Category Archives: Seattle

Are you looking for information regarding life in Seattle? We’ve got tons of information on this site, and we invite you to read any of the articles below. And if you’re thinking of moving to Seattle, we’ve got one extremely popular post (literally hundreds of questions have been asked and answered) on this post about 10 things you should know before moving to Seattle.

However, if you’ve got an immediate question that we’re not answering, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the authors on the site. We’re all really nice people (I promise!) and love to answer your questions!

Taking on KING/KONG…

Posted on by
94

Yesterday I was interviewed by a KING-5 reporter, Kim Holcomb, and which I had written about on my blog at this post.  I had jokingly referred to taking on King Kong but only because the news segment was shown on KING-5 and KONG-6 last night.

King Kong

The news story was about how the market here is changing just a bit to more of a stabilized market.  At the beginning of the report a seller talks about it being a “buyer’s market” but I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him completely.  We’ve still got room to move before that happens and if anything we’re more balanced than the past 5 years.  The segment did run on both KING and KONG stations and, from what my business partner tells me, it is one of the most viewed and forwarded links from the KING-5 website today.  Here is a link the actual news story about the Seattle real estate marketplace along with pieces of my interview.

It seems we’re (Team Reba) getting a lot of press lately.  I was interviewed in July for a story on blogging for the RE/MAX Times back in July (released in September) and just last week I was interviewed for a real estate investment magazine which will be printed in the November/December time frame.  Now, if I could just get the interviewers to pronounce my name correctly…. 🙂

How walkable is your neighborhood?

Posted on by
12

In late August a press release was sent out by Mayor Nickels office regarding plans to increase sidewalk construction in areas of the city where there are none now.  Many buyers I talk to on a regular basis tell me they want to live in neighborhoods with safe streets where they can walk to and from shops or to be able to take their kids safely to local parks, etc.  I personally love having sidewalks in my neighborhood.  An online tool that can be used to determine if your area has good “walkability” is this site: http://www.walkscore.com/

A large portion of the northern section of Seattle is without sidewalks since they were developed prior to being within the city’s borders (most areas north of 85th St).  An article in the Seattle Times highlighted this area and others recently noting how expensive it is for cities to add sidewalks, but because city inhabitants have been vocal for it Mayor Nickels is going to give them what they want.  Or is he?

Here is a link to the city’s current plan to add sidewalks, most of which is supposed to be funded by new construction: http://www.seattle.gov/DPD/Planning/Sidewalks_Improvement_Initiative/Overview/

Now, let’s compare that to a notice I received from the Master Builder’s Association as shown below.  As I read it, the MBA doesn’t want to take on the responsibility for the costs of adding the sidewalks.  If they do, they will, of course, pass it on to the consumer (buyer of their developments) and as a result the cost of the sidewalk will go up multi-fold because there will be added costs from the builder on top of the original cost to install.  I don’t know if the city can get a “bargain” compared to the MBA developers or not but I would think that it would be inefficient for the city to try and manage all of the independent developments and the sidewalk needs of those as they happen ad hoc around the city.  Perhaps if the “fee in lieu” were to go directly into a pot that could be used for ad hoc installing of sidewalks I’d feel better about it, but I’d also be concerned about whether or not that would be managed well too.

The Mayor’s Sidewalk Announcement

The long anticipated Sidewalks Initiative was announced today by Mayor Nickels and is available at: Sidewalk Press Release. 
Should the proposal pass, sidewalks, curb and gutter would be required for all new development in Urban Centers and Villages and along any arterial.  The threshold for the remaining portions of the city would be lowered to 3 units.  For more detail, goto:  Seattle Sidewalks.
The MBA is proposing a fee in lieu of program that would bank sidewalks and allow the city to contract with the lowest bidder to install all sidewalks—I assume the city gets a better deal than we can.  The goal is for members to avoid the long and expensive SDOT review. 

Seatte Metropolitan Magazine's Best Places to Live

Posted on by
10

This month’s issue of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine features their annual “Best Places to Live”.    What strikes me is their number one pick is[photopress:seattlemet.jpg,thumb,alignright] not any where near Seattle; nor is it “metropolitan”.   It’s Kent.  I’m not knocking Kent.   In fact, my main office is head quartered on the East Hill of Kent and I grew up in south east King County.   It just seems out of place to have 40% of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine’s Best Places to Live be outside of Seattle city limits.

Here is the Best Places to Live according to SMM with the median home price:

  1. Kent $278,500
  2. Lower Queen Anne $289,000
  3. High Point $315,990
  4. Belltown $324,450
  5. Victory Heights/Pinehurst $356,750
  6. Rainier Vista $390,000
  7. South Lake Union $394,000
  8. Issaquah Highlands $569,950
  9. Somerset $697,500
  10. Yarrow Point $1,500,000

Is SMM out of neighborhoods in Seattle they feel are worthy?  Are they searching for newly constructed fresh neighborhoods…Seattle is pretty darn old, afterall.  

Last year, Eileen covered SMMs 2006 Best Neighborhoods on RCG.   She asked why not Burien?  Which I agree–Burien continues to be completely overlooked and…in my opinion, so is Des Moines.   Both of these neighborhoods are technically “Seattle”.  

What Seattle neighborhoods would have made your top 10 that are not receiving recognition on this years list?

Redfin's First Year

Posted on by
3

In a follow up to Dustin’s post, I started to examine Redfin’s numbers in a bit more detail.

Redfin released a report today (it was yesterday, but I am on vacation… I guess you can say Maui Time :)) that opens saying, “Finds .904% Negotiating Advantage, 1.952% Average Commission Refund, 95% Customer Satisfaction; The Most Common Type of Redfin Buyer is a First-Timer

Ten Things I love about Living in Seattle

Posted on by
36

Ask ten people and you get ten different answers. So I thought I’d give my take on Dustin’s topic from last year. Maybe every Frequent Contributor can do one on the ten things about living in Seattle that they think are worth knowing.

1) The flip side of rain – not only is the weather close to perfect here from April/May through October, the days are a lot longer than anyplace I have ever lived before…and I’ve lived a lot of places. The painted naked cyclists on the Summer Solstice are a clue as to how much Seattle celebrates the longest day of the year here. Sitting on Alki Beach on the evening of the longest day of the year is something everyone should do. Watch the sun set around 10 p.m. But get there early if you plan to eat…the restaurants tend to run out of food before sunset.

2) Everyone “belongs” here – No matter who you are, or are not…oops…What’s that Kim?

my partner Kim Harris is jumping in with HIS perspective…which is much longer and in a different direction than mine. Going to Kim’s Perspective on what drew him TO the Pacific Northwest in 1964 and KEPT HIM in Seattle since he got off the plane from Vietnam in 1969…The History – The Tremendous Impact and Signficance of this area on the Music Industry (Kim’s previous life and passion, as founder of Easy Street Records and teacher of “The History of Rock and Roll” at the U and BCC and original manager of Queensryche, when they were high school kids hanging out at his Easy Street Records, of then, on Bel-Red Road…long past history all over the world managing bands and music venue and private label and much more…on to his LOVE of Seattle from a music perspective:

[photopress:blue_moon_1.jpg,thumb,alignright] The (fabulous) Wailers – Tall Cool One, being able to find things in Seattle he spent two months trying to find in record stores in San Francisco as a teenager, The Kingsmen, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Quincy Jones, The Sonics, Viceroys, Jimi Hendrix, Bluebird, The Daily Flash, Brothers Johnson, Sir Mix-a-Lot, QueensRyche, Heart, Sound Garden, Nirvana, The Melvins, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Presidents of the USA, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains…

The Castle, Lake Hills Roller Rink (believe it or not), Eagles Auditorium, The Blue Moon, The Show Box, The Vogue, The (original) Off Ramp, RKCNDY, The Tractor, the Crocodile…

Other influences that made a difference: Sub Pop and CZ Records, Thom Bell, Bruce Pavin, Boyd Grafmyer (presents), Pat McDonald who was a major influence on music from his time at KOL-fm to this day, as a not often enough writer of the Seattle Times. His infrequent musings on today’s music are not to be missed. Jack Endino and the Great Pad O’Day. Campus Music, Discount Records, Music Millennium, East Street Records and Celophane Square.

Paul Allen and his Experience Music Project (EMP) for having kept Seattle’s Music History alive, for the benefit of both visitors to Seattle and local residents of Seattle, due to his love of music generally.

The Seattle Weekly and The Stranger still give a left of center approach to what is happening currently in the Seattle Area. Great Articles on Food, Music, Shopping, what to do…etc.

Well…so much for “Ten”…went off on a tangent in “stream of consciousness blogging” fashion…there will have to be a part two on this one…I have work to do 🙂

Enjoy Seattle Music Lovers!!! A trip down Memory Lane!

RCG may have completed the real estate blogging trifecta, but which horse is going to win?

Posted on by
16

About a week ago I noted that the Zillow Blog added Rain City Guide to its sidepanel and that I hadn’t found out about both the Redfin Blog or the HouseValues blog because they hadn’t spread any link love. As Rain City Guide hasn’t done much to deserve traffic from either site, I didn’t really expect my comments to make much impact, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that both blogs added Rain City Guide to their sidepanel in less than a few days, thus completing my Seattle-real-estate-search trifecta!

I start with this story because it highlights two timely points I want to make: (1) all real estate is local and (2) business blogs can be shockingly responsive in ways that simply is not possible with a standard business website.

And just as all real estate is local, I’m happy to say that all interesting real estate search technology appears to be local as well. I’ve seen some fun tools come out of New York and California (or should we say CaliYork), but I don’t think it can be argued that the future of real estate is being developed right here in Seattle.

So who is going to win the real estate technology race? Will it be:

I don’t pretend to have the answer, but I sure enjoying keeping score. 😉

The second (and only tangentially related) point I want to make is that business blogs are now the norm for tech companies. When done right these blogs are much more than just a place to put press releases and instead give some great insight into the corporate personality behind the company. Go ahead and read the first few blog entries from each of the big three real estate search sites:

(I’m waiting…)

Here’s is what I read… The Zillow people are a zany, tech bunch who really believe that they can crack the real estate nut through increased data crunching and processing power. The Redfin people have figured out a better business model and now only need to expand so that they can demonstrate efficiencies of scale. The HouseValues people have a laser-like focus on present marketing opportunities, so they really don’t spend much time thinking about the future. Had any of these three companies been blogging a year ago, I’m sure their blogs would read the same! And more interestingly, I’m fairly confident that if I read the “latest” three or four entries from those same three blogs one year from now, those will also read the same because the culture that created those blogs is the same culture that created those companies. There is a real honesty in blogging that is hard to mask. Both a company’s strengths and weaknesses show through in their blogs!

However not everyone sees blogging from this vantage point. Recently, Daniel Gross of Slate signaled the beginning of the end of the business blog, by focusing on all the problems with blogging. But by focusing on the financial aspects of blogging (which often don’t make sense), he misses out on the overwhelmingly positive marketing opportunities associated with adding a friendly face to an otherwise impersonal website. I’m so glad that these three big real estate tech companies out of the Seattle area have all begun blogging because it gives some great insight into the soul behind the companies.

Romancing Ballard

Posted on by
Reply

Before being interrupted, the contributors of Rain City Guide were having a nice little series on Romacing Our Homes. Seeing how tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d sum up things and add one more article on my neighborhood! So what type of romance did rain city guide contributor’s share?

On to Ballard…

ballard rr crossing

Anna and I simply love living in Ballard. We’ve both lived in different parts of the country (and the world!), but we’ve never lived in a place quite like Ballard. It offers a great mix of urban features (walkable neighborhoods with lots of coffeeshops, bakeries, art houses, farmer’s markets, etc.) without feeling too urban. For a relatively young family, it offered us a wonderful opportunity to own a home with a big yard and great neighbors! Thank you Ballard!

In addition to the year-round Farmer’s market in Downtown, Ballard hosts three festivals that are a lot of fun:

If you’re looking for more on Ballard, check out the post I wrote last march on the Ballard Community as well as this post Anna put together on the history of Golden Gardens! (Interesting stuff!)

How well does Zillow Zestimate your home?

Posted on by
32

Since everyone’s doing it, I thought it would be fun to have one place where people discuss how good Zillow’s “Zestimator” is working!

The process is simple…

1) Go to Zillow.com
2) Type in your address
3) Record the Zestimate of your home
4) Return here, and let us know in the comments how well their tool stacks up to reality.


Here are the Zestimates I’ve gathered so far:

  • My home: The zestimate is probably $40 to 60K too high. The home next door to mine, (which is almost identical) sold this summer for $80K less than the Zestimate
  • Ardell’s home: $200K less than she just paid for it!
  • Robbie’s current home: He estimates that it is $220K too low!
  • Rich Barton’s home: He may have “overpaid a bit” on his $2.6M Madison Park home.

How well does Zillow Zestimate your home?

Free Margaritas!!!*

Posted on by
2

margaritaWho servers the best margarita in Seattle?

Apparently, I stirred up a little bit of a hornet’s nest as there is definitely some contention in the blogoshere as to the best margarita in Seattle.

Some say that La Carta de Oaxaca serves up the best margarita, while other good sources say that El Gallito is the place to go.

But the real answer may be a different place altogether! (Did I mention that I serve up a mean margarita?)

There is really only way one to find out, and that is a Gringo Tour! (Am I allowed to say that on a real estate blog?)

I’m all over organizing a tour to get the determine the margarita in Seattle… If you’re interested in joining the tour bus, let me know, along with the evenings within the next week that would work for you. I’m thinking that this weekend would be best although both of these places can get quite busy!

Some people who simple need to show up include Virginia from Seattle Pulse, Chris from Metroblogging and Chris Pirillo from, well, Chris Pirillo, but all are welcome! Just email me if you’re interested and I’ll coordinate from there!

party drinks

* Free Margaritas are ALWAYS available to people who use Anna to purchase or sell a home. Unless, or course, I find out there is a policy against offering Margarita’s to clients… 😉