Tag Archives: Ballard

To Promote or Not to Promote…

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When I posted an ad for our listing masking as an advice column yesterday, I got more than a few emails from people who apparently weren’t very happy that I was linking to Redfin.

I had a reason to link to the detail page on Redfin as oppose to our own. A little birdie whispered to me that the “most viewed” home on their site for Thursday would not only be featured in emails and on their blog on Friday, but that home would also be eligible to host the first “Redfin Showing” on Saturday. I’m a sucker for extra publicity for my home and was happy to cooperate! So if you’re in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by our home between 2pm and 3pm on Saturday!

To the agents out there who are upset that I’m giving Redfin digital ink… Please feel free to suggest interesting ways to market my home as I’ve always been an equal opportunity promoter! 🙂

Our Home is Now Listed!

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And despite the fact that we may not have Ardell’s magic open house touch, we are showing it on Sunday between 12 and 3PM as described in the open house listing on Trumba.

Update:

I also created an adword campaign around our home. If you see the following ad while surfing the web, don’t click on it because it costs me money and just takes you to this blog post! 🙂
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Funny side note… I decided to try out Google’s option to target ads at specific websites and noticed that Zillow was on the list for real estate related sites. However, in order to see the ad for my home on Zillow, I had to disable the one-two punch of Adblock and Filter.G on my Firefox browser. By disabling these two extensions, so many websites that I visit on a regular basis looked so much uglier! It was like traveling the web naked! It you’re not using the firefox browser with these two extensions, then you are almost definitely surfing a web that looks much more annoying than mine!

What’s hot and what’s not in Seattle?

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Where to invest next in Seattle/Eastside neighborhoods? I’ve been thinking about the list Seattle Metropolitan Magazine came up in April (see below). With gas prices up, rapid transit going in, I think the next hot spots will be along those rapid transit routes like what happened in San Francisco and Portland.

Here are 2 lists, one from last month and one from 3 years ago. My clients usually make a decision where to buy based on either the commute or schools, sometimes as specific as a certain grade school. What about home age and style. It has been suggested that buyers like the homes their grandparents lived in, not the ones they grew up in, so Will the next batch of buyers want the 50’s and 60’s houses as has been suggested and if so, should we be buying in those areas? There was supposed to be a trend away from large homes, and that’s probably the case considering home prices are so high most can’t have the size home the buyers of the 90’s did.

Here is the Seattle Metropolitan Magazine list of 15 of the hottest neighborhoods in it’s April issue.

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Grandes Dames: established and well rooted neighborhoods:

  1. Medina: (recognize the house above?)
  2. Madison Park
  3. Admiral

The Rock Stars: fast rising districts surging with glamour and vitality.

  1. Ballard
  2. Pike/Pine Corridor
  3. Moss Bay, Kirkland

Cinderellas: Formerly neglected areas now traipsing to the ball

  1. South Lake Union (courtesy of Paul Allen)
  2. Columbia City
  3. Georgetown
  4. Westwood

Sleeping Beauties: Location, economy and neighborliness drawing overdue attention

  1. Upper Rainier Beach
  2. North Greenwood
  3. Monroe
  4. Stadium district, Tacoma
  5. Cape George Colony, Port Townsend

This is a dramatic change from 2003, when SeattleMagazine.com had their list of hot neighborhoods

  1. Bryant
  2. Montlake
  3. Sunset Hill
  4. North Beach
  5. Blue Ridge
  6. Olympic Manor
  7. Phinney Ridge
  8. Greenwood Manor
  9. North Admiral
  10. Westwood

Almost all of these were north of the U District.

Does this mean that our citizens are fickle and don’t have favorites more than 3 years in a row? Or was it this kind of story that drove the prices up in those neighborhoods so that they are now not affordable? Is it possible in 3 years that even Georgetown will be sizzling? I’d love to tap into the collective minds of RCG bloggers and see what you think.

I think Burien is an up-and-coming area and it’s not on either list. Any other hidden gems out there?

Marketing my Home on the Internet

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While my opinion that a good real estate blogger does not include their listings on their blog is well documented and much debated, there is always room for an exception… and marketing my OWN home is one of those!

[photopress:kids_at_easter.JPG,thumb,alignright]Essentially, we have about two weeks left before we put it on the market. We’re just waiting for the movers to take our stuff and then, after we refinish the wooden floors on the main floor, we’ll be ready to list!

So, here are the internet marketing items I have on my checklist (of course, we’ll do some off-line stuff like putting together fliers, but I’m more interested in exploring the online stuff!)

  • Add Our Home to the Free Directories. Craigslist and Google Base come to mind. Are there others I should consider?
  • Blog About Our Neighbors. I know that there is very limited things that a real estate agent can say about the family-friendly nature of a neighborhood, but not having a license gives me the freedom to talk in great detail about are wonderful neighbors. Things I’d like to mention are all the kids that live nearby (8 kids within a few houses!), our regular Sunday BBQs during the summer and our weekly game nights during the Winter. (And I’m sure the neighbors would love it if the new owners continued our tradition of hosting the annual neighborhood easter egg hunt!!!). When moving to a new home, one of the biggest mysteries is what are the neighbors going to be like and because the people on our street are so cool, I’d like to put together an extensive neighborhood blog post! (Honestly, the hardest part of accepting a position in LA was leaving the neighborhood!)

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  • Financing Options. Interestingly, I’m in a place where I could offer the “right” people some innovative financing options… Like a lease-to-own, or something similar (as long as it is a win-win for both parties, I’m game for any idea!). Does something like this normally happen through the usual MLS channels or is there a special market for these types of properties? (Hint: if you contact me before we list, we might even be able to cut out some obvious fees.)
  • Blog About Our House. I promise not to overdo this, but I think one blog post about all the cool features of our home that might be too “personal” for the typical MLS listing would be appropriate on Rain City Guide. I’m thinking of things like the tree house I built in the backyard and the original art deco fixtures… I’d also like to add a map of all the recently sold homes (or maybe I’ll be lazy and just link to the appropriate ShackPrices page!)
  • Unique Icon. Robbie says he’ll give our home a unique icon on the maps of listed properties… Any ideas for what the icon should look like?
  • Enhance listing on Realtor.com. Around Move, people are shocked at how often real estate agents pay to get showcase listings and then don’t spruce up their listings by adding additional photos and other extras. Considering that Anna’s broker already pays for this service, I’ll make sure we spruce up our home!

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  • Get on the Redfin Blog. If I provide a direct link from my blog to my listing on Redfin (and beg people to click on the link!) maybe I can blow out their single home stats for a day and thereby get a mention in their blog!!! (hmmm…. Is there a way to get on the Zillowblog?)
  • Newspaper Coverage? Is someone at the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, Seattle Magazine and/or any other local newspaper interested in writing a story about preparing and then selling a 1920’s Crown Hill (N. Ballard) home? We’ve got lots of great photos and I could probably write most of the story for you! 🙂
    (This reminds me… I did an interview for a real estate technology story that was suppose to be in the May issue of the Seattle Magazine. I never saw or heard anything about that story… Did this story ever go live? )
  • Picture Cloud. These guys just sent me a link for a free photo cloud. Interesting technology and easy enough to put together, so I think I’ll try them out with our home. (By the way, their branded option is free, but if you type the code “raincity”, they they will give you credit for five unbranded clouds for a penny.) If you try them out before I post my cloud, let me know what you think!

Any other ideas as I prepare the marketing plan for our home? Has anyone ever had any luck marketing a home on the internet? What did you do?

Rain City Guide Meet-Up This Thursday

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Are you interested in meeting up with real estate professionals and/or enthusiasts of Rain City Guide? In an effort to continue to puss the boundaries of a real estate blog, I’m organizing a gathering this Thursday and you’re invited! The meetup is this scheduled for Thursday (4/6/06) at 7PM at Cupcake Royale/Verite Coffee shop in Downtown Ballard (2052 NW Market St).

This idea for a meetup has been cooking in my head for quite a while and was really inspired by a recent evening I spent with a few real estate professionals explaining the wonders of blogging, RSS feeds, del.icio.us and all things web2.0. I’ve tried to cover a lot of these topics on the blog, but sometimes it is so much easier to show people this stuff in person.

With that in mind, I’ve confirmed that at least a few Rain City Guide contributors will show up this Thursday, so you can expect a lively discussion with input from experienced real estate agents, mortgage brokers and real estate technology geeks. I don’t really have an agenda, but would rather let the group dictate where the discussion leads…

Who do I think might be interested in joining us?

  • Maybe you’re a real estate agent, mortgage broker, title representative, etc. who wants to learn how you can better use the internet to serve your clients?
  • Maybe you’re a home owner who is interested in listing your home and want to make sure that you get the most out of the internet and/or a potential listing agent.
  • Maybe you’re a buyer who wants a leg-up on the competition. I can show you how to use Google Earth, RSS feeds and more to make sure you’re getting the most efficiency out of your home search.
  • Maybe you’re a potential home buyer/seller interested in interviewing potential real estate agents and/or mortgage brokers in an informal setting. Should you want that type of thing, I’m sure that the agents and mortgage brokers would be happy to try to earn your business.

As long as you have an interest in real estate (who doesn’t?), you are definitely invited to what will hopefully be a fun and memorable evening.

RSVP? One of the RCG contributors who is helping me organize things thinks that this event might be much more highly attended than I do. Just to make sure that we don’t blow out one of my favorite coffee shops in Ballard, can you please let us know if you are planning to attend by adding your name to the list on the wiki? You don’t even have to use your real name, just something so that we can gauge the interest.

Local Treasure: Welkom to Ballard!

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As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been taking a break from writing to take care of my beautiful baby boy. During this time off the Ballard community has been so wonderful to me and my family, I thought it would be fun to highlight one of the aspects that makes Ballard a wonderful place to raise a family. Interestingly, this will likely give a different (although hopefully complementary) view of life in Ballard than the video that Dustin linked to the other day.

Ballard is known for having one of the largest Norwegian populations outside of Norway. But the Nordic influences are not limited to Norway as there is a huge Scandinavian influence all around. Along with the Nordic Heritage Museum, there are many local specialty stores that sell things like pickled herring, specialty breads and other traditional Nordic foods.

In addition, the Leif Ericson Lodge plays a wonderful role in uniting the local population through a ton of community events. Lief Ericson Lodge was first organized on May 13 1903 and currently has 2,000 members. Just this past Saturday it had a large bazaar with lots of music, dancing, singing and wonderful food.

We became involved in the community through a wonderful dance class (called Barneleikarringen) that Dustin attends with our daughter every Tuesday night. The class is taught by a wonderful elderly couple who dedicate their time and effort in order to share their cultural dances and stories with the kids. Despite the fact that neither Dustin or I have Nordic heritage (that we know of anyway), everyone at the lodge has been wonderful to our family. (By the way, anyone with children is invited to attend this great dance class… It starts at 6:30pm every Tuesday and the suggested donation is $5/month, which probably doesn’t even cover the cost of the treats that pass out after each class.)

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There are a bunch of benefits to taking part in this dance class that the kids simply love. For starters, they get to walk in the Norwegian Constitution Day Parade as well as dance at a slew of community functions.

(By the way, they also have dancing lessons geared toward adults, but I don’t know much about that… yet!)

The strong Nordic roots are just one more reason that Ballard is a wonderful place to live.

Capturing Downtown Ballard on Video

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A few months ago, I received an email from someone who was working with Inman News to create neighborhood videos. I remember checking out a video from Inman a long time ago that seemed like one big ad for an agent, so I didn’t expect much from the videos and the idea of following up quickly fell off my radar.

However, I’m here to say that I missed the boat on this one… I wish to make amends right here and now because these neighborhood videos are awesome!

This first neighborhood video I want to present on Rain City Guide is a tour of Ballard narrated by a local musician. While it isn’t Hollywood-production material, the five-minute video gives a fun perspective on some of the endearing features of Ballard.


(If you see a bunch of white space above, it means you need to install Flash… It’s worth the effort.)

Here are links to things seen and/or heard on the video:

If you want to see more video’s from Seattle’s neighborhoods, just keep following Rain City Guide, as I’ll put a similar post together for each of the neighborhoods that have already been featured!

But if you can’t wait and/or you want to see other featured neighborhoods from throughout the country, you can either go directly to the source or watch them via Google Video (My recommendation). And budding filmmakers: Click here and then on “Become a TurnHere Filmmaker” to find out how you can get paid to make a film of your neighborhood.

On a related note, Google Video just keeps getting better and better. If you have some time to kill, check out these videos they have collected from the National Archives.

Romancing Ballard

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Before being interrupted, the contributors of Rain City Guide were having a nice little series on Romacing Our Homes. Seeing how tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d sum up things and add one more article on my neighborhood! So what type of romance did rain city guide contributor’s share?

On to Ballard…

ballard rr crossing

Anna and I simply love living in Ballard. We’ve both lived in different parts of the country (and the world!), but we’ve never lived in a place quite like Ballard. It offers a great mix of urban features (walkable neighborhoods with lots of coffeeshops, bakeries, art houses, farmer’s markets, etc.) without feeling too urban. For a relatively young family, it offered us a wonderful opportunity to own a home with a big yard and great neighbors! Thank you Ballard!

In addition to the year-round Farmer’s market in Downtown, Ballard hosts three festivals that are a lot of fun:

If you’re looking for more on Ballard, check out the post I wrote last march on the Ballard Community as well as this post Anna put together on the history of Golden Gardens! (Interesting stuff!)