Author Archives: Dustin Luther

About Dustin Luther

Founder and original blogger on Rain City Guide, Dustin has since started #InterestedIn Marketing where his team provides content and social media services that helps industry experts earn recognition as thought leaders. You can find me on Twitter (@tyr) and LinkedIn (/DustinLuther)

Sunset Hill 2004 Year-in-Review

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Are you interested in selling your Sunset Hill home?
Are you interseted in buying a home in Sunset Hill?

I put together a report that documents the the sale price of every home that sold in Sunset Hill in 2004. Not only does the report highlight trends, but it also lists the average sale price of homes based on a variety of factors, such as number of bedrooms, home size, year built, etc.

The document can be found here:

Sunset Hill 2004 Year-in-Review. Note that this file is quite large (about 1 Mb), so if you have a dail-up connection, it will work best if you “right-click” on the link and use the “save link as” feature to save it directly to your hard-drive.

If you would like a hard-copy of this document, just let me know by emailing me.

Mapping Seattle

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house on waterAppropriate for a high-tech City, there are many digital mapping options. Listed below are some of my favorite ways that I view Seattle (while sitting at my desktop!)

1) Redfin gives you a birds-eye view of Seattle with great aerial photography. It is a very easy (and FUN) site to navigate. I should also note that Anna is a listing agent on the site.

2) Next up is Google Maps. There is no need to bother with Mapquest or Yahoo Maps anymore. Once again, Google has done it right. The site is a lot of fun and I especially like that you can zoom around with the arrow keys on your keyboard. While you’re at it, try doing a local search on something you like to visit (I did Bakery). I ended up with all the local bakeries around my house! UPDATE: On their march of progress, google added satellite imagery. Kottke gives a great description of how this is not necessarily a new technology (mapquest had this ability at least 4 years ago), it is just implemented much better!

3) If you really want to get down to details, check out the on-line GIS maps provided by the City of Seattle. This site is wickedly powerful in that you can see property information for EVERY residential property in the City all via a convenient (albeit slow) interface (no more trips down to the public library for “public” information). It includes previous sale information for each property… Not that I’ve done this :), but it can also be used to “remember” the name of a neighbor. As long as they are the owner of the house, then their name will show up on their parcel data.

4) The City of Seattle puts out a great bike map. I went ahead and ordered a free hard-copy version of these maps, and I use it regularly.

5) Seattle Neighborhoods. Did you know that the City has published exact boundaries for each of the Neighborhoods in Seattle? Very cool reference!

UPDATE: I’ve built a program called gHomes to my site. It is a great way to search for your next Seattle or Eastside home.

Transit in Seattle

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streetcarI’ve been thinking about putting together a set of blog entries that describe Seattle. In particular, I’d like to provide some decent information and a decent set of links for people who are thinking of moving to this area. My first step was reviewing books. My next step was describing all the mapping technologies focusing on Seattle. This entry gives a real broad overview on the transit system. My next few entries will be more difficult as I’ll try to focus on different neighborhoods within Seattle.

No matter where you live and work in Seattle, you will rarely be far from good transit service. I’ve lived in a few different cities, and as much as residents love to complain about lousy transit service (a past-time of downtown commuters everywhere), Seattle’s transit is relatively comprehensive and reliable. Metro Transit, Sound Transit and Community Transit all offer bus service in the City. Metro Transit operates all the local routes (and most routes throughout King County, including Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland). If you are living in Seattle, almost all of your transit riding will be on Metro.

In addition to regional bus service, Sound Transit also operates a train between Tacoma and Seattle and another train between Everett and Seattle. Sound Transit has already begun construction on a light-rail line that will connect the Sea-Tac Airport with Downtown Seattle.

And the white elephant in the room is the monorail. On Nov. 2004, Seattlites voted to keep the monorail development and construction moving forward. The plan is to have the first segment, the green line, completed in 2009.

Is there a major transit component that I’ve missed? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Books About Seattle

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Are you thinking of visiting Seattle? Below are three visitor guide books to Seattle. The first is from “The Stranger“. A Seattle-only weekly that definitely gives the best inside scoop on Seattle. However, the book is not for the faint of heart as it focuses mostly on the alternative scene. The Rough Guide books are some of the most informative guide books around with info on history, entertainment, food, etc. Albeit they are geared toward the backpacker crowd. The Frommer’s Guide is one of the best all-around guidebooks.

Seattle City Walks has some fun urban hikes that will give you a pretty good idea of the various neighborhoods. I’ve got this book and have especially enjoyed the historical tit-bits they throw in.

This is a wildly popular book (Relocating to Seattle) among the people relocating to the area. I’ve not read it, but I’ve heard people say that it has given them a real insider’s perspective on the region: