Best Places to Live in Seattle & the Eastside

This region's ten places split along a few real axes: which specific tech employer a mover is tied to (Amazon/Seattle, Microsoft/Redmond, Google/Kirkland, Costco/Issaquah), how much of an independent downtown identity a place carries versus a residential/bedroom character, and how directly light rail now connects a given place to the rest of the region.

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Matching a Mover to Their Employer

Seattle itself remains the default pick for Amazon employees (Amazon is genuinely headquartered in Seattle, though the company has shifted real headcount toward Bellevue) and for anyone wanting the region's only true urban core. Redmond is the clear choice for Microsoft employees specifically -- Microsoft's actual, current 50,000-employee corporate headquarters sits on a 500-plus-acre Redmond campus, not in Seattle -- and Redmond is also home to Nintendo of America's own headquarters (roughly 650 Redmond-based employees), giving it a real second-employer identity beyond Microsoft alone. Bellevue works for Amazon employees who prefer the Eastside's more affluent, still-independent downtown over Seattle proper (Amazon employs more than 12,000 people in Bellevue itself), and for T-Mobile's own headquarters staff (roughly 5,200 Bellevue-based employees). Kirkland is the pick for Google employees: the Puget Sound region is Google's second-largest engineering hub outside the Bay Area, with Kirkland's own 6th Street and Kirkland Urban campuses forming the company's third-largest US engineering center after Mountain View and New York. Issaquah is the natural landing spot for Costco's headquarters staff (Costco's corporate campus sits at 999 Lake Drive, with more than 10,000 employees at the headquarters location itself). Bothell fits biotech-industry movers specifically -- Seagen (now Pfizer's Bothell site following a $43 billion 2023 acquisition) anchored a real biotech cluster there alongside University of Washington Bothell.

Families and Top-Rated Schools

Bellevue School District has been named Washington's #1 district by Niche for three consecutive years running into 2026, serving over 20,000 students at an 18-to-1 ratio -- the clearest pick for families prioritizing school-district reputation above all else. Lake Washington School District (serving Redmond, Kirkland, and Sammamish) ranks #4 in the state per the same source, yet posts HIGHER state test-proficiency percentages than Bellevue's district on some measures -- a real, genuinely interesting inconsistency worth knowing rather than assuming rank alone tells the full story. Sammamish and Issaquah both draw heavily on this same district for their own family-oriented, suburban appeal, without Bellevue's downtown density or Redmond's single-employer dominance.

Water, Island, and Small-Town Character

Mercer Island offers a genuinely distinct island lifestyle within the region -- Lake Washington on every side, direct I-90 access to both Seattle and Bellevue, and the region's highest price tag as the tradeoff. Bothell blends a genuine biotech-and-tech employment base with Sammamish River access and a smaller-scale, less dense character than Bellevue or Redmond. Snoqualmie, the most removed of the ten places, offers a genuinely different lifestyle proposition: a master-planned community at the literal gateway to Snoqualmie Pass and the Cascades (the pass carries I-90's roughly 29,000 daily vehicles over the mountains, the only interstate crossing of the Cascades and the busiest of Washington's three year-round routes east), appealing to movers who want Eastside-adjacent access with a more mountain-town, outdoor-recreation-forward identity.

Budget-Conscious Entry Points

Shoreline is this region's clearest affordability pick, immediately north of Seattle city limits with its own Link light rail stations and a meaningfully lower price point than any Eastside city in this batch. It suits movers who want Seattle-metro job access without an Eastside-core budget, at the cost of a less independent downtown identity than Bellevue, Redmond, or even Kirkland.

Key takeaways

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Read the full Seattle & the Eastside overview for the complete picture, including every city and town we've researched in the area.

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Last reviewed: 2026-09-05. Independent research; not financial, tax, or legal advice -- confirm current figures with a local professional before making a decision.