Category Archives: General

Cutthroat Competition of Online Brokers Benefits Consumers

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Cutthroat CompetitionA recent study showed that on-line brokers had an extremely high costumer satisfaction levels:

With an average reliability of 99.5 percent, the brokerage industry’s Web site service levels far exceed other industries, Keynote found. In addition, pages that take more than one and a half seconds to download–a time considered first-rate by other online industries–fell well below the standards currently being set by online brokerages.

Have you used an on-line broker? (I have!) I’d be interested in hearing about your experience. Was their service as good as this survey suggests?

Thanks to Garrett French for the background info…

Seattle ranked as one of the healthiest cities

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swimmersWith all the great bike and pedestrian trails around, I don’t think it would surprise most locals to find out that Seattle ranked #4 in a list of the country’s healthiest cities:

The Seattle metro area had the study’s best scores in the areas of physical activity and lifestyle pursuits. Respondents here reported the highest level of vigorous exercise. Seattlites had high rates of diabetes, hypertension and, yes, sleeplessness.

Another great reason to live in Seattle!

Can things keep going up in Seattle? A Bay Area story…

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[photopress:riley_in_SF.jpg,thumb,alignright]I just thought I would try to put the high prices of the Seattle market in perspective based on a story from a friend of mine from the Bay Area…

This friend (and his wife) moved from Texas to the Bay Area about four years ago. They began by renting, but really wanted to buy a home. After about a year, they were able to buy a home, but they had to move out about an hour away from San Francisco because it was the only way they afford a home due to the ridiculously high prices. Back then (four years ago), the talk of the town from turning from the recent dot-com bust to a coming real estate bust. Well, they purchased a 1,400 sf home in Bay Point (right outside of Pittsburg) for around $310K.

Fast forward to three years later… They are ready to move back to Dallas to be closer to their family. They put their home on the market and receive multiple offers, the best offer at $530K. Take out real estate fees and what-not, and they are poised to make almost $200K in less than three years… In addition, they’ve also bought a home in Dallas for $250K which means that they can use their profits to either lower their mortgage to near nothing, or have a lot of money in the bank to invest.

This young family (both are under 30) has a leg-up for life thanks to one good investment decision. They bought a house.

Of course, it is unlikely that home prices in other places (like Seattle) will continue to see the same time of appreciation, but as the article from the Seattle Times suggests, the lack of housing supply in Seattle is probably going to be around for a long time to come.

Tips for home sale preparation.

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deck The Seattle Times just listed some home preparation ideas worth reading:

Don’t make radical changes without careful consideration…

Talk with a real-estate agent to find out whether major changes should be considered. If it’s something your home desperately needs — a new roof or new exterior paint job, for example — it might be worthwhile…

Maximize curb appeal.This is the impression made by your home when a potential buyer arrives to see it for the first time. That initial impression is worth a great deal. If a home is even halfway decent inside, a good curb-appeal impression will help it sell itself.

Here are some ways to generate better curb appeal:

  • Repair any cracks in the driveway or walkway and resurface if necessary.
  • Keep the landscaping clean and neat.
  • Make sure the home looks freshly painted.
  • Keep the garage doors closed when potential buyers visit.
  • Make sure garbage cans and other paraphernalia are out of sight.

…

Clear the clutter to make the inside of your home look as big as possible…

Speaking of smells, use them to your advantage. Have a small bowl of vanilla warming in the oven or a slow cooker of apple cider brewing and a fresh batch of chocolate-chip cookies baking.

Home equity

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living room 01The Seattle Times had an interesting article regarding home equity building rapidly in our fast moving real estate market and investors using home equity to make more speculative investments:

According to Economy.com, Americans pulled out roughly $705 billion of equity from their homes last year, up from $266 billion in 1999.

The bulk of that money came from capital gains made by people selling houses, and these profits often are used to purchase another residence.

Many people also use some of the extracted cash to pay off credit-card debt, which is widely viewed as a sensible way to use equity. Another large chunk of the equity withdrawn goes into home improvements. Spending on such projects totaled $138.3 billion last year, up 38 percent from five years before, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Bus Monster! WOW!

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bus monsterI just ran across the best google map hack yet:
Seattle Bus Monster

and the more I browse the site, the more impressed I am.

Some of the things to notice:

  • real time bus location information with estimated arrival times!
  • real time traffic cameras
  • bus stop information
  • the ability to search for a bus top and/or route
  • route markers drawn over google maps!

Everything about the site is professionally done. For example, try typing in “2nd and Spring” when searching for “bus stops”. The site will return all the 2nd and spring locations in King county!

Play around and I think you will find that Chris Smoak has made the life of Seattle transit commuters MUCH easier.

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

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Tulips As a test for a new little program I wrote to post things on Google Maps, I’ve put a map together displaying all the Farmers’ Markets in Seattle. In order to do this, I cribbed heavily from a few websites such as metroblogging and the Neighborhood Farmers’ Market Alliance .

The farmers’ markets current being displayed include:

  • Pike Place Market
  • Ballard Farmers’ Market
  • Broadway Farmers’ Market
  • Capital Hill Farmers’ Market
  • Columbia City Farmers’ Market
  • Fremont Market
  • Lake City Farmers’ Market
  • Magnolia Farmers’ Market
  • University District Farmers’ Market
  • West Seattle Farmers’ Market

If you know of some other farmers’ markets that should be included or some data that needs to be updated, just let me know.

By the way, I also made my first google maps “marker” for this site. If you look closely, you may notice that the marker is a tulip based on the flower in the center of the above photo.

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

Where are the sellers?

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Richard and Alice on a BikeThe Seattle Times highlights the fact that there are fewer sellers in the Seattle Market than last year:

According to May statistics released yesterday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the number of available King County houses and condominiums was off by 31 percent compared with a year ago.

The reason?
I’d tend to agree with Judy Hay’s assessment from the article that:

The lack of inventory is at least partially the result of a shift in homeowners’ thinking. A year and a half ago, she says, they were trading homes simply because they wanted something else. Not now.

Unless there is some reason to move, they’re not doing it. They’ve refinanced and they’re saying, ‘Let’s remodel and stay where we’re at.’

The lack of sellers is all the more surprising considering the median home price in Seattle has risen 17% in the past year.

It seems to me that trying to time the market (whether real estate or stocks) is a game that should be left to the professionals! However, it is just common sense that Seattle home owners even remotely considering selling their home should talk to a real estate agent to find out how much their home would probably fetch on the open market. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to provide a free home valuation report.

King County Home Appreciation

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AppreciationThe Seattle Times put together an informative graphic that illustrates homes home appreciated by neighborhood between 2003 and 2004. No surprise in that every single neighborhood in King County experienced increase values:

Thanks to low interest rates, last year was a record-breaker that saw 31,333 single-family home sales and 9.8 percent appreciation on a per-square-foot basis. That’s the highest since 1999 and well above 2003’s 4.2 percent. But one thing remained constant: Appreciation varied greatly among neighborhoods, ranging from 31.6 percent in Newport Shores and Kennydale to 3.2 percent in Lake Youngs, between Kent and Renton.

The top five neighborhoods in terms of appreciation were Newport Shores/Kennydale (31.6%), South Central West Seattle (22.7%), Madison Park (22.6%), West Shoreline (17.1%), and East Ballard (15.1%).