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Today — 29 October 2026Main stream

Zillow agrees to pay $212.5M to settle investor lawsuit over failed home-flipping business

28 October 2026 at 21:40
A blue Zillow Homes for-sale sign in front of a house on a residential street.
A for-sale sign on a home sold through Zillow Offers, the company’s home-flipping business, which Zillow shut down in 2021. The company has agreed to pay $212.5 million to settle an investor lawsuit over its statements about the business. (Zillow Photo)

Zillow will pay $212.5 million to settle a shareholder class action lawsuit over its handling of Zillow Offers, the home-flipping business it shut down in 2021.

The lawsuit alleged that Zillow executives painted an overly positive picture of Zillow Offers in the months before the shutdown, without disclosing how poorly the company was able to predict home prices. That kept the stock artificially high until Zillow revealed the problems and announced the shutdown in November 2021, according to the complaint.

The Seattle-based company disclosed the settlement Wednesday in an SEC filing. About $48 million of the payment is expected to come from insurance. The deal requires court approval and includes no admission of wrongdoing.

In a statement, a Zillow spokesperson said, “We are pleased that the parties have reached a resolution on the matter.”

The settlement comes about three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Zillow’s challenge to the case’s class status. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups backed Zillow’s petition.

Steve Berman, managing partner of Seattle law firm Hagens Berman, the court-appointed class counsel, told Real Estate News he believes it’s the largest single securities settlement in the history of the Western District of Washington, the federal court district that includes Seattle.

Separate shareholder lawsuits filed on the company’s behalf against its leaders, known as derivative suits, remain pending, according to the filing.

Zillow bet its future on buying and selling homes in 2019, when co-founder Rich Barton returned as CEO and projected the business would reach $20 billion in annual revenue within three to five years. The company used its pricing algorithms to buy houses, fix them up and resell them.

The effort unraveled in the fall of 2021. An analyst report found that two-thirds of 650 homes it sampled from Zillow’s inventory were listed for less than the company paid.

Days later, Zillow shut down the business, cut about 2,000 jobs and took a $304 million inventory writedown, with Barton citing the unpredictability of its home-price forecasts. Zillow’s stock fell 32% over two days, according to Reuters.

The original lawsuit, filed that month in federal court in Seattle, cited upbeat statements executives made in the months before the shutdown.

They included a September 2021 remark by Jeremy Wacksman, then Zillow’s chief operating officer and now its CEO, that “the strength and the appeal for Zillow Offers just continues to grow.” Investor Jeremy Jaeger later became the lead plaintiff.

The class covers investors who bought Zillow Class A or Class C shares between Aug. 5 and Nov. 2, 2021. If the judge grants preliminary approval, Zillow will pay the money into a settlement fund within 20 business days.

Yesterday — 28 October 2026Main stream

Blue Origin leases former Bartell Drugs warehouse south of Seattle for new manufacturing site

28 October 2026 at 11:25
The Prologis Park SeaTac 3 industrial building in Des Moines, Wash. (Prologis Photo)

Blue Origin is taking over an industrial building in Des Moines, Wash., where the Jeff Bezos-founded space company plans a mix of lab, development and light production work, the company confirmed to GeekWire.

The 265,922-square-foot facility, known as Prologis Park SeaTac 3, was previously a Bartell Drugs distribution center just south of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Blue Origin said that at full capacity over the long term, the site is expected to support hundreds of employees.

KING 5 first reported the news Tuesday, citing a state environmental application filed in September that lists Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC at the building’s address, 21202 24th Ave. S. A pre-application under review by the city indicates the property could be used for research and development of commercial satellites, the station reported.

Commercial real estate firm Newmark announced a lease for the entire building last week without naming the tenant.

“The manufacturing project that will be using this property is cutting-edge and we are excited about the job growth and possibilities that it represents for our region,” Newmark Executive Vice Chairman Thad Mallory said in a news release.

With roughly 33,000 residents, the small city of Des Moines is becoming something of an aerospace hub.

Blue Origin’s new location is around the corner from where Shield AI is building X-Forge 3, a 420,000-square-foot facility that will make the company’s X-BAT autonomous fighter jet. Shield AI said last month it expects to have 4,000 workers in the region by the early 2030s, and that it’s looking for another 1 million square feet.

“It’s all about labor and access to power,” Mallory told KING 5, referring to the advanced manufacturing projects coming to the area.

Blue Origin is headquartered in nearby Kent, Wash., about 5 miles from the Des Moines site.

The company is working to get its New Glenn rocket flying again after one exploded during a ground engine test in May, which damaged its Florida launch pad. New Glenn is slated to carry Blue’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lander on NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, a test in Earth orbit planned for mid-2027 ahead of a crewed moon landing targeted for 2028.

Before yesterdayMain stream

Leon Wankum: The Insane Math Behind Bitcoin Demonetizing Real Estate

26 October 2026 at 09:37

Bitcoin Magazine

Leon Wankum: The Insane Math Behind Bitcoin Demonetizing Real Estate

Real estate is the largest asset class in the world at $300–500 trillion, and Leon Wankum says Bitcoin won’t just overtake it, it will outgrow it. The real estate operator and author of Digital Real Estate joins Spencer Nichols on the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast to explain why real estate only became money after 1971, why 80–90% of its value is monetary premium rather than utility, and why that premium is migrating to Bitcoin the way information migrated to the internet. He lays out his $1,000 trillion base case, a price path to $1 million by the late 2030s, and why it’s now financially smarter to rent and buy Bitcoin.

🔶 Host: Spencer Nichols — Bitcoin Magazine
🔶 Leon Wankum — Author of Digital Real Estate

📖 Get your copy of Digital Real Estate here: https://store.bitcoinmagazine.com/collections/books/products/digital-real-estate

Chapters:
0:00 Why $1,000 Trillion Is the Base Case for Bitcoin
1:44 From Rome to Nixon: How Real Estate Became Money After 1971
3:53 Leverage, Cash Flow and Why Most Real Estate Deals Don’t Work Right Now
6:24 Real Estate Is a $300–500 Trillion Market and Bitcoin Will Outgrow It
9:11 Collateral Doesn’t Need Cash Flow: Bitcoin’s 50% CAGR vs. Real Estate’s 4–6%
12:22 Why Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycles and Volatility Are a Feature for Collateral
15:46 Rent and Buy Bitcoin: How the Monetary Premium Migrates Out of Real Estate
20:30 The Digital Real Estate Playbook: Sell, Accumulate, Refinance, Dual Collateral
25:34 Bitcoin Treasury Preferreds at 15% vs. Rental Property and the Future of Interest Rates
30:33 Bitcoin to $1 Million by the Late 2030s

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Leon Wankum: The Insane Math Behind Bitcoin Demonetizing Real Estate first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mark Mason.

Fast-growing AI startup Nscale doubles Bellevue office footprint to 46K square feet

By: John Cook
8 October 2026 at 12:02

AI infrastructure startup Nscale is doubling down on its new Seattle-area presence before even opening the doors.

After initially leasing a single floor at The Eight tower in downtown Bellevue earlier this year, the London-based company has expanded by an additional floor, bringing its total footprint in the new development to approximately 46,000 rentable square feet, according to a report from The Broderick Group.

The expansion signals an aggressive ramp-up for Nscale’s primary U.S. engineering hub, slated to open in January 2027. While the initial 24,000-square-foot lease was pegged to accommodate up to 250 employees, the added space gives the fast-growing cloud provider room to scale its local team even further beyond its current 50 Seattle-area workers.

Founded in 2024, Nscale is riding a massive wave of capital and growth.

It raised a $2 billion Series C round at a $14.6 billion valuation earlier this year, backed by Nvidia, Dell, Citadel, Jane Street, and Point72, alongside a $900 million credit line.

The company also earlier this year hired Nidhi Chappell, the former Microsoft corporate vice president who led Azure AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, including the supercomputers that power ChatGPT. As Nscale’s new president of AI infrastructure, based in the Seattle area, Chappell will oversee the company’s global engineering and data center operations.

“I’ve had a front-row seat to some of the biggest moments in AI over the past several years, but one thing has always stood out: the world remembers the breakthroughs, but it’s the people building the infrastructure behind the scenes who make them possible,” Chappell wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier this year announcing the company’s first “onboarding” event in Seattle.

Nscale’s new office is set to open in January, with the second floor slated to open in June, reports The Puget Sound Business Journal.

The company’s growth underscores Bellevue’s growing magnetism for out-of-town AI players. The company joins a dense ecosystem of AI infrastructure and application hubs establishing outposts on the Eastside, including xAI, OpenAI, Databricks, CoreWeave, Armada, and Anduril.

Housingwire’s Logan Mohtashami: Real Estate vs Bitcoin & Bond Market Outlook

6 October 2026 at 17:28

Bitcoin Magazine

Housingwire’s Logan Mohtashami: Real Estate vs Bitcoin & Bond Market Outlook

Mortgage rates just hit their highest level in nearly three years, and homebuyers are already pulling back. HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami explains why the 10-year Treasury yield keeps climbing since talks with Iran broke down, and why the Federal Reserve has turned hawkish. He also explains how mortgage spreads are keeping 30-year rates from climbing above 8%.

Chapters:
00:00 30-Year Mortgage Rates Hit 7.28%, Highest in Nearly Three Years
00:52 Iran Talks, the Fed, and Why the 10-Year Yield Keeps Rising
01:58 Mortgage Spreads Explained: Why Rates Aren’t Above 8.6%
03:28 What It Would Take to Get Meaningful Home Price Cuts
04:43 Homebuilders, Profit Margins, and Mortgage Rate Buydowns
06:17 Why Today’s Housing Market Isn’t 2008
08:13 Bitcoin vs. Real Estate: Competing for Monetary Premium?
09:52 Borrowing Against Bitcoin for a Home Down Payment
10:52 Grant Cardone’s Bitcoin and Real Estate Model
13:15 2027 Outlook for Mortgage Rates, Home Prices, and Affordability

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Housingwire’s Logan Mohtashami: Real Estate vs Bitcoin & Bond Market Outlook first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Leon Wankum: BTC Taking on Real Estate’s $300T Monetary Premium

6 October 2026 at 17:21

Bitcoin Magazine

Leon Wankum: BTC Taking on Real Estate’s $300T Monetary Premium

For generations, property has been the default place to store wealth, but Leon Wankum says that run is over. The author of Digital Real Estate, published by Bitcoin Magazine Books, explains how fiat debasement since 1971 inflated a monetary premium in real estate. He argues Bitcoin, as absolutely scarce money, is now pulling that premium away. He also explains why both residential and commercial real estate will feel the shift.

“Digital Real Estate is required reading for anyone who owns property and hasn’t yet considered how Bitcoin is set to disrupt the real estate market.” 🏡

Buy Leon Wankum’s ‘Digital Real Estate’ now in the Bitcoin Magazine bookstore 📙👇
https://store.bitcoinmagazine.com/collections/books/products/digital-real-estate

Chapters:
00:00 Leon Wankum’s “Digital Real Estate” Thesis
00:35 Why Real Estate’s Run Since 1971 Is Over
01:39 The Monetary Premium in Residential and Commercial Real Estate
03:58 Saving in Bitcoin vs. Spending It on a Home
05:57 Bitcoin as Collateral: Borrowing vs. Renting and Stacking
08:19 Why the Housing Crisis Is a Crisis of Ownership
09:56 Pricing Real Estate in Bitcoin
10:57 Homeowners, Banks, and Bitcoin-Backed Mortgages
14:14 Bitcoin Mining and Treasury Strategies for Real Estate Developers
16:04 Why Grant Cardone’s Bitcoin Real Estate Funds Could Lead

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Leon Wankum: BTC Taking on Real Estate’s $300T Monetary Premium first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

The Real Estate Market Is Dead in Spain. Long Live Bitcoin.

6 October 2026 at 16:13

Bitcoin Magazine

The Real Estate Market Is Dead in Spain. Long Live Bitcoin.

Spain has just shown every property owner in Europe that the rules around their asset can be rewritten by decree. Bitcoin is the one asset where that cannot happen.

I direct the Masters in Bitcoin at the Universidad de las Hespérides. My field focuses on how people build wealth over decades, not weeks. In Spain, for generations, the answer to long-term family wealth was land and property until now. 

Last week the government made that path close to impossible. I am not writing to dismiss real estate. I am writing because Spain has just threatened one of the few long-term wealth-building tools ordinary families had, and they will need another one.

Two decrees, one message

On 29 September, the Spanish government approved two emergency decrees on housing. They took effect within days, and a planned hearing in Congress was on Friday, October 2, and the decree didn’t pass, though it was a very close vote. 

Spain’s government did not pass these rules as a normal law. On 29 September, it approved two emergency decrees (reales decretos-ley). The Constitution reserves this tool for cases of “extraordinary and urgent need”. A decree-law takes effect immediately, and Congress then has thirty days to validate or repeal it. The government split the reforms into two so each could be voted on separately, rather than one controversial measure sinking everything.

The first decree capped rent rises until the end of 2027. A rent already above the maximum set by the official reference-price index could not rise at all. In every other case, the parties could agree to an update, and without a new agreement, the increase could not exceed 2%. Spain’s inflation in September was 4.9%, according to the national statistics institute, so an owner’s real income would shrink every year by law.

The second decree went further. At the end of the minimum term, if neither side has given notice, the lease renews compulsorily in successive five-year periods, or seven if the landlord is a legal entity. A landlord who ends a contract without a reason listed in the law must compensate the tenant. The payment is calculated, where possible, on the state rent-reference system, and can never be less than one month’s rent for each year the tenant has lived in the home. In practice, owners lose much of their freedom to recover their own property or re-let it at current prices.

The rules also apply to contracts that are already signed, from their next renewal date (Provivienda summary). This is why many consider the decrees unconstitutional. Critics argue that they retroactively rewrite private agreements that both sides signed under different rules, which Article 9.3 of the Constitution bars for measures restricting individual rights.

Congress never settled that question. On 2 October it rejected the first decree by 178 votes to 172 and the second by 184 to 166. Sánchez then called general elections for 29 November.

On Tuesday the Council of Ministers approved both decrees again, introducing only technical changes, and sent them to the Diputación Permanente of Congress, where Junts’s vote is not needed. This is the reduced body that replaces the full chamber once Congress is dissolved. Sánchez said the second decree, on automatic renewals, would only take effect if that body validates it, rather than on publication in the BOE. Jurists consulted by one newspaper consider the move borderline abuse of law.

Investors can live with strict rules. What they cannot price is a rule that changes after they have committed. That last point is the one every property owner in Europe should read twice.

The market answered in hours

The owners did not wait for the vote. A Spanish TV programme reported that around 2,900 rental listings were pulled from property portals in roughly four hours (EDATV). In Madrid, listings reportedly fell about 20% in under 24 hours, from 11,815 to 9,398 (LaBandera). These are early, unaudited counts. The direction is still clear.

None of this is new. We have run this experiment many times, and it keeps giving the same result.

  • Berlin, 2020: the city froze rents for five years. Studies at the time found the supply of regulated flats roughly halved, while unregulated rents rose. The constitutional court struck the law down in 2021.
  • San Francisco, 1994: a Stanford study by Diamond, McQuade and Qian found that expanded rent control helped sitting tenants stay, but landlords cut regulated supply by about 15% and citywide rents rose by about 5%.
  • Catalonia, 2024: rent caps in stressed zones slowed price growth, but rental listings fell 22.2% in Barcelona, while they rose 3.9% in Madrid (Fedea, via idealista).
  • Spain itself, 1946 to 1985: forced, near-permanent lease extensions froze old rents for decades. Owners stopped maintaining buildings and city centres decayed, until the 1985 Boyer decree ended the system.

The new automatic-renewal decree is, in its logic, a return to that old Spanish model.

The real problem is not landlords

Spain does not have a landlord problem. It has a housing shortage. In 2025, around 240,000 new households formed while only about 92,000 homes were completed. The Bank of Spain puts the accumulated deficit for 2021 to 2025 at roughly 750,000 homes (Cantabria Económica).

The same report names the obstacles: scarce buildable land, slow urban development, and rigid planning. Economists such as my colleague Daniel Fernández Méndez argue that restrictive land rules and ever-stricter building standards have made construction unprofitable, even at today’s prices (Hespérides).

So the state restricts what can be built, then caps what can be earned from what already exists. Supply shrinks from both ends.

The people who pay are not established owners. They have options: they can sell, wait, or leave a flat empty rather than risk a tenant who never leaves. Renters pay. With fewer flats on offer, the rent on the ones that remain will rise, and more people will end up in informal arrangements with no contract and no protection, on the edge of the grey economy.

Buying is no way out either. Spaniards cannot afford to buy for the same reason they cannot afford to rent: there are too few homes, and these decrees do nothing to change that. Some landlords will be pushed to sell, but that will barely move prices. Sales adjust far more slowly than rentals. An owner whose mortgage is larger than what the flat would fetch cannot sell at all. Many others will simply wait and hope for a change of government, leaving their apartments empty. The result is that more people will be unable to rent or buy. Tenants lose, small investors lose, and the housing shortage stays exactly where it was.

An asset no decree can rewrite

The biggest risk in real estate is not the market. It is that the rules around your asset can be changed by a government at any time, and you cannot move the asset somewhere else. A building sits in one jurisdiction forever.

Bitcoin is the opposite on every one of those points.

  • Fixed rules: the supply is capped at 21 million, and that rule has not changed in seventeen years. Arguably all Bitcoin infrastructure is built precisely to avoid that from happening. No minister can cap its yield, freeze it, or extend someone else’s claim on it.
  • Real ownership: held in your own wallet, it has no tenant who can stop paying, no squatter who can move in, and no court that has to approve its sale.
  • Portable: it does not sit in any one country. If the rules where you live turn hostile, your savings do not have to stay there.
  • Open to small savers: buying property takes a deposit, a mortgage, a notary and years of commitment. Bitcoin can be bought a few euros at a time, on a regular schedule, by anyone.

For most Spanish families, property is almost all of their wealth. This week showed how much of that wealth depends on politics.

The long-term picture shows both the reward and the price of it. Bought just after the 2017 peak, a bitcoin stake lost almost three-quarters of its value within a year, then outgrew Spanish housing several times over.

Past performance does not predict future returns. Bitcoin is highly volatile, and its value can fall sharply. The housing line shows price change only and excludes rental income, taxes, maintenance, and purchase costs. This is not investment advice.

Long Live Bitcoin

Families will always need a place to live, so they will keep buying or renting homes. What has changed is the second flat, property as an investment. For a small investor, the risk now outweighs the return, and that removes one of the few ways ordinary Spaniards had to build wealth over a lifetime.

Bitcoin can fill that gap, if it is treated the way property always was: as a long-term holding, not a lottery ticket. Its price is volatile and can fall sharply in the short term. Anyone who holds it should think in years, buy regularly instead of trying to time the market, and never put in money they will need next year.

Property gives you an asset whose rules can be rewritten. Bitcoin gives you price swings but rules that stay put. After this week, many more Spaniards will be asking which of those risks they would rather carry with their savings.

Whatever Congress decides, Spain’s property owners have learned that their contracts can be changed after they sign them. That lesson will not be voted away. The rental market as Spain knew it is gone. Long live bitcoin.

This post The Real Estate Market Is Dead in Spain. Long Live Bitcoin. first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Kristyna Mazankova.

Superhuman opens new Seattle office, joining wave of AI companies expanding in the region

6 October 2026 at 13:37
A rendering of the reception area at Superhuman’s new Seattle office in South Lake Union. (Superhuman Image)

Superhuman, the San Francisco company formerly known as Grammarly, opened a 13,501-square-foot office in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood on Tuesday, moving out of a coworking space and giving itself room to hire.

The office, at 1000 Dexter Ave. N., is opening with 50 workstations and can hold up to 80, a Superhuman representative told GeekWire via email.

Superhuman plans to keep hiring in Seattle for data engineering, data governance and data science roles. Its careers page lists 12 open positions that can be based in Seattle, including software engineering, site reliability and product management jobs.

The company joins a growing list of out-of-town AI companies expanding in the region in search of technical talent, including OpenAI in Bellevue and Anthropic in Seattle.

Grammarly acquired the Superhuman email app in July 2025 and renamed the whole company after it that October. Its CEO is Shishir Mehrotra, a former Microsoft and YouTube executive who co-founded the collaborative documents startup Coda.

The company’s suite of AI tools for work includes the Superhuman Go assistant, Mail, Docs and the Grammarly writing assistant. It has been expanding the lineup in part through acquisitions, announcing deals this year for AI detection startup GPTZero and meeting notetaker Fathom.

According to the company, the Seattle office is set up for hybrid work under a program called “Ways of Working,” which replaced a return-to-office mandate in January. U.S. employees choose two to five days a week in the office and get a quarterly wellness stipend ranging from $500 to as much as $2,000 depending on how often they come in, Entrepreneur reported.

We’ve asked the company for more information, including how many people it employs in Seattle and who leads the office.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Superhuman said that they have about 96 hub-based employees today in Seattle, with about 10 more roles planned this year in areas such as data engineering, data governance engineering and data science roles. The Seattle office is led by Hari Sivaramakrishnan, director of engineering at Superhuman. The company employs 1,700 globally.

“Seattle is one of the deepest tech-talent markets in the country and a key Pacific Northwest hub, making it a strategic presence for Superhuman as we continue to hire and build out our AI productivity suite,” the company said in a statement. The new office marks a long-term investment in the region, moving beyond a coworking arrangement into a dedicated home.”

Seattle’s tax burden shifted to business as jobs slipped away, new report finds

By: John Cook
5 October 2026 at 13:00
Taxes have outpaced population, employment and other other factors in Seattle (Image via ECOnorthwest)

Seattle’s tax collections have nearly tripled over the past decade, soaring from $900 million in 2013 to a projected $2.8 billion in 2026. But who pays those taxes, and how the tax revenue is collected, looks vastly different today than a decade ago.

A new report released by ECOnorthwest, commissioned jointly by the Downtown Seattle Association (DSA) and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, show city tax revenues far outstripping population and job growth, driven by targeted corporate taxes on a small pool of major employers.

Between 2013 and 2025, Seattle’s tax revenues jumped 172%, outpacing population growth (31%), job growth (23%), and local inflation (50%). During that period, real tax growth grew 5.6 times faster than population and 7.5 times faster than employment.

The findings come as city leaders, major tech employers and regional business groups grapple with shifting post-pandemic work patterns and a political climate that has frequently placed large technology companies like Amazon in its sights.

According to the report, broad-based core taxes, such as property, sales, utility, and general Business & Occupation (B&O) taxes, comprised 83% of city tax collections in 2013. By 2026, those core broad taxes are projected to drop to just 52% of the total revenue.

Replacing them are narrow, targeted tax levies:

  • The JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax (2021): Paid by fewer than 500 companies, with the top 10 taxpayers footing 73% of the total bill.
  • The Social Housing Tax (2025): Paid by roughly 220 entities, with its top 10 taxpayers covering 66%.

Combined, two taxes that did not exist five years ago now account for nearly a third of all business tax dollars collected by the city. Overlap among top taxpayers means fewer than 20 companies account for roughly $356 million in annual City of Seattle revenue.

“Seattle’s tax collections are growing far faster than its population, jobs or inflation. Employers are carrying more of that burden. That trajectory is not sustainable,” said Seattle Metro Chamber president & CEO Joe Nguyen. “The question cannot always be how to collect more money. It must be how to deliver better results with the money we already have and build a tax structure that helps our economy grow.”

The heavy pivot to business revenue coincides with divergent employment trends between Seattle and its neighboring Eastside hubs.

Between March 2020 and March 2025, Seattle lost approximately 24,000 jobs, while the remainder of King County added 21,000. The report notes that Seattle lost 18,000 jobs in the single year leading up to March 2025 alone. And that figure that does not yet capture the full impact of major remote work policies and tech layoffs announced across the region.

The report arrives on the heels of previous GeekWire coverage tracking regional tech dynamics, including the shift of high tech jobs from Seattle to Bellevue, as well as broader political shifts in how West Coast hubs are responding to tech sector backlash and the AI boom.

However, in a sign that Mayor Katie Wilson is paying close attention to tech-sector headwinds and shifting job patterns, she proposed a $9.1 billion 2027 budget that would erase a $175 million general fund deficit and cut nearly $50 million in spending while freezing JumpStart tax rates.

Seattle-based sales tech company Outreach to move HQ to Adobe’s campus in Fremont neighborhood

28 September 2026 at 13:49
701 N. 34th St. in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, where Outreach plans to move its HQ early next year. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Outreach confirmed plans to move its headquarters from Interbay to Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood early next year, joining a campus that Adobe has anchored since the late 1990s.

The sales technology company, which was valued at more than $4.4 billion in a 2021 funding round, has grown to about 800 employees from 680 in late 2024.

The company will take one floor at Fremont Lake Union Center, a three-building, roughly 424,000-square-foot campus on North 34th Street owned by Kilroy Realty. Outreach’s new space is at 701 N. 34th St., a four-story building next door to Adobe’s longtime Seattle office.

Outreach CEO Abhijit Mitra disclosed the move to the Puget Sound Business Journal, saying it would bring more face-to-face collaboration. Outreach confirmed the plans to GeekWire. The company is currently based at 333 Elliott in Interbay, where it leased the top three floors of the Martin Selig Real Estate building in 2018. It has since cut back to two floors, the PSBJ reports.

The move will bring Outreach back to Fremont. Before 333 Elliott, the company occupied about 26,000 square feet in the neighborhood, subleased from Tableau, GeekWire reported at the time.

Adobe, which established its Seattle presence by acquiring PageMaker maker Aldus in 1994, moved to the Fremont campus from Pioneer Square in 1998, becoming the anchor tenant of what was then called Quadrant Lake Union Center.

Adobe renewed and extended its lease on 163,000 square feet in 2018. The campus has seen other changes more recently: Salesforce-owned Tableau left the 837 N. 34th St. building in 2024, and co-working company Kiln is preparing to open its first Washington location in the building, with doors set to open late this year.

Tableau remains in the neighborhood. The Salesforce unit renewed its lease in July on roughly 114,000 square feet at its Data 1 building, 744 N. 34th St.

Google plans to eventually leave its longtime Fremont offices and is in the process of consolidating its Seattle employees in South Lake Union, GeekWire reported last year.

Founded in 2014, Outreach makes AI tools that research prospects, take notes during sales meetings, coach reps in real time and update CRM systems. Its customers include Zoom, Siemens and Snowflake. Co-founder Manny Medina stepped down as CEO in 2024, and Mitra, who joined in 2023 as president of product and technology, took over.

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