Tag Archives: Microsoft

SELECT * FROM MLS WHERE Remarks = ‘Whoa’

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I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on how Rain City’s favorite MLS Search is implemented. I’m a little tired of thinking in computer languages (mostly T-SQL, C# and Javascript), so I figured I’d blog a bit in Geek English for a little while before I hit the compiler again.

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I’m always interesed in how web sites & computer software works under the covers, so I thought I share some of the more interesting points about how I’ve implemented “Zearch” to date for the “geekier” folks in the blogosphere.

It all began way back in the fall of 2005 shortly after I got my first MLS feed. At the time, Microsoft’s asp.net 2.0 platform was still in beta. However, after learning what Microsoft’s next generation web development tools were going to do (and seeing what Google Maps and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth teams were doing), I saw a great unrealized potential in MLS search tools and decided to do something about it.

Anyway, it’s all built on top of asp.net 2.0 and MS SQL Server 2000 (yeah, I know I’m old school). One of the first things I did is combined all the property types into a VIEW and create a dynamic SQL query when you search for properties. Some search tools only let you search for residential properties or condominums at one time (which I thought was lame). I orginally tried to implement stuff doing a bunch of UNIONs, but keeping track of the schema variations for the different property types eventually drove me nuts, and I encapsulate all that crud into a VIEW.

I also find it a little ironic, that I’m not the only one who found the MLS schema differences a PITA to deal with. I’m glad the various MLS software vendors and the CRT are working toward a common industry schema (aka RETS), so us application developers can focus on the real problem (developing compelling & useful software), instead of remembering that the ld column in one table, is really the list_date column in another table.

Another interesting thing I do on the back end is that I geocode every listing after I do data download. The main reason is that I don’t trust the MLS data and their bogus geo-coding would make my app look bad. I also knew when I started, I’d eventually do maps, so as soon as a new listing hits my database, it’s gets more accurately/correctly geo-coded. In case your wondering if I’m screen scraping w/ Perl or something else, it’s all done with T-SQL stored procdures. (Well, technically it’s a proc that calls the MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP COM object, to issue an HTTP request against a geocoding web service, and then uses OPENXML on the response’s XML to get the latitude & longitude).

As you might have guessed, there are also stored procedures and functions to get the distances between two points, doing a radius search, and other stuff of that ilk. Fortunately, all that stuff can easily be found using your favorite search engine, so you don’t need to know how all the math in the law of cosines works (you just need to know of it).

Well that’s it for the back end. Next time I’ll talk about the front end put on my Web Developer hat.


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Don’t Get Carried Away!

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A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to take three different clients through the same house – an attractively-priced 1967 split-level home just north of Microsoft. So everybody knows that Microsoft will be hiring a lot more folks over the next few years, and a lot of those folks are thinking maybe they should pick up an investment rental in that area – with so much high-income job growth, there should continue to be great appreciation. Great logic. But don’t get carried away by the opportunity.

In this case, the home was priced at $375,000 – for a 1967 split-level home, 3 bedroom, 2.25 bath, 1,820 sf, 2-car garage. All the right specs. Price egregiously low. First, that low price led people to look at the house who were not anywhere near qualified for the price it would actually sell for. Second, that low price led investor bidders to fight over it in a bidding war that maybe should live in the annals of northwest real estate. So here’s what I have heard: the first winner got it for $475,000 – and then failed financing. Seller put it back on the market, same low price, same bidding war (if there were 10 to start with, there might be 9 still standing – hopefully fewer as they realized what it was really going to take to win it). Second winner got it for about $470,000.

Was it a great deal? I don’t think so. Was it a reasonable deal – maybe so. This place was structurally sound, but needed to be completely updated and refinished. It would be fair to say that a lot of the house was original (almost 40 years old) and worn out, including the garage doors – and on and on. The lower level would need to be stripped down to the studs and re-wired and re-sheetrocked. The baths needed to be redone. The kitchen space needed to be reconfigured (i.e. move walls) and then rebuilt. If the new owners are both thoughtful and handy at doing a lot of the work themselves, they will probably come out fine.

If you knew it was going to be $475,000 to start with, you might have looked for one in much better shape and saved yourself a lot of work. Don’t get carried away!

Psst – Want a free copy of Windows?

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Granted, this post is not real estate related. However, since Rain City Guide is at the intersection of Real Estate Ave & Technology Blvd, I figured the goings on at Microsoft Way might interest some Rain City Readers.

Windows VistaFor good or ill, Microsoft is still the 800 lb gorilla of the technology industry. Because of this, the success of the company has sizable impact on the price & availability of housing in the region. Therefore, it’s fair to say, that I’m hoping that Windows Vista won’t suck, and its success will lead to another growth spurt at the company which will increase the value of every-body’s home in the greater Redmond/Seattle area. (That way both the geeks & realtors will be happy)

Anyway, the purpose of this post if to inform the geeky among us that Microsoft is having a Windows Vista Install Fair this weekend. Here’s what you need to do in order to get a free copy Windows Vista.

  • Have a computer that your willing to sacrifice that meets the following criteria..
    • Your important data has been backed up! (This is pre-release software after all)
    • Operating System is Windows XP SP2 (Home or Professional) English x86.
    • Intel/AMD Processor running at 1 GHz or higher.
    • Minimum of 512MB of RAM.
    • Video adapter is AGP4x/8x or PCIe with a minimum of 64MB of RAM.
    • Hard Disk has a minimum of 10GB of free space to allow for upgrade.
    • Has a DVD-ROM Drive.
  • Send mail to Windows Vista Install Fair Registration (wvifr@microsoft.com) and inform them that you wish to participate in either the Saturday (March 18th 2006) 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM session or the Sunday (March 19th 2006) 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM session.
  • Bring yourself and your computer over to Building 27 on the Microsoft Campus at the scheduled time.
  • Enjoy your free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (February 2006 CTP Version) 

Well, I’m looking forward to playing around with all the cool new features and using an OS built for the 21st century. Here’s to hoping my laptop enjoys the experience!

Quicker than a Ray Of Light

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I’ve had the opportunity to live in Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Carnation & Issaquah since I first left my alma matter back in the days of when Mosaic ruled the web. However, of all those places, I’ve loved my current home the most.

What do I love about my current home in the Issaquah Highlands, you ask? To quote a cell phone company’s ad “It’s the network”.

fiberWe’re talking about the only housing development in the Pacific Northwest that I’m aware of that has fiber optic network connectivity in to the home. The community’s network is run by the Highlands Fiber Network (although ISOMedia is my ISP and Ecuity provides my VOIP service).

One of the nice things about a community owned network, is that the operators of the network are more focused on customer service than profitability. We probably have the best performing residential network in the county. Are you ready for HDTV over IP? I didn’t think so. If that wasn’t cool enough, our network traffic goes straight to the Westin building in downtown Seattle, so it’s very reliable (I’d say it’s very close to ‘five nines’ level of uptime). BTW, if your ISP is Qwest, Comcast or Verizon, your internet traffic usually goes to San Jose first, before it comes back to Seattle (which leaves you vulnerable to backhoe denial of service attacks).

Nearly every room has a phone jack, cable/satellite TV jack, and an ethernet jack. All of the cables get routed into a wiring closet in my master bedroom. So equipment upgrades are pretty painless. Even cooler, some outlets have 2 TV jacks, so if you have a dual tuner TIVO, you can record 2 TV shows at once, or watch live TV while recording a show on another channel at the same time.

Perhaps, best of all my network speeds are FAST. My download speeds currently approach 10 Mb/sec (typical DSL speeds are about 768 Kb/sec). My ISP says I could go even faster if I was willing to pay for it (contrary to popular belief network bandwidth isn’t free).

Yeah, the eco-friendly building materials, the gas stove w/ stainless steel appliances, the clawfoot tub, the easy access to I-90, the nearby parks, the new elementary school and kid friendly neighborhood were all things that my wife & I both love about the house & the neighborhood. But you can get all that stuff in many neighborhoods.

So, if you’re tech savvy person with a family, and want a nice place to live, look no further than here. Builders (& their real estate agents) are standing by.

Robbie

Electricity isn't a competitve advantage anymore

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I find all the F.U.D. regarding opening up MLS data to be kind of overblown. Perhaps, it’s because I’ve been a software engineer my entire career, and the notion of technology changing business models and society at large seems anti-climatic to me. Perhaps, I have this attitude because my former employer, embraced the notion of “Only the Paranoid Survive“? Regardless of the root causes, the fact that the N.A.R., and other members of the real estate industry are so scared of the upcoming tidal-wave of technology changes just seems so short-sighted.

Your friendly neighborhood realtor from the 22nd century?
After all, during the past 100 years or so, the only constant has been change. So the fact that more technological change is coming, shouldn’t surprise anyone. I don’t remember the explosion of digital photography during the past decade cause anywhere near this much fuss, do you? What about the growth of photocopiers & other printing technologies during the last 40 years? Before computers, I’ve heard that people used to use a device called paper to exchange & store information, and the ability to manage these paper records efficiently was a key competitive advantage for many businesses. And yet, I can’t help but wonder if the MLS placed the same kinds of restrictions on printed property listings 30 years ago that they are trying to place on digital property listing today. Surely those all free real estate magazines at the grocery store are harming agents & brokers, by giving away valuable information for free?

I’d argue that associating digital photos with electronic MLS records on free web sites has done more to decrease the value that people place on a real estate agent, than anything I or other software engineers are going to invent during the next few years. Maybe the embrace of digital photography was just a way to get back at all those real estate magazine publishers?

Anyway, my advice would be to tell the powers that be to get over it. Things are changing: deal with it. Nobody thinks electricity is a competitive advantage anymore and in a few years from now, I suspect nobody will give the new generation of real estate web applications a second thought. I suspect very few realtors are afraid of the value that maids, handymen, and landscappers bring to the real estate industry but yet somehow software engineers & database administrators are out to destroy the industry. I can’t speak for all IT professionals, but I think it’s safe to say our area of expertise is NOT in the sale, finance, or purchase of properties (which should be the core competency of any real estate agent/broker). Similarly, it’s foolish for the real estate industry to think that they can job a better job of developing tools that let Joe & Jane Consumer search & browse listing data than software engineers. After all, if the engineers at Google can search 20 billion web pages in a fraction of second, processing the 20,000 properties in the MLS is sleepwalking by comparison.

On a related thought, how did people buy & sell homes in the “dark ages”? That seems more mind boggling to me than anything I or the folks at Zillow are going to be doing in the next year.

In closing, it’s not geeks with SQL Servers or even free web servers you should be scared of. It’s those real estate androids showing homes at a holodeck near you that should keep you up at night. That’s REALLY going to shake things up.

Robbie
Caffeinated Software

How far is too far to commute?

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[photopress:round_and_round.jpg,thumb,alignright] The most common question I get from people moving to Seattle regards their potential commute… The question typically follows this format:

“How far away from my work can I live and still have a reasonable commute?”

It doesn’t really matter whether the person is planning to work in Downtown Seattle, Downtown Bellevue, the Amazon Campus, or the Microsoft Campus, because a “reasonable commute” is different for each person.

Some people are willing to drive an hour to save money on a home (or be able to afford a home for that matter), while others want a commute that is less than 20 minutes. Across the country (and especially in the Seattle area), the farther you are willing to drive every day, the less you have to pay for a home.

Interestingly, my work as a transportation planning consultant has put me in contact with some very interesting resources. For example, I recently came across these five maps that were put together by the regional government (PSRC) that give a great indication of the average commute:

These maps are great if you know the area you are going to be working (say Downtown Bellevue) AND you know that you are willing to commute a specific distance (say 40 minutes) because then they can help you put a definitive boundary on your home search!

NOTE: These maps are created “topographical-style”. If you are new to this, imagine that the graphic is displaying a huge mountain centered on the point of interest (like Downtown Seattle). If you move anywhere within the first circle (the top of the mountain!), then your commute to Downtown Seattle would be less than 20 minutes. However, the farther out you live, the large the hill you have to climb to get to work. For example, if you were to move to Issaquah, then you could expect about a 40 minute commute to Downtown Seattle.

By the way, the maps are a little dated (they are based on 1997 data), but the commute patterns have not changed much in the last 8 years, so the trends are still pretty accurate.

The same regional model that was used to create this data also spits out data for future years! Wouldn’t it be great to have the same maps for future years (2010, 2020, etc.) so you could gauge how your commute might change? This can be done! And if there is sufficient interest, I’ll put something like this together!

Good Time to Buy?

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Half Dome Cables ClimbAre you wondering if now is a good time to buy a home? There are so many factors that have gone into the latest housing boom that it can be difficult to gauge whether or not the high prices are here to stay. With that said, today’s Wall Street Journal makes a pretty convincing case that the hot job market in Seattle has led to the rising home prices. (I’m pretty sure this article is only available today before it goes behind a firewall.)

How does the Seattle-area job market look into the future? There are still lots of upsides to the local job market. The WSJ notes that the “area gained more than 45,000 jobs in 2004” with Boeing accounting for “more than 3,700 workers”. In addition, Microsoft has a “20-year plan to add 2.2 million square feet of offices to its 435-acre suburban Redmond campus to accommodate as many as 12,000 new employees.” .

The WSJ also notes that “homes are selling for a premium in some locations along proposed routes for two ambitious transportation projects: a light-rail link and a monorail line that would offer commuters alternatives to cars and buses. There are plans for a 36-story condo tower along the proposed monorail at the historic Pike Place Market.” This analysis from the WSJ agrees with my earlier post about how mass transit has a HUGE positive effect on local property values.

Maddog on moving to seattle

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Coastal RainI just ran across this article from a Microsoft employee describing his reaction to his move to Seattle… The highlight for me was his description of Seattle rain:

Rain? Yes, but it fits, it’s nice. I think it’s kind of like the vegetable racks at the supermarket – every few minutes little jets turn on and spray everything to keep it moist.

(I also noticed that he is a huge fan of Richard Feynman, who just happened to write one of my all-time favorite books)

The Boeing Boom

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sasha with eyeglassThe Seattle PI had an article today describing how things are definitely picking up at the local Boeing facilities around the Puget Sound. This paragraph sums it up pretty well:

The company plans to open a second production line in Renton that will push output there to a record 31 planes a month. It is also requiring some 777 workers in Everett to work overtime and will replace a key executive there amid a series of production problems before it boosts output of that twin-aisle jetliner as well.

None of this comes as a surprise to me as I’ve been noticing a substantial increase in people who looking to move to the area related to Boeing jobs. In addition, some of the housing message boards such as craigslist and trip advisor seem to have a lot more questions about good places to live for people whose jobs are relocating to Everett and/or relocating to Renton.

For home owners, any sustained expansion of jobs to the region is great news and I’m of the opinion that job growth plays a larger role in keeping home prices high than any change in interest rates! The success of the tech industry (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) in the area has done wonders for our home values and with the additional growth from Boeing, the future looks real good for Seattle-area home owners.