Tag Archives: Ballard

Free Margaritas!!!*

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margaritaWho servers the best margarita in Seattle?

Apparently, I stirred up a little bit of a hornet’s nest as there is definitely some contention in the blogoshere as to the best margarita in Seattle.

Some say that La Carta de Oaxaca serves up the best margarita, while other good sources say that El Gallito is the place to go.

But the real answer may be a different place altogether! (Did I mention that I serve up a mean margarita?)

There is really only way one to find out, and that is a Gringo Tour! (Am I allowed to say that on a real estate blog?)

I’m all over organizing a tour to get the determine the margarita in Seattle… If you’re interested in joining the tour bus, let me know, along with the evenings within the next week that would work for you. I’m thinking that this weekend would be best although both of these places can get quite busy!

Some people who simple need to show up include Virginia from Seattle Pulse, Chris from Metroblogging and Chris Pirillo from, well, Chris Pirillo, but all are welcome! Just email me if you’re interested and I’ll coordinate from there!

party drinks

* Free Margaritas are ALWAYS available to people who use Anna to purchase or sell a home. Unless, or course, I find out there is a policy against offering Margarita’s to clients… 😉

Best Seattle Area Restaurants

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peppersChris Pirillo had an excellent list of his recommended Seattle-area restaurants. The list is huge and he’s right-on with most of recommendations like Zoka Cafe and Mighty-O donuts, but his choice of Mexican food is downright dismal (Taco Del Mar???).

Finding good Mexican food in Seattle is not easy, as there is a lot more bad options than good places. However, Seattle Pulse came to the rescue with a much more enlightened view of Mexican food with their article dedicated to finding Seattle’s Best Margarita!

They were right on the money when they rated Ballard’s Oaxaca a perfect 10 for both the quality of the food and the quality of the margarita! Oaxaca is the best Mexican food that I’ve come across in Seattle. It’s extremely tasty… It’s authentic… If you’re craving good Mexican food, then I highly recommend checking out Oaxaca!

Bedtime Stories…

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What I enjoy most about our home are the many places where our family gathers to share stories. Some of the places include our the kitchen table, our computer room, and our deck. But the place that I’ll always associate most closely with epic stories is our living room.

Taken by itself, our living room is nothing unusual. It is not too big, not too small… It includes two couches, a rocking chair, and a fishtank that takes up way too much space. What makes our living room is not the stuff or the size, but rather the time that our family spends here almost every evening reading stories.

Sasha's Book Shelf

We’ve spent countless hours observing Harry Potter (barely) make it through the 5th year of school… We’ve helped and been helped by Aslan in the land of Narnia an numerous occasions… We’ve been fortunate to travel along with Laura and her family from Wisconsin to the Oklahoma Territories to Minnesota to the Dakota Territories…

I only have to think of the many enjoyable nights we’ve spent sharing stories with a roaring fire in the fireplace and the rain pouring outside to remind myself why I love our living room!

Please feel free to join us on the day’s leading up to Valentine’s Day as we romance our homes by discussing some of the many ways we love our homes and neighborhoods.

Meet a Realtor Who Doesn't Sell Houses…

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The NY Times ran an article a few weeks ago on how hard it is for new real estate agents to break into the market (I’d like to the article but it is now behind a password-protected wall, so instead I’ll just link to the Property Grunt’s excellent summary and analysis). This article got me thinking of a way that I could still be very useful to my clients without actually buying or selling any homes.

What’s that? A Realtor who doesn’t buy or sell any homes?

For the next six-months or so, I really won’t be in a position where I can dedicate a significant amount of time to helping clients. (higher priorities! ) But what I would really enjoy doing over the next few months is staying connected to the business by helping buyers and sellers find appropriate agents.

Say that again?

Mariel Kicking a Soccer BallIn my office alone, there are almost 100 real estate agents who would love to have your business (assuming you’re buying or selling a home) and while I don’t know all of these agents, I do know the successful ones . What I would like to do is use my inside knowledge of successful Seattle agents to connect individuals with the right agents.

For example:

  • Are you looking for a condo in Downtown? I know an agent who specializes there!
  • Are you looking to buy land in Woodinville? I know a different agent who specializes there!
  • How about a modern-style home in Seattle? I know a different agent who specializes in modern homes.

Regardless if you’re trying to sell a home, condo, boathouse, townhome, etc., I’ve come into contact with a highly successful agent who specializes in that field. Talk with me, and I’ll connect you with the right person.

Why would I do this?

It is really a win-win-win situation. You get the best representation possible, a successful real estate agent gets one more client, and I can continue to help people in a small but important way. (I’ll also get a small referral fee from the agent…)

By the way, my recommendations are not limited to just people moving to Seattle. I know a few listings agents who go out of their way to please, so if you are currently a Seattle-area homeowner looking to list your house, talk with me before you list. I’m confident that no matter how good your realtor is, I can get you a better one!

Reading Seattle

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Flying Santa CoverThe Restless Reader’s recent post on Seattle’s literary scene gives just one great reason for living in Seattle. I was fascinated (but not too surprised) to learn that 80% of Seattlites have a library card. (It was also fun to read that Seattle was rated the country’s most literate city.)

What’s my favorite bookstore in Seattle?

I’m partial to Ballard’s Secret Garden Bookshop. It’s definitely not the city’s largest book store, but it is a wonderful place to find a meaningful gift for kids. Just tonight, we stopped by this bookshop and had a wonderful conversation with Joe and Paula McHugh about their newest Children’s book called The Flying Santa. It seems that there is always something wonderful going on at the Secret Garden…

Local Treasure: Golden Gardens

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[photopress:golden_gardens_beach.gif,thumb,alignright]There’s a fun story on the City of Seattle’s website about the history of the Golden Gardens park. Turns out this local gem was named and developed “in 1907 as an attraction at the end of the novel, new electric car lines being built by realtors to induce townfolk to take a ‘Sunday outing’ out of town and through the woods to a picnic or swim at a beach. (Along the way they were made aware of the real estate available!)”

Wow! Back then agents understood that a rail project adds to property values! 🙂

Of course, some things never change:

“In 1933, the community celebrated the opening of Seaview Avenue, a narrow two-lane road alongside the railroad, but on its own fill behind a new rock seawall, that ended abruptly with a new railroad underpass connecting with the old parking lot and providing a drive through the park, as well as auto access to the beach area. Then traffic really became a problem!“

[photopress:golden_gardens.JPG,thumb,alignleft]Why was (and is) parking so tight? Because Golden Gardens is still a great place to take a ‘Sunday outing’ (or an outing on any day of the week!). The park has a little bit for everyone…. There are beaches and creeks for the kids, fire pits for the teens and wonderful views and trails for the rest of us!

Want more? More history of Golden Gardens in this acrobat file (pdf). More on Seattle’s first electric streetcar. More archived photos of Seattle. More archived photos of Golden Gardens. More modern shots of Golden Gardens.

And, of course, there are more local treasures on Rain City Guide.

Ballard Jazz Festival

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Jazz MusiciansThis weekend in Ballard:

2 days / 50 musicians / 1 nordic fishing village

Artists include: Joe Locke/Geoff Keezer Quartet, Larry Goldings Trio, Kate Hammett-Vaughn, Eric Alexander, Peter Bernstein, Marc Seales Band, Jovino Santos Neto Quarteto, Origin Uber Band, Tumbao, Dawn Clement Trio, John Stowell, Rob Davis, Matt Jorgensen +451, Bill Anschell … and many more!

All the venues for the Jazz Walk are on a $15 joint cover (a $25 Festival Pass will also grant admission). Tickets can be ordered online or you can buy tickets at either the New York Fashion Academy (5201 Ballard Ave NW) or Mars Hill (1401 NW Leary Way) on Friday, November 18 starting at 7:30pm. Tickets may also be purchased at any Sonic Boom Records location.

Yahoo Maps is Now Driving Innovation!

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Yahoo Map of Seattle DestinationsI’ve been waiting (and searching) for a mapping site that gives multi-destination directions and the new (still in Beta) Yahoo Maps definitely delivers!

Here are some of the features that I have wanted to see in an on-line maps and how the Beta Yahoo Maps stands up:

  1. Multi-destination: This allows you to type in a bunch of addresses and get directions from one site to the next all on one map. This feature alone should make Yahoo Maps (beta) the default online mapping program for all real estate agents (and home buyers!). Thank you Yahoo!
  2. Best routing of destinations: theoretically, you’d be able to hit a button and have the mapping software tell you the most efficient route to get between multiple points. Yahoo does not have this feature (yet?), but they do let you manually change the order of your destinations! To do this, you simple have to drag the address within the sidepanel above (or below) another address.
  3. Remembering addresses. It is nice that Yahoo maps is integrated with my Yahoo Address book. The only problem is that I haven’t used my Yahoo Address book in years so all the addresses (and there are 100s) are old (including my “home”). It looks like it might be time to return to my Yahoo address book!
  4. Mobile Phone Integration: Getting directions via my mobile phone is currently a pain. I have a blackberry with internet access, but the current mapping sites are too slow and any misspellings require retyping things… I did try out Yahoo Maps a few weeks ago (and I liked that I had access to my on-line Yahoo address book), but, again, the addresses in my address book were so outdated, that it didn’t do me a lot of good. Seeing has how the Yahoo Maps has the “email map” and “Send to phone” options, it looks like it might be time to update my Yahoo address book!
  5. Live Traffic Data: I also like that Yahoo has integrated live traffic data (like freeway speeds). I’d be interested to see them add traffic cameras (Along the lines of Bus Monster).

Ideally, I’d like to be able to map out a bunch of homes while sitting at my home computer and email a set of directions to myself. All the addresses would be remembered (by Yahoo Maps) so that I could easily get an updated set of directions while on the road via my mobile phone. It looks like Yahoo is definitely going in that direction, but when I tried to email myself a map with four destinations, it only returned a generic map. I had similar problems trying to get a “printable version” of the map so I’m thinking that my problems might be related to the fact that I’m working on a Mac. Hopefully they will fix these issues soon!

And speaking of bugs, the beta version of Yahoo Maps did not work for me while using Firefox on my Mac. I had to revert to IE in order to see the graphics. Again, hopefully they will fix this bug soon!

One last thing before I call it a night… I played around with some of the programs that have been created with the Yahoo Map API, and it looks like they are finally at a level that is competitive with Google… My favorite mash-up so far maps out local events based on yahoo’s event calendar. Note that it would be really nice if this event mash-up had a city/zip search bar so that I could easily navigate from SF to Seattle, but instead, I had to zoom way out and zoom way back in is really nice that this program DOES have a city/zip search bar. (As Toby says in one of the comments: “For moving around in the events browser, you can highlight the city name above the map and type in a city or zip. It’ll jump straight where you want it to go.”) . Other than that issue, it It is a nice little program which I’ll definitely use again! I’m especially jazzed (or is it “rocked”) that I found out the Red Elvises are playing at the Tractor Tavern this Saturday! 🙂

Update 1: After posting this article, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one excited about the Local Event Browser. Jeremy Zawodny gives a good round up of all the excitement by Yahoo staff regarding the new map capabilities. I especially like that Yahoo has made an API for their geocoder. A free and easy-to-use geocoder is a major missing link from the Google Maps API. (what is a geocoder? In the simplest sense, a geocoder gives a latitude and a longitude for a given address.) It will be interesting to see if Google responds by opening up an address geocoder as well.

Photos of Halloween in Downtown Ballard

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[photopress:archie_mcphee.jpg,thumb,alignright]Our first stop on our Halloween tour was Downtown Ballard where hundreds of kids gather to collect goodies from the local merchants! It is always a fun time, and a little bit of sprinkling definitely did not dampen the kids’ enthusiasm!

For those wanting to get a peak at a typical Halloween in Ballard, I put together a slideshow on Flickr…

Enjoy!