Cottage Lake vs Mercer Island

A side-by-side comparison of Cottage Lake and Mercer Island: population, income, housing, and more.

Cottage Lake and Mercer Island are places in Washington. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Mercer Island has the higher population (25,282 vs 23,170 in Cottage Lake). Mercer Island has the higher median household income ($202,359 vs $197,331 in Cottage Lake). Mercer Island has the higher median home value ($1,884,200 vs $1,164,000 in Cottage Lake).

Population, income & housing

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
Population	23,170	25,282
Median age	44.2 yrs	45.8 yrs
Median household income	$197,331	$202,359
Median home value	$1,164,000	$1,884,200
Median gross rent	$2,374	$2,464
Housing units	8,129	10,454
Homeownership rate	91.7%	66.0%
Bachelor's degree or higher	67.7%	78.8%
Unemployment rate	3.8%	2.5%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
Population	22,677 → 23,170 (+2.2%)	25,675 → 25,282 (-1.5%)
Median household income	$161,233 → $197,331 (+22.4%)	$147,566 → $202,359 (+37.1%)
Median home value	$798,200 → $1,164,000 (+45.8%)	$1,218,200 → $1,884,200 (+54.7%)
Median gross rent	$1,992 → $2,374 (+19.2%)	$2,162 → $2,464 (+14.0%)

Cottage Lake

Population

22,67723,170

Median household income

$161,233$197,331

Median home value

$798,200$1,164,000

Median gross rent

$1,992$2,374

Mercer Island

Population

25,67525,282

Median household income

$147,566$202,359

Median home value

$1,218,200$1,884,200

Median gross rent

$2,162$2,464

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
Under 5	6.2%	3.9%
5 to 17	17.9%	18.2%
18 to 24	5.3%	6.0%
25 to 34	8.4%	8.3%
35 to 44	13.8%	12.1%
45 to 54	14.5%	16.8%
55 to 64	17.0%	13.7%
65 to 74	12.0%	9.9%
75 and over	4.9%	11.1%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
White (non-Hispanic)	78.5%	65.3%
Black or African American	0.2%	1.4%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.0%	0.0%
Asian	8.9%	22.2%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.2%	0.0%
Some other race	0.1%	0.6%
Two or more races	6.3%	8.2%
Hispanic or Latino	5.7%	2.3%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
No high school diploma	3.4%	1.9%
High school graduate	10.3%	5.3%
Some college or associate's	18.6%	14.0%
Bachelor's degree	41.0%	38.3%
Graduate or professional degree	26.7%	40.5%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
Drove alone	61.7%	51.6%
Carpooled	5.3%	4.6%
Public transit	0.9%	4.6%
Walked	0.3%	1.6%
Bicycle	0.1%	0.2%
Worked from home	30.2%	35.7%
Other means	1.5%	1.7%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
1-unit, detached	96.9%	65.6%
1-unit, attached	1.2%	0.4%
2 to 4 units	0.1%	1.0%
5 to 19 units	0.0%	8.0%
20 or more units	0.3%	24.2%
Mobile home & other	1.4%	0.8%

Poverty & households

	Cottage Lake	Mercer Island
Poverty rate	3.1%	4.6%
Average household size	2.93	2.54
Mean commute (minutes)	27	25
Median year structure built	1984	1973