I’ve had only unconventional communes: Seattle to Bainbridge Island (a 3 step bus/bike – ferry – bike/walk) and Capitol Hill to Belltown (walk or bike), but I’ve had early morning meetings on the East side and I can confirm that the commute stinks.
Last week the Seattle Times confirmed my suspicion: it’s worse to commute to and from Bellevue than anywhere else. Bellevue workers, would you support tolls to improve our region’s nasty traffic? I would.
Thought I’d throw this out there: Agents do you use any CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools besides a rolodex or Outlook Contacts? Do you know anyone who does? There are a lot out there, but I’ve really only heard of salesforce.com and only in the context of other industries.
Also, a question for the home buyers and sellers: have you felt the sting of bad CRM? I’d say that you can identify bad CRM when you get generic emails periodically from an agent to whom you once gave your email address.
There are important land use questions on the Washington ballot this year that will have a measurable effect on real estate: Initiative 933 could mean less regulations (or no land use regulations depending on who you talk to) for you and your neighbors (hope you aren’t a NIMBY). Vote Yes! Vote No!
Note: both of those websites are blowing smoke up your you-know-what: while the initiative could cost taxpayers $1300, it would be spread over many years, just like the $1300-per-person new tunnel through Seattle will be spread out over many years. And Washington State has never prevented anyone from walking on their own land.
I’m going to take off my fairness hat here: Initiative 933 is written in such a disastrous way that it doesn’t matter what you believe about land rights, because the only people who are going to benefit from it are lawyers. We need serious land use reform in Washington State, but Initiative 933 is the wrong way to go about it. Good idea, bad solution.
Altos Research shows a flattening market in Seattle and confirms Ardell’s analysis: the high end is (was?) the worst place to be. I’m not signing on to the “bubble proof” theory though.
Land use initiatives aplenty this year in Seattle.
Strip clubs aren’t directly on the ballot, but this year Seattlites are voting on a proposed 4-foot rule (between dancers and patrons) and forced bright lighting (to keep the cockroaches off the floor during business?) to regulate all 4 of our fair city’s strip clubs. There are so few clubs because there has been a “temporary” moratorium on new clubs for nearly two decades now which is still being fought over in the courts (right?). It seems that Seattle is becoming the most socially conservative liberal city in America.
As this great Seattle Times article points out, Portland is at the other end of the spectrum, with over 13 times as many strip clubs per person as Seattle, yet it’s still a great place to live (although I can’t vouch for Voodoo Doughnut – they don’t hold a candle to TopPot Doughnuts).
How does this tie into real estate? For starters, strip clubs are primarily opposed by their residential neighbors. Also, strip clubs (or a de facto ban on strip clubs) reflect on and affect the character of Seattle (for better and for worse). And this is really a property-rights issue: can you do what you want with your land or should the effect of your use on your neighbors be considered? Whatever you believe, I hope you get out to vote or send in your ballot this year.
[photopress:180145412_4019ee6b00_m.jpg,full,alignright] In case you’re wondering what’s happening just over the border: Vancouver Housing Market Blog. The chart is from this post.
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First, if you haven’t upgraded yet, Firefox 2.0 is out. It’s a quick and easy download and will update itself from that point on. Some of the new treats include a spell checker, faster speeds, and an improved rss handler.
Second, if you’re using Firefox to avoid viruses (and for the spellchecking), that’s great, but you might be missing some of the best add-ons. My list includes:
Adblock – blocks ads from websites and makes the web a much more pleasant place. The drawback: you have to pick the ads. The fix…
Adblock Filterset.G – gives Adblock a huge list of ads to block and updates itself every time I open firefox
BugMeNot – lets me log in to free sites that require a login (like the New York Times) by right clicking and clicking “login with bugmenot.” Others have signed up with fake email addresses so I don’t have to.
Customize Google – tons of google choices, but my favorites are secure gmail and “Google suggests” from the search box as I type
easyGestures – lets little mouse gestures control the browser. (Pretty geeky)
Google Calendar Notifier – unobtrusively pops up in the lower right hand corner whenever I have an event on my calendar (they text message me too)
Google Send to Phone – highlight any text on a page, click send to phone and you have a text message. Very useful for addresses and directions. (they haven’t upgraded it to 2.0 yet!)
Viamatic FoXpose – shows me a snapshot of all of my tabs (when I remember it’s there)
For web development:
FireBug – javascript debugger. Yuck. Javascript.
ColorZilla – tells me the web color for any color on any page (web colors look like #6685AF)
IE View – opens any page in internet explorer so I can remember why it’s such a pain
Web Developer – lets me look at a page from many angles. My favorite use is to highlight a little text and clicking “View Selection Source” to see the html for a part of a page
Internet Exploder 7 just came out too. Reports say it’s much better than Explorer 6, but I’m keeping 6 so I can keep testing ShackPrices on it. If you don’t want Firefox, for security’s sake you should at least upgrade to Internet Explorer 7.
Come spring, Realtor.com won’t have access to the Northwest MLS, so only houses from agents who pay to participate will show up. Trulia.com, a site the “crawls” broker web sites to fill its database, will probably have more listings from western Washington from that point going forward (the NWMLS still has the most).
Usually I believe that access trumps all, but it is unseemly for an organization like the NWMLS to give its data away for free to a corporate giant, but block all other interested parties. Realtor.com, I’d like to be the first to welcome you to the rest of the world, where you either have to work with a licensed broker and play by the rules, accept listings for free, or crawl the web to find listings.
From Altos Research. I couldn’t get the zip codes to work when I zoomed in.
When Susan Ryan posted Just Say No To Bubble Talk, where she states “There is no real estate bubble and never will be” (emphasis mine), she probably wasn’t thinking of the traffic and links she would bring in through such blatant link baiting. But in one crazy statement, she swung for the fences and brought in over dozens and dozens of angry replies.
In a sort of a reverse of the Greg vs. Ardell 100-posts-in-24-hours contest, I propose a link baiting contest. Can you write the most outlandish post that warrants over 88 angry replies (current count) in the shortest period of time? Extra credit if you hit 100 in a day. The prize: an autographed photo of Jerry Falwell, a man who understood link baiting before the internet even existed.
The fine print: If a Rain City Guide member takes up the gauntlet, other co-bloggers (or “cloggers”) can only count for one angry reply (that means both of you Russ and Ardell!). You’re on your honor not to comment on your own posts or ask friends to do so. Any single angry responder can count for up to 5 comments, but after that you get no credit for making them angry.
I will take myself out of the running right now, as I don’t know enough about the gold standard to argue on its behalf or enough about the illegality of the IRS to argue against it.
Update: OK Folks, we’re done. Unless you have something to say that hasn’t been said, which includes almost all points of view on the real estate market, views on the writers of Rain City Guide or the writers and commenters at Seattle Bubble, and views on the intelligence or lack thereof of nearly everyone in the United States, lets move on. Do someting that makes you happy (and please, no comments about duking it out on a blog making you happy!). Please, no cheers, no jeers. Seriously. Move on.