Category Archives: Diversions

Fun things I’ve found around the internet!

Home Data Overload

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purple tullipsIn organizing the data for gHomes, I’ve inadvertently created a treasure chest full of home sale (and sold) information. For example, with only a few minutes of extra coding I put two tables together. The first list the average list price of homes by zip code, while the second lists the average list price by year built and number of bedrooms for the same set of cities.

The hardest part of putting tables like this together is information overload. There is so much information available that simplifying the data down to digestible amounts can be tough. Is data like this of any interest to you? Is there some other housing characteristic you’d like to see? If there is ANY interest in tables like this, I will happily output them on a regular basis.

Here is some major caveats with the data:
1) The tables use the average list price (not sale price!!!) so don’t expect this data to give you an accurate value for your home. If you want an accurate comparative market analysis done for your home, ask me. I’ve got all the right data and I’ll happily give you one for free! (my free offer even extends to FSBOs!)
2) When you see bad data points (like zipcodes that are incomplete), that is a result of an agent (hopefully not myself) entering in the data wrong in the MLS system.
3) There are a bunch of anomalies where prices jump from one cell to another. Remember that the data is an average, and that sometimes, the average is only over a few (like one or two) data points.

Norwegian Constitution Day

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[photopress:costumes_1.jpg,thumb,alignright]The Norwegian Constitution Day parade is going on tomorrow, May 17, in Ballard!

The official Syttende Mai site gives the meaning behind the day along with a list of events. For more info, check out the wikipedia entry.

The Seattle Times describes the event as “One of the largest May 17 parades in the United States begins at 6 p.m. tomorrow at 24th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 62nd streets in downtown Ballard. It winds through the business district, ending at Ballard Avenue Northwest.”

The highlights from the list of events include:
Lunch
Eat excellent food and listen to important speakers.
Time:
12:00pm (Noon) to 2:00pm
Location:
Leif Erikson Hall, 2245 NW 57th Street

Parade
The parade starts at 6 p.m. near Adams School in Ballard, at the corner of NW 62nd and 24th Avenue NW. The route follows south to Market Street and eastward to Bergen Place, which is named after the Seattle Sister City of Bergen, Norway.
Time:
6:00pm to 8:00pm

Bergen Place
Entertainment featuring music and dance from Norway and other Nordic countries.
Time:
2:30pm to 5pm
Location:
Bergen Place is located at the intersection of Market St., Leary Avenue and 22nd Avenue.

Children’s Games
Children enjoy traditional games from Norway and the United States with awards going to all who participate. A surprise guest is usually on hand to delight one and all. The games are free and open to the public.
Time:
2:00pm to 4:30pm
Location:
At the Ballard Community Center, 6020 28th Avenue NW.

Dance to Pickled Herring Band
Dance the night away…
$10 at the door. Must be 21 years of age or older.
Time:
9:00pm to 12:00am
Location:
At Leif Erikson Hall, 2245 NW 57th, No host bar.

Hope to see you there!

Put Yourself in Google’s Shoes

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Fixing the NetI found an excellent post where the author discusses the two methods for showing up high in Google search results. I agree with his conclusion that providing good content is a better (and more long lasting) approach than any attempt to “trick” the search engines. As a matter of fact, I would call that the guiding philosophy of this website. “Provide good content, and they will come!”

If you are thinking of starting a business-related website or blog, and you want to attract lots of hits to your website (why wouldn’t you?) I recommend reading this article:

Put Yourself in Google’s Shoes

The content based approach avoids all this hassle. You provide information rich pages which is what Mr Google and his searchers want. You join the synergy. Google is working for you, not trying to foil your latest trick.

Novel Billboard Ad? Is it Possible?

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Bikini AgentAs her husband, I’ve let Anna know that she is not to be influenced by this real estate agent! 🙂

Here’s the story:
The display of one Realtor’s assets draws attention in Belmont Shore.

And here’s the logic:

“It’s kind of flipped people out,” said Heath, who reported receiving almost as many calls from Realtors upset with the ad as those voicing support. “A couple of agents are having a fit about it, but that’s because they just didn’t think of it first.”

My opinion? Go Wendy!

Live Seattle Traffic Conditions on Google Maps

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Dragon in International DistrictOn this timeline of all things google maps, I found a great application that lets you view live Seattle-area traffic data over google maps:
Seattle Traffic

For other cities, use this link:
Google Traffic

In addition to gHomes, some of the things that I thought were missing from the timeline include:

Both of these are awesome applications that are pushing the boundaries of making google maps easy and useful! Mygmaps is great in that it gives an easy to use interface for publishing your own information on Google Maps while dasnet is amazing in that someone is able to take tiles (from Microsoft’s terraserver) and post them in place of the gmaps times. Considering gmaps has the great interface, and terraserver has better quality aerials, this is a great service for all of us who love having high quality aerials at our fingertips.

The Most Expensive Zip Codes 2005

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atherton homeForbes just came out with their list of the 150 most expensive zip codes in the US. I was a little surprised to see that Seattle has not yet made the list. The only two zip codes in Washington to make the list were Orcas (98280) and Medina (98039). The list is comparing the median price of a home which makes prices like $2.17 M in Santa Barbara that much more shocking! Imagine that half the homes are worth more!

So if you think that prices have gotten a little out of hand here in Seattle, at least California shows us that there is still some room on the upside for the Seattle market!

Seattle Living — U2 Concert

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[photopress:bono.jpg,thumb,alignright]I was very fortunate to get some amazing seats last night to watch the U2 concert at the Key Arena. Bono is an awesome performer who can really carry a crowd!

Why do I bring this up in my real estate blog? Because I had a true Seattle experience. Sitting in the seats next to us were Bill and Melinda Gates.

And then to top it off, I got mentioned in a CNN article today as one “of the 20,000 screaming fans” (That was the first time I’ve been mentioned on CNN to my knowledge!) 🙂

Seattle Times Home and Real Estate Section

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Moving Companies

Looking to read some more on the local real estate market? The Seattle Times has a Home and Real Estate section that provides lots of interesting information, including a section on just about every neighborhood in Seattle.

Comcast Problems

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Broken MercedesHave you been having problems with your Comcast cable service lately? I know I have… It looks like Comcast is willing to give a refund for your down time, but you have to call them up. Their customer service number is: 877-824-2288.
Here is an article regarding the issue from the Seattle Times:
The Seattle Times: Local News: Internet snag hits Comcast customers

Blog Tagging

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tagHave you ever used tagging to organize photos? Currently the photo service Flicker is huge in the blogging community because they’ve made it so easy to “tag” photos. Just recently, a blog directory (plus more) called technorati has begun to accept tags from blogs. Weinberger has a bunch more details, but what it all boils down to, is that you can now search blogs (and photos) based on the categories or “tags” that people have added to them. For example, I categorize a lot of my postings as “Ballard” (if I’m discussing something related to the area), so that now if you search Ballard you will see all the blogs that have categorized their listings as “Ballard”. This is a very hip feature that I think will get much more widely used as people learn how easy it is.