Category Archives: Seattle

Are you looking for information regarding life in Seattle? We’ve got tons of information on this site, and we invite you to read any of the articles below. And if you’re thinking of moving to Seattle, we’ve got one extremely popular post (literally hundreds of questions have been asked and answered) on this post about 10 things you should know before moving to Seattle.

However, if you’ve got an immediate question that we’re not answering, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the authors on the site. We’re all really nice people (I promise!) and love to answer your questions!

Seattle Tilth’s Harvest Fair on Sept 10th

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kid gardeningThe Seattle Tilth is a group that “inspires and educates people to garden organically, conserve natural resources and support local food systems in order to cultivate a healthy urban environment and community.” This weekend (September 10) they will be hosting the 2005 Harvest Fair in Meridian Park (in the Wallingford Neighborhood). Here’s a map of the park. The festival will include tomato tasting, backyard garden harvest, garden demonstrations, music and more.

Did you know you can raise chickens in Seattle? Seattle Tilth teaches a course on raising city chickens.

Hurricane Katrina affects us all…

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The devastation related to Katrina is so overpowering that is has taken away my motivation to write about real estate… With that in mind, I’m going to take off my real estate cap and write about some of my observations as a transportation planner having worked on homeland security projects…

As you may know, I (Dustin, Anna’s husband) work by day as a transportation planner for a consulting firm in Seattle. One of my current projects is to help the City of Seattle prepare detour routing plans should the City experience a terrorist event. Among other things, my work has involved developing a graphical information system (GIS) tool for the City that would allow them to quickly prepare detour routing plans (such as which streets to close, where to place detour signs, how to re-time signals, etc.). This work has lead me to many discussions in the past few months on what could/should be done in Seattle should a major event occur here… I mention all of this because I know that my background clouds my current view of the government’s response to Katrina.

As I’ve watched the situation in New Orleans deteriorate over the last few days (only to finally show some signs of hope today!), I can’t help but think about a story that was told to me by the City of Seattle’s emergency response coordinator. He was at a conference recently where emergency response personnel from the Israeli government were discussing how they respond to suicide bombings. He was shocked to learn that the Israeli government has a policy of returning the situation back to normal within four hours of a bombing. This includes not only completing the police investigation, but also cleaning up the scene. In the United States, we’d still be waiting for investigators to arrive at the scene after four hours and no where near cleaning the mess up. My guess is that if a small backpack bomb was detonated in Seattle, things would not return to normal for days, if not weeks. What’s the relevance to Katrina? We are fortunate in the US to not have all that much experience with major disasters.

Along these lines, people are excellent at lulling themselves into complacency because their past “dances with fate” turned out okay. (Richard Feynman writes an excellent example of this in his investigation into the Reliability of the Challenger Shuttle). In other words, I think that the fact that many hurricanes have come and gone without causing such large-scale damage lulled people at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into thinking that their time was better spent worrying about terrorists events than natural disasters. (Fred Kaplan at Slate has more on the priorities of the DHS). My ramblings are not meant to excuse the inadequacy of the federal government’s response, but rather to highlight that no amount of training exercises will ever replace experience in dealing with major disasters.

Before I end this post, I feel I must mention that I’ve been in contact with real estate agents from both the real estate blog squad and the KW Cares who are looking to make a large impact in helping hurricane victims. I’m committed to working with both of these groups to provide long-term help to the thousands of people who have been displaced.

  • Are you a Puget Sound resident interested in working with me to organize an event to help hurricane victims?
  • Do you already have an event organized?

Email me if you would like to coordinate efforts.

In the mean time, money donations to the Red Cross make a huge difference.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times has lots of information on how to get involved locally.

More real estate mapping: MLS Maps Online

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South Lake UnionThanks to a tip from a reader, I found out about a new home search site (MLS search) that is worth highlighting:
http://www.mlsmapsonline.com

The site uses Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology to plot MLS listings. The idea is great, but the implementation is definitely lacking some key features. For starters, if you are a Firefox user (like me), you’ll be presented with this message when entering the site:

“We’re sorry. MLSMapsOnline.com is an IE only application. Please download the latest version of Internet Explorer to continue to this website.”

What a bummer! I’m surprised that people still write programs that only work with IE. Under most circumstances, I just ignore sites that don’t support Firefox, but in this case, my curiosity for new map-related MLS searching was greater than my dislike of IE. By the way, don’t even bother to try to view this site with a Mac, I had to use my work computer (as oppose to my home computer) just to test-drive the site!. Now that I’ve acknowledged this major drawback, I’ll move on with my review…

Some things I like:

  • The mixing of flash technology and Microsoft’s mapping technology makes for some really smooth visual searching. It is extremely intuitive to navigate the site. The future of home search is definitely visual, and this site is getting us one step closer.
  • The ability to search by “Listed Date“. The rest of the search controls will be pretty familiar to anyone who has used an MLS search.
  • The ability to log-in and save search results is nice, especially since they do not require it to use the site.

Some things I dislike:

  • It is worth repeating that an IE-only tool is really pathetic, especially when it doesn’t even work on the IE version for a mac!
  • The site design really encourages the user to define a city and/or county to search, when the best way to get to an interesting area would be to zoom in on that city. In other words, if I’m searching for homes in north Seattle, why limit me to the city limits. If I scroll north of Seattle, I want to see the homes that are for sale in Shoreline.
  • The search options are pretty minimal. A user should have access to more advanced search options.

At this point in time, it is one of the better home search options for people in the State of Washington (assuming you’re working on a PC and willing to use IE). However, I happen to know that there are a few more MLS search sites that will come on-line soon that will be using similar technology, but won’t have as many of the limitations. The layout they’ve created is not all that different from the standard MLS search and would be pretty easy to duplicate, which leaves me still waiting for a break-out search site.

It’s worth repeating that I’m definitely interested in hearing about more of these technologies. (I find this topic much more interesting than bubble talk 🙂 ) If you know of another interesting home search site available for Seattle residents, I’d love to hear about it!

UPDATE:
1) MLSMapsOnline went live with a version that works well with Firefox! (that was a really fast update!)
2) The VP of Technology for Windemere emailed me to let me know that Windemere also offers a map for viewing homes for sale via their PropertyPoint software. I’ve played around with their mapping software before and it definitely impressed me a year or two ago when it came out. However, I’m pretty sure they are using an ESRI ArcServer backend and that technology seems dated. I definitely think that the future is in running a backend using Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. Besides being extremely expensive to run, ESRI server-side software is way too difficult to implement for there to be much innovation using this software. Leave it to the big companies (like Windemere) and governments (like MTC) to run ESRI software, while the rest of us take advantage of the mapping wars that the big internet companies are waging!

Real estate and coffee… It’s so obvious in retrospect

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All Seattle real estate agents should be holding our heads down in shame today as we let a company out of Jackson, Mississippi Michigan open a the world’s first real estate cafe.

It seems so obvious in retrospect! I imagine just about every agent in Seattle has had at least one meeting with a client in a coffee shop (heck, many of us run our entire operations out of coffee shops!), but none of us ever took the initiative to open up a cafe devoted to the real estate arts!

By the way, if there are any Starbuck executives reading my blog, I just thought I’d let you know I’d be willing to discuss ways of teaming on a real estate cafe venture! You guys have been focusing too much on music lately… There’s definitely more money in real estate!

Story via Inman News.

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UPDATE: One of my readers has been kind enough to let me know that this is not the world’s first real estate cafe, as as a matter of fact, Bill Wendel out of Cambridge, MA has been hosting a real estate cafe since 1995. None the less, my offer to Starbucks executives still holds!

Some tips on selecting a listing agent

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[photopress:View_of_Patio_1.JPG,thumb,alignright]Today’s topic is inspired by a woman I ran into at an open house. The woman was going through a divorce and wanted to sell her home quickly. A nearby home had recently been sold quickly, so she contacted that real estate agent (who sent her a helpful postcard!) and she quickly listed her home with this agent. So far, so good… right? Wrong!

What’s wrong with this story? Well, first off, the home owner only talked with one agent and didn’t really interview him to find out what type of service he would provide. It turns out that this particular agent does a horrible job marketing everything but the “after sale” postcards where he announces to all the neighbors that he just sold a nearby home! The photos he took of the home were unflattering (and it was a beautiful home!). The brochures he created were very generic and photocopied (to save money!). And this was for a $400K home! No wonder some people are frustrated with the commissions of real estate agents!

Anyway, this wasn’t meant to be a rant on any particular agent, the idea behind this post was to give some concrete ideas on how you should go about selecting an agent. First off, yesterday I ranted about how home buyers should ALWAYS get more than one quote from a mortgage broker. (I’m sure my broker friends hate me for giving out advice like that!). Today, I’m going to turn the tables on myself. Home owners should ALWAYS interview more than one real estate agent before listing their home!

What difference does it make? Well, there are about as many styles of agents as there are agents. And at the end of the day, you really want to find an agent who is going to meet your goals. What might your goals be? One goal might be to maximize the amount of money you can sell your home for. Another goal might be to ensure that the new home owners are decent people. A third goal might be that you want a really fast transaction. Ideally, you’ll find an agent who will help you define your goals and then go out and beat them.

So, now that we’ve all agreed that it is worthwhile to interview more than one agent (everyone’s on board right?), what types of questions should you ask? In a previous post, I listed 10 good questions for sellers to ask a real estate agent along with some background on why the questions were important. The questions are summarized here:

      1. How long have you worked full time in real estate?
      2. Do you have a personal assistant, team, or staff to handle different parts of the sales transaction?
      3. Do you and/or your company each have a website that will provide me with useful information for research, services, and how you work with buyers?
      4. How will you keep in contact with me during the buying process, and how often?
      5. Can you explain one thing that you do that other agents don’t do that ensures I’m getting top dollar for my property?
      6. Will you give me names of past clients who will give references for you?
      7. Do you have a performance guarantee?
      8. How are your fees structured? May I have that in writing?
      9. How would you develop pricing and marketing strategies for our home? Will you commit to the marketing strategy in writing?
      10. What will you do to sell my home?

[photopress:shilshole_boats.jpg,thumb,alignright]Rather than go through each question with a blow by blow with my answers, I thought I would outline my basic strategy that I give to each and every home owner. For my own benefit, I’ve broken the process into three categories. When I’m successful, all three of these steps come together to form a cohesive whole:

  • Preparing Your Home. Advice can range from “you need to bring a U-Haul truck here and remove the clutter” to “I think this room would look much better with new drapes, to “Wow! Your home looks amazing!”
  • Marketing Your Home. This is where I bring in photographers and have my design team put together color brochures, fliers, ads, webpages, and other home-specific marketing techniques. Of course, I also list the home on the MLS and open houses until the home is sold.
  • Selling Your Home. This is where we strategize on pricing the home to meet the sellers goals and maximize the price. This is also where my team performs numerous quality control checks to ensure that all the legal issues are settles.

So, to answer a more fundamental question… Why am I (as a real estate agent) advising you to interview more than one agent? I’m confident enough in my own ability to say that there is not another agent in North Seattle who can offer the market insight and quality of service that I provide. My experience has proven that when I’m given the opportunity to present my ideas for preparing, marketing and selling their home, many home owners choose to work with me!

A conversation between Seattle and NY

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sculptures two headsThe stranger had a fun article this week by Mike Daisey where he compares Seattle to New York… It’s not always flattering for Seattle (or NY), but it is definitely a lot of fun to read… There are a bunch of great lines in the article, but this paragraph is the highlight:

If I could bring New York and Seattle to the table and make them learn from each other, I’d wish that New York could pick up some of Seattle’s table manners, and Seattle’s earnest desire for things to turn out well, which is replaced in New York with snark. And in Seattle I’d point to the subway and say, “Learn from this. Consensus isn’t everything—show some spine, suck it up, and learn how to take a punch.” Then we’d have dinner together. New York would be loud and rude all night, and Seattle would say nothing, but go home and blog about New York’s behavior mercilessly and anonymously.

How Risky is the Seattle market?

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Sasha getting ready to jumpA national mortgage company, PMI Group, recently came out with a real interesting study that lists the riskiest housing markets in the US. Interestingly the Seattle market ranked #45 out of 50 largest housing markets and it is the only west coast city that ranks in the bottom 10 riskiest areas. Here’s what they had to say about Seattle:

Seattle, WA has also seen its risk decline considerable. It is now the only West Coast MSA among the ranking’s bottom 10. Employment in the metropolitan division is still down by 80,000, or more than 5%, from its peak in the late 2000, but the labor market is gaining momentum with a growing service sector and information industry. The area’s homes have gained 11% in the market value in the last four quarters, while its Market Risk Index value dropped from 84 to 64.

Digging into the report, it says the risk index uses “information on past house price growth and variables measuring employment and unemployment, as well as local income measures and interest rates.” It’s always good to get some positive numbers on our local market!

Considering how much home prices have gone up recently in the Seattle market, I was surprised at the results of this study… None the less, it is pleasing to read that the area’s economics are so deathly as to dwarf the risk of the higher home prices (at least compared to other cities in the US!).

(via Dean Foust at Hot Property)

UPDATE:
CNN picked the story up today and mentions that Seattle home owners can breathe easy knowing that the Seattle market ranked the safest (least riskiest!) in the West.

housing price equals land price + constructions costs plus reasonable profit + mystery component

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[photopress:fire.jpg,thumb,alignright]Slate commentator Steven E. Landsburg ran a great article today with an economists view of high housing prices… I’m very fond of his equation:

  • housing price equals land price + constructions costs plus reasonable profit + mystery component

From an economist point of view, the housing prices seem unreasonable unless you try to quantify the “mystery component” that causes the value of some locations to be so much greater than others… Steven thinks he’s found this mystery component in the “permitting and zoning process”.

When you buy a house, you’re not just paying for the land and construction costs; you’re also paying for a building permit and other costs of compliance. You’ve got to get the permits, pass the zoning and historic preservation boards, ace the environmental impact statement, win over the neighborhood commission, etc.

Instead of blaming a housing price bubble, “it’s ever-expanding zoning laws that get in the way. If you want to lower prices, that’s the bubble you’ve got to burst.”

I really like this view of things as it gives an interesting insight to the high price of homes in desirable cities. However, it begs for a follow up question that is beyond the scope of an economist. If we could, would we want to change zoning laws to keep the price of homes down?

In reality, these zoning laws are quite useful in helping to attract the right kind of development that keeps many of these urban neighborhoods “livable”. The result is higher prices for homes in desirable urban cities like San Francisco (and to a lesser extent Seattle). Is that so bad?

If you’re interested in some more on this topic, City Comforts had an related discussion of how new development are not causing the high prices in Seattle.

What is Zillow up to?

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beach homeI’ve been following a Seattle-based real estate start-up ever since someone left a comment on my site a month ago… So far the details are very limited, but a recent press release (via Seattle Property News), indicates that Zillow has recently added some very impressive names to their board. These include:

  • The former Chief Executive Officer of Expedia, Inc., Erik Blachford was most recently CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s travel division, including online travel businesses Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Classic Custom Vacations and Interval International. Erik is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
  • Currently President and Chief Financial Officer of Oracle, Greg Maffei has also served as CFO of Microsoft Corp. Most recently, Greg was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 360networks Corp. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.
  • Gordon Stephenson is the co-founder and Managing Broker of Real Property Associates (RPA), one of the largest independent real estate brokerages in the Northwest. He oversees more than 40 agents and brokers in their sales activities, and continues to personally represent buyers and sellers. Prior to founding RPA in 1991, Gordon was a Seattle-based Associate Broker with both Prudential MacPhersons and Windermere Real Estate. He is a graduate of Stanford University, with a Bachelor of Arts (AB) in Economics.

Want more? Here are some of my notes with links:

UPDATE:
David Chase seems pretty impressed with the addition of Gordon Stephenson to the Zillow Board. “The lack of knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of the real estate market was a key issue that I thought would impair them (Zillow) — it looks like they are starting to plug that gap.”

What to look for in your first real estate company

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houseI read a great post the other day about a woman who is looking to become a real estate agent. This inspired me to think of what type of advice would I like to give to aspiring agents, and I’ve come up with these six things to consider in a real estate agency:

1) Broker Compentition. In general, be weary of firms where your broker also acts as an agent. There is enough compentition in the industry so that you shouldn’t have to compete with your broker for a listing.

2) Training. Just about every company will market their wonderful and unique training opertunities. Get the details. Are their classes offered in your office or do you have to travel far? Who’s teaching the classes? How much do they cost? The best real estate agent are always learning new things.

3) Office fees and commission structure. In general, there is a trade off with most agencies. Sometimes the monthy fees are high, but you get to keep a much larger portion of your commission. Other companies have low monthly fees, but take a larger portion of your commissions. Along these lines, office fees might very anywhere from $50 to $1000 for a month. Also, make sure you ask about all the fees. Is there a cost to use the office supplies, like copy machine or fax machines?

4) Office atmosphere. Are there experienced agents around who can give you advice and help you if needed? There will probably be times when your broker will be unavailable… Is there someone else to help you out?

5) Location. Is the office near your home, so you can get there on short notice? Is the office close to the market you want to concentrate on? Is it convenient for your clients?

6) Successful agents. Also know that when you begin, a great way to get clients is by doing open houses. Being part of an office with lots of succesful agents can mean that you can host their open houses when they are too busy. Are their lots of successful agents in the office?

Most importantly, make sure you interview a bunch of real estate companies. Just about every agency has a different feel to it. Interview enough and you are sure to find a company that will suit you. If you are interested in interviewing with Keller Williams, let me know and I can introduce you to the appropriate people!

To help you along, I’ve compiled this list (almost entirely compiled by Seattle Property News with just a few additions by me) that lists the residential real estate agencies in Seattle. The list is not exhaustive, but does include most of the companies that have practicing agents.

If you want to find agents, instead of agencies, the google directory provide a pretty comprehensive list of agents with websites.