Once again, Fremont put on quite a show…
I had a wonderful time at this Fremont-only parade and celebration… A bunch of people have already posted photos over at flickr, but a warning that many of the photos are not for the faint of heart.
(The same warning should probably apply to people thinking of moving to Fremont! 🙂 ).
A 40-acre estate in the Hamptons – the Long Island summer retreat of New York’s rich and famous, has been sold for $US90 million, a new US record for a residential property.
The New York Post cited sources close to the deal as saying the purchase was made by a Swedish industrialist who has rented the estate for the past few summer seasons.
To answer the obvious question… Assuming standard commissions (and this was far from from a standard situation), two real estate agents just earned $2.7 million in commissions!
On Saturday, the Seattle PI hyped pre-forclosures:
A good place to find these cash-flush speculators is at foreclosure auctions, according to longtime Tampa, Fla., property investor Tom Lucier, author of “The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor’s Kit.” But by the time a property reaches the auction block, it’s probably worthless as a short-term investment. The trick is to find the distressed property in pre-foreclosure.
Pre-foreclosure is that period of time between when the lender files a foreclosure lawsuit or notice of default in the public records and the date the property is to be sold at public auction or trustee’s sale.
[photopress:seattle_center.jpg,thumb,alignright]Gnomedex 5.0 is coming to Seattle this weekend!
I thought I would send out an early welcome to Gnomedex attendees. If you’re looking for interesting Seattle resources, I may be able to direct you to some interesting resources… For those of you who are unfamiliar with this conference, it is a tech event where all-kinds of big-shots will discuss and announce new products and services… I’d be most interested in (1) learning how I can better use the current technology tools and (2) how some of the companies (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, etc.) are going to work with small businesses (like me).
In terms of events for the weekend, the stranger will list just about anything worth doing! If you’re looking for live music, I would highly recommend the Tractor Tavern which will have the meat purveyors (“bluegrass on booze”) on Friday night and Omar Torrez on Saturday night. (Scoble has also been talking about a camping trip before or after the event, but I don’t know if that is still on…)
If you are a map person and want an overview of the Seattle area, the gHomes tool that I’ve developed can give you an overview of the different neighborhoods. For example, the tool lets you pretty easily zoom in on the million dollar neighborhoods if that is of interest to you! Also of interest is the fabulous new Bus Monster that Chris Smoak developed.
For a different kind of overview of the neighborhoods, simply to browse some of the posts I’ve put together… There is lots of info (and more every day!). There are too many great Seattle bloggers around to put any type of definitive list together, but two of my favorite are Dave Fox and Greg Linden.
A recent study showed that on-line brokers had an extremely high costumer satisfaction levels:
With an average reliability of 99.5 percent, the brokerage industry’s Web site service levels far exceed other industries, Keynote found. In addition, pages that take more than one and a half seconds to download–a time considered first-rate by other online industries–fell well below the standards currently being set by online brokerages.
Have you used an on-line broker? (I have!) I’d be interested in hearing about your experience. Was their service as good as this survey suggests?
Thanks to Garrett French for the background info…
With all the great bike and pedestrian trails around, I don’t think it would surprise most locals to find out that Seattle ranked #4 in a list of the country’s healthiest cities:
The Seattle metro area had the study’s best scores in the areas of physical activity and lifestyle pursuits. Respondents here reported the highest level of vigorous exercise. Seattlites had high rates of diabetes, hypertension and, yes, sleeplessness.
Another great reason to live in Seattle!
[photopress:riley_in_SF.jpg,thumb,alignright]I just thought I would try to put the high prices of the Seattle market in perspective based on a story from a friend of mine from the Bay Area…
This friend (and his wife) moved from Texas to the Bay Area about four years ago. They began by renting, but really wanted to buy a home. After about a year, they were able to buy a home, but they had to move out about an hour away from San Francisco because it was the only way they afford a home due to the ridiculously high prices. Back then (four years ago), the talk of the town from turning from the recent dot-com bust to a coming real estate bust. Well, they purchased a 1,400 sf home in Bay Point (right outside of Pittsburg) for around $310K.
Fast forward to three years later… They are ready to move back to Dallas to be closer to their family. They put their home on the market and receive multiple offers, the best offer at $530K. Take out real estate fees and what-not, and they are poised to make almost $200K in less than three years… In addition, they’ve also bought a home in Dallas for $250K which means that they can use their profits to either lower their mortgage to near nothing, or have a lot of money in the bank to invest.
This young family (both are under 30) has a leg-up for life thanks to one good investment decision. They bought a house.
Of course, it is unlikely that home prices in other places (like Seattle) will continue to see the same time of appreciation, but as the article from the Seattle Times suggests, the lack of housing supply in Seattle is probably going to be around for a long time to come.
I just ran across the best google map hack yet:
Seattle Bus Monster
and the more I browse the site, the more impressed I am.
Some of the things to notice:
Everything about the site is professionally done. For example, try typing in “2nd and Spring” when searching for “bus stops”. The site will return all the 2nd and spring locations in King county!
Play around and I think you will find that Chris Smoak has made the life of Seattle transit commuters MUCH easier.
The NY Times has an article today describing the experience of people whose real estate lawyers have been caught stealing their escrow money. The most extreme example they give was from Jay Rosen who would intentionally create problems with the transaction in order to hold onto his client’s escrow money:
A dispute over the home’s title or its certificate of occupancy would stymie the deal, making it impossible for Mr. Rosen to release his clients’ money from an escrow account he controlled. An ancient property-line dispute would rise from the dead. Checks would get delayed. Cash transfers wouldn’t connect.
It was as if money just didn’t want to leave Mr. Rosen’s hands, clients said.
While there will always be a bad apple in the bunch, I’m actually surprised to hear of this problem. (Granted, the article makes a big deal of the problem, but then goes on to say that there were only 100 reported real estate thefts in 2004.)
I’ve yet to hear that this is a problem in Seattle, and considering that the industry relies so heavily on referrals, it would seem the bad apples would be quickly rooted out… However, if you’ve ever been taken advantage of by a local agent, broker or lawyer, I’d be interested to know so that I can adjust my recommendations appropriately.
As a test for a new little program I wrote to post things on Google Maps, I’ve put a map together displaying all the Farmers’ Markets in Seattle. In order to do this, I cribbed heavily from a few websites such as metroblogging and the Neighborhood Farmers’ Market Alliance .
The farmers’ markets current being displayed include:
If you know of some other farmers’ markets that should be included or some data that needs to be updated, just let me know.
By the way, I also made my first google maps “marker” for this site. If you look closely, you may notice that the marker is a tulip based on the flower in the center of the above photo.
