Call for Guest Bloggers

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I had a brainstorming session with a mortgage broker this afternoon and we discussed all kinds of potential uses for generating leads on the web. I mentioned that I would be interested in having guest bloggers on my site who could give opinions on their particular area of expertise. Considering I haven’t held back in giving mortgage advice, I should at least let mortgage brokers get a word or two in.

My plan is to give a forum for real estate experts (mortgage brokers, title company representatives, contractors, etc.) to post articles (“blog entries”) on a semi-regular basis. If you fit into the “real estate” industry and would be interested in posting an article every once in a while, then email me with some of your ideas and I’ll create a username/password so that you can begin.

My requirements for posting articles are simple:

1) Post informative articles. Post that simply advertise your service won’t cut it. For example, from mortgage brokers I would like to see articles that are about current events or explanations (in plain english) of mortgage terms. Like why did the long-term interest rates go down right after the Feds recently raised the prime interest rates a quarter of a point? (I’ve got lots of other ideas, if you need some, just ask me!)

2) Work in the Seattle Area.

The main benefit of blogging on my site is that you can get increased exposure without having to build a blog of your own. (I’m starting to generate a significant amount of traffic and the site is only two months old!) Maybe you’ll find that you like blogging so much, you’ll start your own at some point in the future. Either way, you are welcome to test out the technology on my site if you are willing to add good content!

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.

Discount brokers…

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[photopress:donald_playing_guitar.jpg,thumb,alignright]I had a long discussion with my grandfather this past weekend regarding the utility of full-service realtors. He’s been around quite a while, so I have no intention of dismissing his opinion on anything. Especially considering that he’s been an investor in real estate for most of his life.

He point blank asked me why anyone would use anything other than a discount broker to sell their home. He mentioned that on a typical home sale, they could easily save you a couple thousand dollars in commissions. He mentioned that if he had to sell a house, he would list with a discount broker, price it a little higher than he would be willing to accept and then negotiate to an appropriate price. For him, this strategy comes right out of a Capitalism 101 course that we all learn along the path of life… And then today, CNN mentions a related issue in one of their top stories:

The article discusses how some discount brokers are complaining that they are not getting access to the multiple listing service (MLS). I know nothing about the background of this story, but I do have an opinion on discount brokers.


My take on using a discount broker?
Discount brokers play an important role in keeping full-service real estate agents on their toes and are definitely here to stay. For some people, a discount brokerage makes a lot of sense, and will get them a fair price for their home. However, a typical discount brokerage is not going to provide the value added services that can potentially raise the value of a home substantially. What are you missing out on by using a discount firm?

  • Preparation. Home preparation (including staging, painting, gardening, and other simple improvements) can make an otherwise ordinary house extraordinary. Owners sometimes have a hard time being objective about their belongings, and an experienced real estate agent will make sure that your house house really shines.
  • Marketing. This is where a savvy real estate agent can really earn their commission. A really nice house can only sell itself if the people show up to look! A tech-savvy agent can create brochures, flyers, slideshows, websites, newspaper ads, CDs, etc, that are beyond the capability of the typical home owner.
  • Pricing. My grandfather’s comment about pricing the home a little higher than he would have liked and then negotiating down might not be the best bet in the current market conditions. I’ve found that fast moving houses seem to be selling for the most money and the fastest moving houses are the ones with LOTS of interest. The best way to get a lot of interest is to price the house a little low and let a bidding war begin. While this doesn’t work for every house, and especially houses that are truly remarkable (and therefore only appropriate for a very small subset of buyers), it does seem to be a very successful strategy for most homes in a hot seller’s market as Seattle is currently experiencing.
  • Presentation. Once again, many owners have trouble being objective about their home. When potential buyers visit, an owner is often tempted to tell stories about each room. While the stories might be great, they don’t allow potential buyers to “imagine” themselves in the home. A potential buyer is much more likely to begin imaging how things can be redecorated and personalized if an agent is showing the home.
  • Time. A well prepared, marketed and presented home takes a lot of time, and many owners simply do not have the skill and/or time to do it as well as an agent.

In the end, if you are using an agent who is just rolling through the motions, then you may do just as well to use a discount broker and sell your home yourself. However, if you find an exceptional agent, you will inevitably find that the work that they are doing and their stored up knowledge about the local market conditions will allow your home to sell for substantially more money.

Seattle Wikipedia

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Jim on GuitarAre you looking for some background information on the Seattle area? Maybe you are moving to Seattle or just want to find out more about a local neighborhoods? You could do much worse than Wikipedia.org where they have entries on all the major aspects of Seattle. Entries include the local economy, culture, polities and neighborhoods (among many other entries!). Currently, the neighborhoods with entries that are pretty comprehensive include:

Also, another group has put a Seattle Wiki together that is much more specific to the area and might be of interest to some. However, as of today, the entries are not nearly as complete as the general Wiki…

What is a Wiki?

Essentially a Wiki is a user-updated on-line encyclopedia. The sheer volume of entries and the fact that anyone can update it are both its strongest and its weakest points. There is a massive amount of interesting articles, but the editors (me and you!) are often a little biased!

Home Value Update from the Local Papers

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Daniel with BalloonBoth the Seattle Times and the PI have articles today about the continual high growth in home prices in the area:

I like this quote where Elizabeth Rhodes speculates about a possible housing bubble:

Fuel for speculation of a housing bubble — but not proof of one — increased yesterday on a report that strong buyer demand has pushed Central Puget Sound prices up 10 percent or more over last spring’s already high numbers.

I’m of the opinion that demand for homes in quality urban neighborhoods is here to stay, and while that doesn’t mean the high growth in values will last forever (it won’t), I think the high prices will…

Fantastic, spacious, and charming article on Wired regarding the real estate industry!!!

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ImagineWired News has an timely article regarding on the real estate industry and provided some examples of situations where professionals (not limited to real estate agents) might not have your best interests in mind. I think they could have taken their limited analysis of “real estate information” a step further. In reality, there is so much real estate information that gets locked up in proprietary databases at the expense of the consumer. And to add insult to injury, even this locked up data is riddled with errors.

“Information can be a beacon, or information can be a cudgel; it depends on who wields it and how. In any transaction, it’s common for one party to have better information than the other. In the parlance of economists, this is information asymmetry. There’s value in asymmetry; it’s the reason why someone, such as a consumer, will pay someone else, an expert, for his knowledge.

Of course, sometimes an expert might manipulate his advantage for his own benefit. If your doctor suggests that you have an angioplasty – even though current research suggests that angioplasty often does little to prevent heart attacks – your first thought won’t likely be that the doctor is using his informational advantage to make a few thousand dollars for himself or his buddy”

While I can’t change the industry overnight, I’m trying to do my small part with gHomes by opening up the data and presenting it in a useful way for my potential clients. Just like most industries, the real estate industry lives and dies by references and referrals. By providing the best possible information and service to my clients, I think I will more than earn my commission (and their future referrals).

gHomes — Seattle Area MLS on Google Maps

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gHomesIn my continual quest to give my clients better and more useful real estate information, I’m experimenting with posting the home sale data over Google Maps and I’ve finally got an alpha version ready for limited public consumption. There are no forms to fill out or hoops to jump through, all you have to do is click on this link:

http://www.RainCityGuide.com/gHomes/

Some notes on the the project:

  • MLS data includes all of Seattle, Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond
  • The coding is not very advanced stuff (I’m not much of a coder at all!), so be merciful in your comments!
  • The database is missing some MLS listings for a variety of reasons and is only updated once a day. Some listings are missing because the agent filled in the address wrong, while other listings are missing because the agent purposefully did not include the address (this is very common on VERY expensive listings)
  • This is meant to be a fun toy to test out the limits of what’s possible in the real estate industry. Please use it accordingly.
  • Make sure you turn on the “Satellite” view
  • The easiest way to zoom in on an area is to select and icon from that area and then use the scroll bar to zoom into it!
  • Initially, I plan to update the data on a daily basis

Other great google mapping sites include:

Improvements I’d like to make:

  • Add higher quality aerial images a la DASNET
  • Add condos
  • Provide a link to additional listing information directly from google minipages
  • Add more areas in the Puget Sound

Thank you Louis, Ken, Phil and Paul for your help and inspiration!

Of course, if you are interested in seeing any of these homes (in person!), just let me know! Enjoy!

http://www.RainCityGuide.com/gHomes/

About Rain City Real Estate Guide

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Anna Luther's Sold SignHopefully you’ve noticed that this blog is not your typical real estate web site. I’ll try to answer some of the more typical questions I get here:

What is a blog?
Blog is short for “web log” and essentially, blogs started out as on-line journals. There is no fundamental difference between a blog and a website except that blogs are designed to be updated on a regular basis, whereas a typical website is not as easy to update.

Why did I forgo my website in favor of a blog?
I’ve always wanted a way to interact more and provide more timely information to my clients. The blog gives me a simple and effective medium with which to interact with you.

Another great feature of my blog is that it can be syndicated over RSS… Rather than describe this process, the end result is that you can read updates from my site directly on your “my yahoo” or “my msn” page (among MANY other RSS readers!). To add my site simply click on either of the two links:

  • add to My Yahoo!
  • my msn

Who writes on this blog?
All the entries are written by someone on my real estate team. You might have noticed that many of the blog entries are written by Dustin. Dustin is my husband and a vital part of the team. Dustin is also famous for using the “royal I” when blogging on this site. He feels no compulsion about writing things from my perspective and we’ve been married long enough that I can’t seem to stop him. 🙂

What am I trying to accomplish with this site?
There are two markets I focus on with this site: Buyers and Sellers!

For buyers, I will continue to add current information about the local real estate market and local neighborhoods so that someone who is moving to seattle will find this website informative enough that they will contact me when they are looking for an agent in the Seattle area.

For sellers, I will continue to post information about current home values and community news so that you will consider contacting me when you are looking to sell your home in the Seattle area.

Is there something else you’d like to see on this website? Just leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do!

Commuting in Seattle

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[photopress:wroll07.jpg,thumb,alignright]I just found a nifty tool on the Washington State Department of Transportation’s website that allows you to calculate your commute time if you live in the Seattle area. If you are interested in how long it should take you to get to/from work from your potential new home, this will give you a pretty good feel of how long it will take to drive!

This got me thinking about all kinds of commute-related issues for Seattle area residents. Here is some of the commute-related info I dug up:

Trip Planner
For comparison purposes, King County Metro’s Trip Planner allows you to estimate how long it will take to commute via transit. Not only that, but the trip planner site will also tell you what routes to take!

Commute Costs
Finally, Metro also provides a commuting cost calculator that allows you to estimate the cost of driving vs the cost of commuting via transit. Of course, the calculator is biased toward convincing you to take transit, but it is none the less interesting to see all the costs of commuting.

The Future of Commuting to Downtown Seattle
My recomendation? If you are thinking of relocating to Seattle for work (and you are going to be working Downtown) then make sure that there is a convinient transit line that will get you to downtown. The daily grind of sitting in Seattle traffic will likely wear you down. Especially as traffic conditions in Downtown Seattle are likely to get much worse before they get better.

Why do I think traffic going to get worse before it gets better? There are a bunch of plans in the future to improve the transportation network in Seattle. Ten years out, things should be much improved. But until then:

  • a major highway running through downtown (Alaskan Viaduct) will need to be rebuilt
  • a monorail line will be built in Downtown along 2nd Avenue
  • the I-5 reconstruction project calls for rebuilding parts of I-5 through Downtown
  • the transit tunnel (that runs under downtown) will be closed to construct a light-rail line forcing hundreds of buses a day on to Downtown Streets
  • SR 520 will need to be rebuilt

(Dustin’s bias: As an employee of DKS Associates, I’ve been paid to do transportation consulting for three of these five projects)

Am I missing something?

The good news is that a lot of money was just allocated to pay for some of these improvements, so while there will be some down time in the near future, the long-term prospects look very good for Downtown Seattle!

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!