As 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!
On 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.
Forbes 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!
[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!) 🙂
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.
Have 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
Have 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.
A Sunset Hill local has decided to run a triathlon (26 miles running, 26 miles biking and 1 mile swimming) in honor of her friend and to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She recently set up a blog where you can learn more about her training and donate to the cause:
GoJeanGo
[photopress:new_ballard_library.gif,thumb,alignright]The ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library is getting ready to open! The latest from the library’s website says that it will be open May 12th 14th!
By the way, this does mean that we will be without a local library for a month as the existing site will close on April 10th.
Update: there is quite a celebration planned for this Saturday!
Map:
INSERT_YAHOO_MAP
Appropriate 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.