgages.

And for real estate investors and homebuyers alike, distressed properties spell opportunity.

But learning how to buy foreclosure properties isn’t as simple as TV shows make it out to be. To begin with, you have to understand the foreclosure process — and how the strategies for buying foreclosures differ at each phase.

Home Foreclosure Process

When a borrower defaults on their monthly mortgage payment, it triggers a lengthy legal process:

How to Buy a Foreclosure Home

The strategy and steps to buy a foreclosed home depend on the stage of the foreclosure process when you choose to buy.

Buying Short Sales

In the early stages of mortgage default, homeowners — and their lenders — have more flexibility. If the property is upside-down, the lender may agree to a short sale: a loan payoff lower than the balance owed.

But lenders are fickle, bureaucratic beasts, and you can expect extra red tape in the short sale process. It’s also hard to find good deals on properties offered on short sales, as lenders are loath to discount the loan payoff below the property’s market value.

Some investors find a way to make it work, but most opt to target pre-foreclosure homes instead.

Buying a Pre-Foreclosure Home

Once the lender hires an attorney and files for foreclosure in court, there’s no more Mr. Nice Guy. The borrower has had at least four months to bring their loan current, agree to a payment plan, or sell the home, and they haven’t done any of those.

Now the homeowner is under the proverbial gun, with an auction date looming. They need to sell now or lose their home at auction.

That urgency can make for motivated sellers. But it also puts you on a tight timeline to secure financing and settle.

When I first started investing in real estate, I bought pre-foreclosure homes. I found that the overwhelming majority of distressed homeowners didn’t want to sell — they wanted to stay in their homes.

You can offer to buy their home and lease it back to them, as one way to get their attention. You then enter an installment contract for them to rent the property from you and buy it back.

If you really want to get creative, keep their mortgage in place and use a wrap-around mortgage to finance your portion. That works especially well if they have a low-interest mortgage in place.

As for where to find pre-foreclosure homes, you can always go to the courthouse to look up foreclosure filings directly, but that’s a lot of work. Alternatively, just use an off-market distressed property platform like Propstream or Foreclosure.com.

Buying at Foreclosure Auctions

Anyone can show up and bid at a public foreclosure auction. You just need to provide proof of funds for the down payment — often a bank check made out to yourself, which you can later cancel.

The problem, however, is that you can’t see the inside of the property. The bank doesn’t own it at that point; it still belongs to the defaulting property owner. So you have no idea what kind of condition the property is in. It could look perfect on the outside and be a shell on the inside.

Or it could be pristine. You just don’t know.

Unless,  of course, you do. If you have previously gained access to the property, for example by meeting with the homeowner there to discuss options for selling, then you have insider information.

Remember, the lender typically sets the opening bid at the total amount owed on the loan. At this point, that includes massive late fees and legal fees. Only bother bidding at foreclosure auctions where the property still has plenty of equity.

Buying Bank-Owned REO Properties

If no one buys the property at public auction, the lender buys the property themselves.

After jumping through the legal hoops to take ownership of the deed, and possibly evicting the former homeowners if they refused to leave, the bank then hires a Realtor and decides whether to sell the property as-is or do some repairs first. Then it goes on the market, listed on the multiple listing service (MLS).

At this point, anyone can walk through the property and make offers. If the property needs significant repairs, you’ll get the “Needs TLC” price, but that’s still the market price for the property. You’re bidding against every other Tom, Dick, and Harry out there.

Unless, of course, you can get a first glimpse of these bank-owned properties. While huge corporate banks follow procedures to the letter, local and regional banks are more accessible. There’s probably one person in charge of REO properties at these banks, and if you can establish a relationship with that person, you can sometimes get first access to their REO list before they go through the hassle of hiring a real estate agent.

It makes sense for the bank, too. They get to sell the property faster, without having to pay a realtor’s commission on foreclosure listings.

Read more about how to buy REO properties if you like this strategy.

Buying Government-Owned Foreclosure Properties

What happens when homeowners default on government-backed loans, such as FHA loans and VA loans?

If no one buys them at auction, the government takes them back instead of the lender.

Expect some extra steps and red tape, of course; but in exchange, you can sometimes score a great deal on government-owned foreclosed properties. You can view the list of government REOs on the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website.

Julian Phethean’s first canvas in London was a shed in his backyard where he covered the walls with bold lettering in spray paint. When he moved his art to the city’s streets in the 1980s, it was largely unwelcome — and he was even arrested a few times.

“We had nowhere to practice,” he said. “It was just seen as vandalism.”

These days, the canvases come to Phethean, better known as muralist Mr Cenz. Recent facades, which he shares with his sizable following, have included an abstract mural on a Tesla showroom and a portrait of Biggie Smalls, sponsored by Pepsi Max.

“I never would have envisioned that I’d be able to do it for a living,” he said.

Landlords wanting to attract young professionals once scrubbed off the rebellious scrawls. That was before graffiti moved from countercultural to mainstream. Now building owners are willing to pay for it.

From Berlin to London to Miami, the wider acceptance of graffiti has attracted developers looking to expand into trendy areas, companies wanting to relocate to hipper neighborhoods and brands seeking creative ways to advertise their products.

But that attention to once overlooked neighborhoods has pushed up rents, leaving artists, fans and local officials with a quandary: What happens after the street art that brought character becomes commodified?

Contemporary graffiti traces back to the anti-establishment expression of the 1960s and 1970s, when anyone with a can of spray paint could tag the sidewalks of Philadelphia and the subway cars of New York. In Soviet-era Berlin, protesters splattered the west side of the wall while the east side remained blank — until it fell in 1989, opening vast new canvases overnight.

The gallery world took note, but it was social media and the fame of artists like Banksy, Vhils and Lady Pink that propelled it to a wider audience. What followed was a movement that experts say has been reproduced from Australia to Argentina, as street art added to a neighborhood’s cultural cachet.

Take Shoreditch in east London as an example: Decades ago, developers deemed it a rundown industrial area. Still, it was a sanctuary for artists who made use of cheap rents to build a creative enclave.

“What artists bring is a sense of buzz: newness, creativity, trends,” said Rosie Haslem, managing director of Streetsense UK, a consulting agency. “Hipsters attract more hipsters who have more money and are able to start paying higher prices.”

That buzz also drew developers and companies that sought to leverage the popularity of Shoreditch. A former tea-packing plant now hosts a branch of the private members’ club Soho House. Down the road is Amazon’s largest corporate office in the region.

Spray painters still add political messages to the mosaic of artwork in east London. But they are nestled between more commercial interests: hand-painted campaigns sponsored by L’Oréal, Sky and Adidas, and street tours that treat the art as a tourist attraction.

Many campaigns are from agencies that act as middlemen between artists and the businesses interested in their work.

“We were splashing around in the water and a wave came,” said Lee Bofkin, a co-founder of Global Street Art, a London advertising agency. In the decade since its inception, it has grown to more than 30 employees, and Adidas, Moncler and Valentino have leased its walls.

Developers are responsible for a chunk of the 300 or so murals splattering Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. The windowless walls of the former garment district had long appealed to graffiti artists, but one developer helped drive the 2009 opening of the Wynwood Walls, an open-air gallery visited by 3 million people each year.

“We had to find a carrot to try to bring investment into the area,” said Manny Gonzalez, the executive director of the Wynwood Business Improvement District. Street art, he said, was the lure. “We knew that we needed to keep the art.”

Five years ago, there were no office buildings in Wynwood. Now, tenants include Spotify, accounting firm PwC and the venture capitalist Founders Fund. Sony Music has leased office space there. And tech companies from San Francisco and New York are coming, Gonzalez said.

Those employees will need somewhere to live, and developers are betting they stay local. At the forefront is the Related Group, a developer that has built a “market rate” co-living apartment building with a rooftop pool and a distinctive mural by artist El Mac. Last year, Related broke ground on luxury condominiums, and it commissions artists to add visual flair to its buildings.

“Every lobby, every hallway, common space, public area of the building has art in it,” said Patricia Hanna, art director at Related. “The philosophy is to continue what Wynwood is.”

For investors, backing buildings in these districts is paying off. In Shoreditch, leasing a prime workspace cost about $90 per square foot in the last quarter of 2023, according to CBRE, 112% higher than the same quarter in 2008. Rents in the City of London financial district increased 40% in the same period.

The asking price for office leases in Wynwood was about $80 per square foot in the fourth quarter of 2023, 83% higher than the average in Miami-Dade County, according to Colliers.

The east side of the Berlin Wall in Friedrichshain is now an open-air gallery, and the average rent in the area has doubled in the past 10 years, higher growth than in neighboring districts, according to Savills.

Developers have tried to bring that artistic buzz to other neighborhoods: One popular exhibit, The Haus, was hosted in a former bank by a developer, Pandion, which later replaced the old building with sleek condominiums. All of them have sold.

A large outdoor facade could cost six figures, said Charlotte Specht, a co-founder of Basa Studio, an agency in Berlin that has helped street artists collaborate with brands like Maybelline and Netflix. Brands eager for campaigns have a demographic in mind for their target customers: “They use Uber, they have an Apple Mac, they get their latte to go, they travel,” Specht said.

Street art had acted as “a powerful engine” to turn some neighborhoods into economic and cultural centers, said Thomas Zabel, managing director of Savills Germany. “Everybody wants to live there.”

But officials are wondering how to regulate street art, and whether the commercialization changes a neighborhood’s identity.

In Lisbon, Portugal, a municipal body called the Urban Art Gallery presides over new creations, resulting in a visual feast: Street art is splashed on walkways and train stations, and officials have pushed street art festivals and tours to beautify the city’s rougher neighborhoods. International students, digital nomads and foreign investors have rushed in.

Researchers say Lisbon has successfully used that art to brand itself as a hip destination. But its revival is divisive for the city’s less privileged, who argue that they have been pushed out of their homes.

In Wynwood, property owners promise that they intend to preserve the neighborhood’s artistic heritage. New buildings must include some art on their facades, and hand-painted advertisements are illegal.

But those regulations, some say, have led to diminishing organic spaces for artists, who cannot make the most of sponsored opportunities. “The developers become gatekeepers to some extent as to what the public gets to see,” said Allison Freidin, a co-founder of Miami’s Museum of Graffiti. “And you hope that the developers make a great decision.”

A harder-to-quantify cost is the displacement of residents who can no longer afford to live there.

“It’s really seen as a success story: Oh, look how art transformed this desolate area of a wasteland into this beautiful successful hipster area with restaurants and tourists,” said Rafael Schacter, an anthropologist at University College London. The art, he believes, has been complicit in erasing communities for not being “the right kind of people.”

Residents have pushed back. In Kreuzberg, a cultural haven near Berlin’s old wall, residents criticized the opening of a Google tech incubator, which eventually moved elsewhere. Artists there have painted over their own murals to protest gentrification and voiced concerns over sponsored content’s replacing public art. In Los Angeles, graffiti artists risked trespassing charges to slather an abandoned luxury tower, which, in turn, has boosted curiosity toward it.

Aware of the tensions, businesses have started charitable arms that their commercial projects help fund. Some, including London’s Global Street Art, paint murals in local neighborhoods. Others, such as Basa Studio, say they want to help artists get paid fairly for their contributions.

But places like Shoreditch have already lost their edge as they have turned mainstream, said Haslem of Streetsense, the consulting agency. “The risk in commodifying or commercializing some of this graffiti is you end up sanitizing it,” she said.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Dean Stockton, who has painted for years under the name D*Face. He was disconcerted by the number of tourists on buses who stared as he worked on a recent Wynwood mural with the words “I WANT TO LEAVE.”

“If you are going to dance with the devil,” he said, “make sure you are getting paid handsomely.”