Bellevue Meadows Apartments in Bellevue, WA: What the Listings and Reviews Don’t Reconcile

Location & Neighborhood

The address falls inside Walk Score’s boundary for Northeast Bellevue, which the site ranks as the 8th most walkable of Bellevue’s neighborhoods, with a neighborhood-level score of 32 out of 100 (Walk Score). Two aggregator listings, Zillow and Trulia, instead label the same address “Bridle Trails,” a neighborhood centered on the equestrian district roughly a mile to the southwest. Apartment List and Walk Score’s boundary map both use Northeast Bellevue. Since Walk Score is the source that draws the neighborhood boundary, Northeast Bellevue is the label with a documented basis; Bridle Trails appears to be inherited from an older listing template rather than a fresh geocode.

Walk, Transit, and Bike Score Reconciliation

Two pulls from the same public Walk Score API return different numbers for coordinates fifteen feet apart. Zillow’s feed, pulled at 47.6493, -122.1458, returns a Walk Score of 43 (Car-Dependent) and a Bike Score of 62 (Bikeable), matching the number Walk Score publishes directly for this address (Zillow). Apartment List’s feed, pulled at 47.64911, -122.14507, returns 48 (Apartment List). Both feeds agree on a Transit Score of 52 (Good Transit). Treat the 5-point gap as noise in how each API caches results, not as a meaningful difference in the neighborhood itself.

What’s the real walk score? Two pulls from the same Walk Score API disagree: 43 according to Walk Score’s page and Zillow’s feed, 48 according to Apartment List’s feed, at coordinates 15 feet apart. Either number lands the address in the Car-Dependent band. Transit Score is a matched 52 on both feeds, and Zillow additionally reports a Bike Score of 62.

Pricing, Availability & Qualifying Income

Eight units were listed as available when Apartment List last verified pricing on July 12, 2026: three one-bedrooms, one two-bedroom/one-bath, and four two-bedroom/two-bath units (Apartment List).

Two-bedroom/two-bath units carry roughly $650 to $700 more a month than the one-bedrooms, tracking the extra 274 to 275 square feet and the second bathroom.

A first-floor one-bedroom, Unit I-103 at 644 square feet, was listed on Zillow the same week at $1,977, about $200 below the cheapest unit in Apartment List’s July 12 table.

Apartment List’s listing also discloses an income requirement of 2.4 times the monthly rent in gross household income (Apartment List).

At 2.4 times rent, qualifying for the cheapest one-bedroom takes a household income near $63,000; qualifying for the most expensive two-bedroom/two-bath takes about $83,000, a $20,000 gap that tracks the $707 spread in monthly rent.

How much income do I need to qualify? Apartment List states the property requires 2.4 times the monthly rent in gross household income. At the current one-bedroom starting rent of $2,185, that works out to roughly $62,928 a year before taxes; at the top of the two-bedroom/two-bath range, roughly $83,290.

Amenities

Unit interiors carry air conditioning, a wood-burning fireplace, a private balcony or patio, a dishwasher, and in-unit laundry in every floor plan, per the property’s feature list (Zillow).

• Community: 24-hour fitness center, tennis court, heated outdoor pool, clubhouse, covered carport parking.
• In-unit: air conditioning, wood-burning fireplace, dishwasher, in-unit washer and dryer, private balcony or patio, walk-in closets.
• Connectivity: Comcast Gigabit-speed cable is available at the property, per a leasing-office reply to a resident’s question (Yelp).

Pet Policy

Up to three dogs or three cats are allowed per unit, each carrying a $500 deposit and a $50 monthly fee, per the property’s fee schedule.

Housing one pet adds $1,100 to the first year’s budget beyond rent; housing two, one of each species, adds $2,200. Neither total appears on any listing page for this property; each is arithmetic on the deposit and monthly figures Zillow publishes.

Is Bellevue Meadows pet-friendly and what does it cost per year? Yes, up to three dogs or three cats per unit. One pet costs $1,100 in the first twelve months ($500 deposit plus $50 a month); two pets, one dog and one cat, cost $2,200.

Resident Reviews, Reconciled

The property’s marketing page reports 4.4 out of 5 from 1,520 testimonials, without a visible date range or scoring methodology (EquityApartments.com).

Reviews on the operator’s review page skew toward staff praise: named leasing and maintenance staff (Rachel, Sylvia, Jaime, Karen, Tony, and Stanley across different years) are credited repeatedly for quick maintenance turnarounds and for personally delivering packages (EquityApartments.com resident reviews).

A detailed complaint on ApartmentRatings describes a different period: unannounced pavement excavation trapped residents’ cars for a morning, following what the reviewer describes as weeks of construction crews leaving debris on the grounds. That complaint sits alongside the grounds category that scores 1 out of 5, and it offers a plausible account for why “newly renovated” marketing language and low grounds satisfaction can both be true at once.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Tour

• Ask what the pavement or grounds work involved and when it finished. The building dates to 1983, and at least one detailed complaint describes an undocumented excavation project; ask for a completion date and whether permits were pulled.
• Ask about noise transfer between floors. The independent noise score of 3 out of 5 sits below the neighborhood score of 5 out of 5, suggesting unit-to-unit sound in this 1983 building matters more than the surrounding area.
• Ask which specific units were renovated and when. Marketing language describes the whole community as newly renovated, but unit-level renovation dates aren’t published anywhere in this comparison.
• Confirm the current Walk Score reading yourself. Two feeds disagree by 5 points at the same address.

Why do some reviews mention construction if the units are newly renovated? The “newly renovated” language describes past interior updates like flooring and fixtures. A separate, more recent complaint on ApartmentRatings describes exterior pavement or utility work that disrupted parking and grounds access. The two describe different projects at different times.

Schools Nearby

Zillow’s feed assigns three schools to this address: Ardmore Elementary (4 out of 10), Highland Middle (4 out of 10), and Interlake Senior High (10 out of 10), all rated through GreatSchools. Apartment List’s feed lists five nearby schools instead, rating the same Highland Middle at 3 out of 10 and adding Benjamin Rush Elementary (8 out of 10, 1.0 mile) and Cherry Crest Elementary (9 out of 10, 1.5 miles). The two pulls disagree on Highland Middle’s score by a full point despite citing the same methodology, so confirm the current attendance-area assignment with the Bellevue School District before treating either list as final.

How It Compares Nearby

Four comparable communities appear in Zillow’s “nearby apartments” panel for this listing this month:

Bellevue Meadows’ one-bedroom starting rent of $2,185 sits below Bellevue’s citywide one-bedroom average of $2,784 and below three of these four named comparables; only Verde Esterra Park in Redmond starts lower, at $2,142. The two-bedroom/two-bath top rent of $2,892 sits further below the citywide two-bedroom average of $3,643 (Apartment List).