Seatte Metropolitan Magazine's Best Places to Live

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?

A New Kind of Real Estate Company Visited

A couple of weeks ago I blogged on a new real estate model where I try to match real estate agent strategies to the agent’s personality.  I call the different strategies “games” (www.getstrategic.com/agents).  I’m going to share my progress with you, the highs and the lows to let you know how it is going since there’s no other company that I know of doing this sort of model. It may be like picking a carrot to see how it’s growing. But this carrot is an unknown species. Sticking with this metaphore, the only way I can observe it is to grow it hydroponically in a glass beaker to watch it grow, the glass beaker being this blog!

Here’s what I can share with you so far:

I’ve had the poorest results with the 3 experienced agents I had to let go because they wouldn’t put time into activities that they’d never done before. I think they must have joined because of the word “free leads

Belltown to get community center

[photopress:walking_along_the_waterfront.JPG,thumb,alignright]While it won’t make Belltown the most family-friendly area of Seattle, it is nice to know that this area is getting a new community center.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read the article was that the couple that run the UptownSeattle blog are leaving a little too soon… I can tell that they really like the area and it would have been a great sign for the neighborhood if they would have felt better about raising a kid in Belltown.