When Renton Was Built: Home Ages by Neighborhood

Renton home ages by neighborhood tell you more about a street than almost any listing description. The year a house went up decides its floor plan, its size, how it sits on the lot and how closely it matches the houses beside it. Most people carry a rough picture of each area: the Highlands is wartime housing, Renton Hill is historic, Talbot Hill is a 1960s family neighborhood. The King County Assessor records a year built for every home it values, so we checked those pictures against the record.

At The Rache Team we have guided Renton buyers and sellers for more than 26 years. For this guide we pulled the Assessor’s residential building file on October 6, 2026 and read the year built on 11,035 single-family homes in the six neighborhoods we cover. Some of the reputations held. Two did not, and Renton home ages by neighborhood turned out to be less tidy than the shorthand.

How We Measured Renton Home Ages by Neighborhood

The Assessor’s residential building file lists a year built for the main house on each parcel. We kept parcels with one single-family home and sorted them into neighborhoods using the Assessor’s own area codes, narrowed by street where an area crosses into a neighborhood we do not cover. These are the same 11,035 homes we used in our guide to Renton lot sizes by neighborhood. Condos and apartments are not in these figures.

Three things to keep in mind as you read:

• Year built is the original construction date. It says nothing about what has been done since. A 1942 house may have a new roof, new wiring and an addition, or none of those.
• The record shows what is standing today. A home that was torn down and replaced appears under its new year. So these numbers describe the current housing stock, not everything that was ever built.
• The oldest dates are the least exact. Records from before about 1910 were often reconstructed later. Thirteen homes in our set are dated exactly 1900, which usually means “very old” more than it means that year.

Renton Home Ages by Neighborhood: Oldest to Newest

Here are Renton home ages by neighborhood in order of median year built, from the oldest housing stock to the newest.

North Renton: Median 1929

North Renton is the oldest neighborhood we cover, and it is not close. Of 360 single-family homes, 191 were built before 1930 and 244 before 1940. Only 27 have been built since 1990. The middle half of the neighborhood dates from 1920 to 1941.

The plat names in the county record explain why. Most of the grid sits in a series of plats called Renton Farm Plat, where the median home dates from 1923 to 1930, and in the Car Works Addition to Renton, where 91 homes have a median year of 1935. The Seattle Car Manufacturing Company, later Pacific Car and Foundry and then PACCAR, moved to north Renton in 1908, according to HistoryLink, and the blocks beside it filled in over the next three decades. Pelly Ave N has a median year built of 1925 and Wells Ave N 1929. The eastern streets of the grid came a little later: Garden Ave N has a median of 1938 and Factory Ave N 1940.

Homes here are small by current standards. The 244 built before 1940 have a median of 1,245 square feet. Our North Renton neighborhood guide covers what daily life on the grid is like.

Renton Hill: Median 1950, With an Older Core

Renton Hill carries the “historic” label, and the median of 1950 seems to argue with it. The median hides two separate building periods. Of the hill’s 229 single-family homes, 81 were built before 1930, which is 35%. Then there is a second group: 38 homes from the 1950s alone. The most common single year on the hill is 1911, with 12 homes.

The split follows the streets. Cedar Ave S has a median year built of 1927, and half of its 50 homes are from before 1930. Renton Ave S has a median of 1947, with 29 of its 75 homes from before 1930. Farther up, Grant Ave S and High Ave S have medians of 1954 and 1955. One of the two main plats on the hill is recorded as the Renton Co-operative Coal Company’s Acre Tracts, a reminder that coal was mined in these hills from the 1870s.

Size tracks age closely here. Homes built before 1940 have a median of 1,465 square feet. The 34 built from 1990 through 2009 have a median of 3,275. See our Renton Hill neighborhood guide and the Renton view homes guide for where the newer houses went.

Skyway-West Hill: Median 1953

Skyway-West Hill is the most concentrated neighborhood in the file. Of 4,126 single-family homes, 3,010 were built from 1940 through 1969. That is 73%. Only 217 homes, about 5%, have been built since 2000.

The wartime years stand out. The county record dates 836 Skyway homes to 1943 or 1944, one in every five. HistoryLink records that Nelse Mortensen and Company introduced the Skyway Park Addition in the summer of 1944 for wartime aircraft workers, centered on Renton Ave S and S 126th St, and that the name “Skyway” first appeared in The Seattle Times that July. The Assessor still shows 366 homes in that plat with a median year built of 1944. S 125th St, S 126th St and S 127th St each have a median of 1943.

The lake side of the hill is older than the top. On the slope facing Lake Washington, 11% of homes were built before 1940, and the Bryn Mawr Addition has homes dated as early as 1900. The 1,320 homes from the 1940s have a median of 1,300 square feet. Homes from 1950 through 1969 are larger, with a median of 2,000. Our Skyway-West Hill neighborhood guide covers the area in full.

Earlington and the West Hill: Median 1961

The city’s West Hill streets are the hardest to summarize, because every era is present. Across 709 single-family homes, the middle half spans 1943 to 1988, the widest range we measured. Ninety homes were built before 1930, 252 from 1950 through 1969, and 129 from 2000 on.

The original Earlington Addition holds 176 homes with a median year built of 1948 and individual homes dated from 1900 to 2018. On the Earlington side of the hill, 19% of homes are from before 1930. Then the pattern breaks. Lind Ave NW, with 57 homes, has a median of 1989. All 24 homes on S 133rd Pl were built in 2005 or 2006. An older house and a house a century newer can sit within a few blocks of each other, which is why two Earlington listings at the same price can be very different homes. The Earlington neighborhood guide has more.

Talbot Hill: Median 1979

Talbot Hill is usually described as a 1960s and 1970s neighborhood. The record shows something steadier. Its 1,270 single-family homes were built at an even pace for five decades:

• 1960s: 219 homes, 17%.
• 1970s: 218 homes, 17%.
• 1980s: 159 homes, 13%.
• 1990s: 199 homes, 16%.
• 2000s: 265 homes, 21%.

The 2000s, not the 1960s, are the largest decade. Then building stopped: the county shows three homes built since 2010. The plats mark the stages. The four Victoria Park divisions hold 247 homes built from 1968 to 1987. Winsper followed in 1989 and 1990. Sunnybrook added 110 homes from 2004 to 2009.

Talbot Hill also has a small older layer most buyers never notice. Sixty-nine homes were built before 1940. They sit mainly along Talbot Rd S, where 20 of 91 homes are from before 1940, and on S 15th St, where the median year built is 1937. The Talbot Hill guide walks through the sections.

Renton Highlands: Median 1980

The Highlands began as wartime housing. HistoryLink describes temporary housing built on a large scale east of the city center during World War II for workers at the Boeing Renton plant, and the city annexed it at the end of the war. That origin is still visible: 1942 is the most common year built in the neighborhood, with 467 homes, and 455 homes sit in the plat recorded as Renton Highlands Addition.

But the wartime houses are a minority now. Across 4,341 single-family homes:

• 1940s: 628 homes, 14%.
• 1950s: 926 homes, 21%.
• 1960s: 515 homes, 12%.
• 1970s and 1980s: 232 homes combined, 5%.
• 1990s: 419 homes, 10%.
• 2000s: 1,374 homes, 32%.
• 2010 and later: 224 homes, 5%.

More than twice as many Highlands homes date from the 2000s as from the 1940s. The neighborhood is really two places. In the western and central sub-area, 2,890 homes have a median year built of 1959. Streets such as Camas Ave NE, Dayton Ave NE and Edmonds Ave NE have a median of 1942, and the two President Park plats hold 243 homes with median years of 1952 and 1953. In the eastern sub-area, 1,451 homes have a median of 2001, built out through plats such as La Colina and Liberty Ridge from 2000 to 2005.

Of all the Renton home ages by neighborhood we measured, the Highlands had the largest gap between reputation and record. The houses changed as much as the dates. Highlands homes from the 1940s have a median of 1,100 square feet. Those built from 1990 through 2009 have a median of 2,280, and those from 2010 on, 2,875. The Renton Highlands guide and our piece on the Sunset neighborhood cover how the older core is changing.

What Renton Home Ages by Neighborhood Mean for Buyers

Renton home ages by neighborhood are not a grade. An older home is not a worse home and a newer one is not automatically a safer choice. What Renton home ages by neighborhood give you is a set of reasonable expectations before you walk in.

Renton Home Ages by Neighborhood Predict Size and Layout

Across all six neighborhoods, homes from the 1940s have a median between 1,000 and 1,870 square feet, and homes from 2010 on have a median between 1,660 and 3,518. If you need four bedrooms and a home office, the 1990s and 2000s sections of the Highlands and Talbot Hill are where that floor plan is common. If you want a single-level home on a larger lot, the 1950s and 1960s streets in Skyway, Earlington and the Highlands are where to look.

Renton Home Ages by Neighborhood Show How Uniform a Street Is

This is where Renton home ages by neighborhood help with pricing. A street built in one or two years by one builder, such as the 1942 Highlands streets or the 2005 block of S 133rd Pl, gives you close comparisons when it is time to price a home. A street built over a century, such as Renton Ave S on Renton Hill or Talbot Rd S, does not. That matters to sellers as much as buyers. Our guide to why Renton neighborhood price data is often wrong explains how mixed streets distort a median.

One Date Carries a Legal Meaning

Federal law requires sellers of most homes built before 1978 to give buyers a lead-based paint disclosure and an information pamphlet. By the county’s dates, that covers 92% of the homes in North Renton, 85% in Skyway-West Hill, 75% on Renton Hill, 70% in Earlington, 49% in the Highlands and 48% on Talbot Hill. The disclosure is routine paperwork in most of these neighborhoods, and it is worth reading when it arrives.

The Year Is Where the Questions Start

Renton home ages by neighborhood come from a record that shows only original construction, so the useful follow-up is always the same: what has been updated, when, and with what permits. Ask the seller, and look up the permit history. Inside the city that is the City of Renton. In Skyway-West Hill, which is unincorporated, it is King County Permitting. Our guide to whether Skyway-West Hill is part of Renton explains which government has which address.

How to Check a Home’s Age Before You Tour

1. Look up the parcel. The King County Assessor’s parcel lookup shows the year built, and a year renovated when the county has recorded one.
2. Compare it with the listing. If the two dates differ, ask which is right and why.
3. Check the neighbors. Look at the houses on each side. A home that matches its street is easier to value than one that stands apart.
4. Read the plat name. Homes in the same plat usually share a builder, an era and a set of floor plans.
5. Ask about updates. Request a list of improvements with dates, and confirm the permits with the city or the county.