Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Aloha Manzanita

A big howdy to any new readers via my ad in this week’s North Coast Citizen!

Seven years ago William and I made our first visit to Manzanita, an idyllic hamlet on the north Oregon coast. For the past four years we’ve owned a home there, first “in town” on Fourth Street and since 2006 over on First Street in Neahkahnie. Many people there know us as the guys with Hank, the most enthusiastic tennis ball retriever the beach has ever seen, and my face is familiar to some who’ve spent an evening at the Vino wine bar where I moonlighted the last two summers, ostensibly to make a little walking-around money (though in the process I made some lifelong friends.)

Manzanita is a place of shared sensibilities… commitment to community regardless of national politics, love for nature, and especially an appreciation for the off-beat... like Norman Rockwell put through a Ken Kesey lens (I swore I wouldn’t make any Northern Exposure analogies, but if you haven’t been to Manzanita, it may be the most accurate shorthand description.) I challenge you to find a more well-traveled, thoughtful and educated community of 500 people anywhere, let alone anywhere so beautiful.

It’s the kind of place you either “get” or you don’t. (For tie-breakers I sometimes refer people to Cart'M, the community-run dump and recycling center... if you don't think Cart'M is cool, you probably wouldn't like spending time long-term in Manzanita.)

There are also an increasing number of Seattlelites like us making the four-hour drive. So while I’m licensed as a Realtor® in Washington, not Oregon, I thought it would be good to get the word out about my new venture… after all, why not work with a Seattle real estate agent who shares your sensibilities, and your dreams of the day when you plan your trips to the city, and not the other way around?

As a full-time Realtor® with Coldwell Banker Bain's Lake Union office in Seattle, I continue my life's work of connecting people with what matters. And what could matter more than finding your new home, or helping you realize your current home's maximum worth? I have a deep understanding of our neighborhoods, from the established to the emerging. And I know just how daunting, and exciting, it can be to buy or sell a home. I've been through it myself SIX times in the past five years. But more important than empathy and patience, I offer you:
  • a passion for realty combined with fifteen years of marketing experience, from web and print advertising to event and space planning, including successful home staging;
  • a commitment to the best market research, attention to detail and tenacious advocacy for my clients' best interests;
  • technical skills gleaned from industry-leading, ongoing Coldwell Banker training;
  • the resources and wisdom of a veteran CB Bain brokerage that has flourished through times thick and thin, along with a unmatched national network
If you are reading this because you saw my ad in the North Coast Citizen, please leave a comment... or better yet, say hi on the beach or give me a call... we'll be down for New Year's.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

At The Risk of Sounding Like My Father: Vol. 1


I've been trying to decide how to discuss media coverage of our local market without sounding like my father carping on the liberal bias of practically every news outlet that ever existed... and I finally realized that I can't not sound like that, but hey, I am well into my 40s. So here you have the first installment of "At the Risk of Sounding Like My Father", likely a regular feature on this blog.

Today in his blog Seattle P-I real estate reporter Aubrey Cohen posts about a new nationwide survey on home prices, with the headline "Washington 31st for price appreciation", which of course doesn't sound very good (nor does it look very good on the map at left, pink indicating that prices are down a bit for the state, though not as bad as the red states (CA, NV and FL.) But in the very first sentence we learn that the Seattle metro's October prices were UP over 2% and that Seattle ranked NINTH in the country for appreciation, not thirty-first.

But that doesn't make an eye-grabbing, alarmist, sky-is-falling, let's-all-gawk headline, now does it?

I'll prattle on about this a lot more later, but the truth is that while the party may be over, we aren't headed for the hangovers being experienced in Miami, Las Vegas and parts of California where there was more speculative building and many more predatory lenders feeding on the hopes and desperation of people who really weren't in a position to buy a home.

Desirable, RIGHT-PRICED homes are still selling quickly in Seattle. When you do the homework behind many of the "reduced price" signs starting to pop up around town, you find the listings were overpriced to begin with, based on last year's frenzy, and not likely to have sold even then...

Join us on Friday

One of our favorite movies is the Jodie Foster-directed "Home for the Holidays" (1996 - Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey Jr.) in which the patriarch, played by Charles Durning, after much family drama, intones, "I hate the goddamned holidays." We tried our best to keep things simple this year, starting with not getting on a plane to spend x-mas with the family (love ya, mean it, but can't do that again!) But between my new gig and STILL catching up with our Seattle posse after so much time at the beach (and making sure our beach friends don't feel we've abandoned them), it appears we have scheduled some sort of social engagement for 9 out of 10 nights starting last weekend on through Christmas... how did this happen???!!!

On the other hand, we've had a great time on every one of those occasions... and this Friday marks the return of our occasional holiday party, and the first in the Rathole. If you didn't get the email, please join us this Friday, 21 December, from 3pm until, well, one or both of us passes out.

A big thank-you to DaisyMayRobin for the shout-out!

COMING SOON: OP-Ed... some observations on what's going up in our 'hood from my Opinionated Parter

Thursday, December 13, 2007

What do stale danishes, real estate and YouTube have in common?

Just back from a day-long "new media" marketing conference... not surprisingly, it could have been condensed into half the time (or less) but lots of good information nonetheless. I now know how to proceed with my plans to insinuate myself into every nook and cranny of your lives, online or otherwise. In addition to drip emails and targeted websites, they covered social networking.

The high point of the day was the last speaker, Chris Pirillo, blogosphere star and self-appointed social networking guru... it was very amusing to see the complete disconnect with the majority of the attendees... part of it was his manner of communicating (sarcastic, staccato, freewheeling, irreverent) but it was refreshing after a day of information put through the motivational sales filter. I and anyone in the room under a certain age "got" it... no discrimination intended, just a reflection of generational differences in engagement with technology...

Below is a YouTube video of Pirillo quizzing our group on their awareness... he was avoiding showing faces since he uploaded right then and there to demonstrate the immediacy of social networking but had not gotten consent from individuals in the audience.







One interesting note... Aubrey Cohen, real estate reporter for the Seattle P-I was there... and there were definitely some boos when he was introduced... but media reporting on real estate will be the topic of a future post, or likely many future posts...

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Great not-so-little house in Ballard...

I'll be hosting an open house this Saturday and Sunday from 1-4 pm in Ballard, 627 NW 50th Street (so think below Phinney, north of Frelard)... this not-so-little house is full of great finishes and unexpected space, along with a garage and alley access... come by and see me this weekend. Call if you need help finding it, 206-228-6288.

Friday, December 7, 2007

There are things more important than real estate

It's a fitting reality check--in this season and economic quarter full of them--that my first post isn't even about real estate... while the end purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for (hopefully unique) news and views on my new profession of choice, I got a recent reminder that there are some things more important than year-over-year appreciation and absorption rates.

Please welcome my niece, Gretchen Grayce Asplund into the world... just got back from an overnight visit to meet her for the first time at my sister's place in Morgan Hill, CA, near San Jose. She was one month old on Wednesday and can already throw a mean left hook. You all know I'm not exactly the warm-and-fuzzy type when it comes to kids, but this one's a keeper.

Of course, to bring us back to the topic at hand, her arrival does underscore something we all should keep in mind as real estate consumers... you should first and foremost be in it for the long haul.