Category Archives: Seattle Community Guide

Seattle Neighborhood Round-Up

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The weather is warming and so are the Seattle neighborhoods….

Issaquah Undressed asks: 50 to 80 in a day?   More changes happening on Beach Drive Blog.

Get your “Spring Cleaning” in gear for CHS Capitol Hill Seattle and The Garage Sale, and Miller Park Neighborhood Association announces neighborhood clean up this Saturday.

Capitol Hill Triangle and a favorite breakfast treat in a tiny cafe, and on Capitol Hill, the poster for this years’ Block Party! 

Captain Columbia City launches it’s new neighborhood personalities interviews, for more cinematic news…vote for your favorite “Movies on the Wall” at West Seattle Blog.   

Blogging Georgetown and the annual Georgetown Art and Garden Walk and Mid Beacon Hill is covering Georgetown and uncovering a new mural. 

It’s Farmers Market time again at Kirkland Weblog, and at the Outer limits: The Lake City Blog the Farmers Market is relocating. 

Broadway Seattle  bikes Broadway… The Wedgewood Blog … and the Rock Walk.   

Atop the Top: Queen Anne Highlights points out that a person can always learn something new about their neighborhood. Cosmo Seattle and new info on Denny Park. 

Pondering Fame and Infamy at One A Day -Mostly Seattle and lastly…Breaking News on Ballard Avenue!

Best Pizza Delivery in Seattle

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Nov5eable 129

Hands down…Pagliacci. Do you have another favorite? I’d love to hear it. My “standby” is the Brooklyn Bridge…however the “seasonals” are a treat…The pizza in the photo is the current seasonal: Salumi’s finocchiona salami, Mama Lil’s goathorn peppers, roasted fennel, mozzarella and ricotta cheese on an olive oil base.

Delish! Do you know of a better pizza delivered to your door in Seattle? Bring it!

Tweet tweet

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So far, we have Jeff, Joel, Jessica, Keith and Myself prepared to twitter the NAR 2007. Follow along, or better yet tweet with us, at Jeff’s summary site: NAR Updates.

And I’m voting for using “NAR2007” (one word) as our tag on Flickr, YouTube, etc. Use it and you’ll make it easy for us to find your stuff! 🙂

Famous Real Estate Agent Found Dead

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Linda Stein, a New York real estate known as “broker to the stars,” was found dead, apparently bludgeoned to death in her Manhattan apartment.

[photopress:Linda_Stein.jpg,thumb,alignright]Her body was found on Tuesday by her daughter but the cause of death was not confirmed until an autopsy Wednesday. Linda lived by herself. The building featured heavy security and there was no sign of forced entry or robbery. Reports say that all people entering the building use the elevator and there is an elevator operator. Officials have not announced any motives or suspects in the case.

Linda was the ex-wife of Seymour Stein, former president of Sire Records, which was the launching pad for the Ramones, Talking Heads and Madonna.

Before real estate Stein was a pivotal figure in the early New York punk scene, co-managing the Ramones with Danny Fields, and was a friend to David Bowie, Talking Heads, The B-52s and Madonna as wife of Sire Records founder Seymour Stein.

Her career continued into the world of expensive real estate, as she brokered property deals for stars like Sting, Billy Joel, Harrison Ford, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, LaToya Jackson, Sylvester Stallone and Andrew Lloyd Webber, amongst others.

For many local Seattle-area agents this brings up painful memories of Windermere agent Michael Emert who was murdered in January 2001 in a Woodinville home listed for sale. Mr. Emert was showing the home or previewing it for a buyer at the time of his murder. Mr. Emert’s body was found by the seller, who is represented by another real estate firm and was a stranger to Mr. Emert. Police believe that Mr. Emert’s late-model Cadillac SUV was taken by the perpetrator and later abandoned in Kirkland. As far as I know this murder was never solved. But it caused a major change in many agents behavior when meeting prospective clients and help inspire SKAR‘s (Seattle-King County Association of Realtors) “Safety Week

How walkable is your neighborhood?

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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. 

Rules for Rain City Guide Contributors

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I’ve never been one for rules, but in preparing to take on a new RCG contributor, I thought it might be a good time to articulate some of the informal rules that we seem to have developed on the site in order to bring together such an interesting crew (often with competing interests!) 🙂

But first… Let’s be clear that there are no formal rules. And I definitely enjoy watching contributors “break” the unwritten rules because they almost always get immediate (and rarely pleasant) feedback from the community.

Here are the only two “rules” that come to mind:

  1. If you are going to attack something… attack ideas, not people. (i.e. “your idea sucks”… not “you suck”)
  2. Avoid obvious self-promotion.

The first rule is just a modified version of a rule from my mother with regards to the way I needed to treat my little sisters… (I was allowed to say to them “you did a bad thing”… but never “you are a bad person”). It’s pretty simple advice that I inevitably regret when I forget to obey.

An interesting related piece of advice from my mother is that I was never allowed to say “no” to my younger sisters, but rather I always had to say “instead”, as in “instead of playing with that, here is a toy you’ll find interesting.” Combine those two bits of advice and you get the essence of good blogging: Passionate challenging of ideas while providing interesting solutions.

The second rule is much more art than science and I can’t blame new bloggers for crossing the line on this too often. Obvious self-promotion looks bad and is an real turn-off for most consumers. I’m a huge believer in treating my readers like they are intelligent and savvy enough to know that the typical professional is blogging in order to earn business. If the consumer likes your attitude and style, they will choose you when looking for an professional without the need to constantly prompt them. One of the reasons I put all the contact information for active contributors on the sidepanel is because I think it is classier if I do the promotion for the contributors than if they try to do it for themselves… 😉

By the way, one trick I recommend for new real estate agents to help stay away from the self-promotion angle is to make sure there is always at least one link in their posts that references an idea of someone else. The link could be to a news article, but preferably it is another blog post. (A ton of credit for promoting this idea goes to Greg as I’m not sure I would have realized this advice was novel without his encouragement…)

Linking does two things: 1) It adds credibility to your post because it demonstrates that you’re knowledgeable and follow many different real estate discussions and 2) it ensures that you’re part of the larger “real estate” conversation on the web.

This seems like a great topic to turn back on the community. Are these two “rules” sufficient to run a community? Are there other “rules” I encourage/enforce without realizing it? I would definitely enjoy everyone’s feedback! (but remember to attack my ideas and not me or I’ll delete your comment! LOL!)

UPDATE
Rhonda reminded me of a third “rule” I advice to new bloggers. I also request that contributors DO NOT post the same article on their blogs. This has two purposes: 1) It helps ensure that the articles they are writing are relevant to the RCG audience and 2) the duplicate posts are extremely bad SEO for the contributor’s website (There’s a long history behind this as more than one RCG contributor has temporarily lost all Google traffic to their personal blog after republishing all their RCG articles… The search engines, and Google in particular, hate this duplicate content and end up temporarily banning the agent’s site).

Historic Photos of Your Seattle Home

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Did you know that if your home was built prior to 1930, there may be a photo of it in the State Achieves that you can obtain?

It takes a couple weeks to receive the photo and for a few cents extra, you can order the records that they [photopress:prince.JPG,thumb,alignright]have available from that time.    The black and white photo is from 1939 of the property which was built in 1927.   The color photo is a current picture of the home.

To order a photo of your home from the Puget Sound Achieves, click here to send an email.   You will need to provide:

  • Property address
  • Tax Parcel Number (I can help you find this if you don’t have this handy)
  • Legal Description (lot/block…they just want a brief one)
  • Your name and contact info

You can order anything from a 5×7 for $17.00 to a 16×20 for $55.00.   They will let you know what years are available.  It’s kind of fun to frame the older photos or to at least have them on hand.

Rich Barton of Zillow talks at Northwest Entrepreneur Network on Friday

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Just a quick note to let you know that Rich Barton of Zillow and Expedia will be talking at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network on Friday morning. Here’s the link for anyone who wants to check it out: http://www.nwen.org/calendar/regbreakfast.htm

Note that you have to get up before breakfast for these meetings 🙂

See you there.

10 Things You Should Know Before Moving to Seattle

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Where do you find inspiration?

Out of all the places to find inspiration for a blog post, my current favorite is deep within the RCG stats where I can find the search terms that people use to reach this site. Today, someone came to RCG looking for: [things+you+should+know+before+moving+to+Seattle], and while we likely disappointed that particular visitor, I would like to make amends by offering up this list of ten things you should know before moving to Seattle:

rain in Seattle1) It rains.

2) No really, it rains a lot here. Despite what they say about it raining more in Atlanta, Boston, or D.C., the rain in Seattle can be like a slow trickle that never turns off. But the rain is okay… really… because one day… some day… it stops. And on those first few warm, sunny spring days, all of life is good in a way that Californians will never understand (unless they move to Seattle).

3) Seattle isn’t always comfortable being a high-tech town. Sure we design operating systems, sell stuff online, try to appraise every home in America and stream lots of music and movies, but a substantial portion of the population relates much more to the art of building airplanes.

4) Consensus Rules. Just agree with me on this one or I’ll never be able to get to #5.

5) Traffic Rules. People in Seattle talk a lot more about traffic than the weather. Depending on where you are moving from, traffic will either be horrible or a non-issue. Most blue-state people will laugh at Seattle traffic because you can normally get between any two points in the City in under a half-hour at all times of the day. Red-state people see the parking lot known as SR 520 and wonder why we haven’t build another bridge yet (see #4 for a hint at the answer).

6) Seattle is not that big. We have all the stuff associated with life in a major city: Theaters, traffic, ballets, sports teams, traffic, skyscrapers, music, etc., but you really don’t have to travel far to feel like you are in rural America.

7) Seattle is closer to Asia than Mexico. If one of the staples of your diet consists of cheap and tasty Mexican food, then you will eventually replace that staple with Pho. The sooner you accept this (and the sooner you stop saying “The Mexican food is so much better in California”), the sooner Seattleites will let you know about the good Asian restaurants. (And by the way, since we’re talking about good food, I feel obliged to mention that the Mexican food I remember growing up with in California was so much better than anything you can find in Seattle…)

8) The intersection of NE 50th St and 40th Ave NE is about a mile away from 50th Ave NE and NE 40th St. In the Seattle area, all the street names are numbered and given one of nine directions (NW, N, NE, SW, S, SE, E, W or blank). The numbers begin at 1 in downtown Seattle and radiate out wards. The directions also radiate out, but are city specific, unless, of course, they aren’t… Like at the intersection of 244th St SW, 100th Ave W, N 205th St and 8th Ave NW. There is logic to the entire street system and if you live here long enough, you will understand. Until then, you will be confused and miss appointments, meetings, birthdays, etc.. On a related real estate note, if you are new to Seattle, do not attempt to search for a home without a real estate agent. The street system was designed by a committee of real estate agents who wanted to ensure that you need their help to locate a home. 😉 Also on a related note, Redfin has proposed new street names (featuring real names) for all streets in a effort to ensure the viability of their business model, but at this point, they are still very far from getting consensus on their proposed naming convention.

9) Paul Allen.

10) Despite what you might have read in Wired, Fremont is the Center of the Universe.

Have I covered everything?

Walkable neighborhood: Capitol Hill

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I’m going to vote for 15th Avenue, home of the Victrola, Seattle’s best bagels (at the creatively named Bagel Deli), mediocre or dive bars, and Seattle’s crummiest QFC as one of Seattle’s most walkable neighborhoods. Trader Joe’s and 2 organic food stores are within 8 blocks, Safeway is right across from Swedish Medical Center and, most importantly for a walkable neighborhood, one can walk right out into the street without fear because there are so many pedestrians that they almost mingle with the slow moving bikes, cars, and buses – an accidental implementation of an unconventional “traffic calming” idea that I love. Dustin can definitely tell you more about this if you’re curious.

As the Seattle Times once pointed out, Seattle could definitely do a better job embracing car alternatives I propose street living rooms. And maybe more mass transit.

I also like the art at the Victrola right now:
Art at the Victrola in January 2006.

Throw your walkable neighborhood review in the comments and we’ll see what we can do to get a list of the best and the worst neighborhoods for walking.

-Galen
ShackPrices.com