Summer Intern Housing in Seattle: Where to Live and What It Costs

A Seattle internship is usually ten to fourteen weeks, which is exactly the length the rental market is worst at. Standard leases run six or twelve months. Hotels are unaffordable over three months. And you are arranging it from another city, often another country, for a place you have never seen.

This is a straight guide to the options, what each actually costs, and how the commute works — because in Seattle, the commute is the decision.

What your options actually are

Company-arranged housing. Amazon and Microsoft both route interns through corporate housing providers — ABODA is the long-standing one in this market — with furnished units across the city. If your offer includes it, this is the path of least resistance: it is sorted, it is furnished, and you did not have to do anything. The cost is choice. You get what you are assigned, where it is, and it is often priced against a stipend rather than against the open market.

University summer housing. UW's housing office runs a summer intern programme with furnished rooms and a minimum stay of around 28 nights; Cornish Commons also sells summer beds. These are genuinely built for your situation and the terms fit. They also fill early, and they put you in student accommodation for a summer where you are not a student — which suits some people and not others.

A sublet. Someone leaves for the summer, you take their room. Cheapest route, and the least certain: you are trusting a stranger's photographs and their account of the situation, usually with a deposit sent before you land.

A room in a co-living building. A furnished private room with utilities bundled, on an individual agreement. Costs more than a sublet, less than corporate housing, and — unlike a sublet — the building still exists and is still run by someone when something goes wrong at 11pm.

The commute is the real decision

Seattle is cut up by water and hills, and where you live determines your summer far more than the room does.

If you are working in South Lake Union — Amazon's campus, and a lot of the city's tech offices — you want to be somewhere you can reach without a car. SLU sits just north of downtown. Queen Anne is immediately north-west of it, close enough that the trip is short and predictable.

If you are working in Redmond — Microsoft, and much of the Eastside — the situation is different and worse. Redmond is across Lake Washington, which means the 520 bridge. The saving grace is direction: most morning traffic flows into Seattle, so an eastbound commute is a reverse commute and moves better than the westbound queue you will watch from the other carriageway. It is still a bridge crossing, every day, twice.

If you are downtown, almost anything central works, and Queen Anne is about ten minutes by car.

The mistake interns make is optimising for rent and inheriting a commute. Over twelve weeks, forty-five minutes each way is roughly ninety hours — more than two working weeks of your internship spent in traffic. Paying somewhat more to be close is usually the better trade on a stay this short.

What it actually pays, after housing

One piece of Seattle arithmetic worth knowing, because it changes the comparison against offers in other cities: Washington has no state income tax.

A Seattle internship and an equivalent one in New York or California are not comparable on the headline number. In New York you would be paying state and city income tax on top of federal; here you pay neither. On an intern salary that difference is real money, and it lands in your account rather than in a calculation you never see.

Run your numbers on take-home against rent, not on gross against rent. Seattle rents are high and it is easy to be put off by them before accounting for the tax side.

What a room here includes

Emerson Quarters is at 608 W Emerson St in Queen Anne — quiet, residential, minutes from downtown and South Lake Union, and a three-minute walk from Seattle Pacific University.

Rooms start at $895 a month, which includes:

• A private, furnished bedroom — bed, desk, chair, storage, wall-mounted TV
• Water, electricity, heat and garbage
• High-speed WiFi
• On-site laundry
• A shared full kitchen — stove, refrigerator, microwave

Parking is available on site, first-come and first-served, though for an SLU or downtown commute you are unlikely to want a car.

For a twelve-week stay this matters more than it would for a year: there is nothing to buy, nothing to set up, no utility accounts to open and close, and nothing to dispose of when you fly home. You arrive with a suitcase and you leave with one.

Term length

Standard leases at Emerson Quarters run six or twelve months, with shorter terms sometimes available depending on availability.

If your internship is ten to fourteen weeks, contact us directly about your exact dates rather than assuming from the standard terms. Call (253) 263-0612 or use Instant Reservation, which holds a room for 24 hours with no payment and no obligation while we work out whether the dates can be made to fit.

Frequently asked questions

Can I stay for just the summer?

Standard leases run six or twelve months, with shorter terms sometimes available depending on availability. Contact us with your exact internship dates.

How far is Emerson Quarters from South Lake Union?

Queen Anne sits immediately north-west of South Lake Union — a short, predictable trip, and close enough that most residents working there do not keep a car.

What about commuting to Redmond?

That means crossing the 520 bridge. It is a reverse commute in the morning, so it moves better than the inbound traffic, but it is a bridge crossing twice a day and worth factoring into your decision.

Is the room furnished?

Yes — bed, desk, chair, storage, and a wall-mounted TV, plus a shared full kitchen. You can arrive with a suitcase and leave with one.

What is included in the rent?

Water, electricity, heat, garbage, and high-speed WiFi. One monthly figure, no separate accounts to open.

Can I book before I arrive in Seattle?

Yes. Instant Reservation holds a room for 24 hours with no payment and no obligation, and someone will contact you to arrange the details. Applications are reviewed within 48 hours.