Seattle Housing Buzz

To the Sonics, that is.

It was just announced this afternoon that the Seattle SuperSonics has been sold to a group from Oklahoma City. Of course there’s spin, but in all likelihood the team will move to Oklahoma. This does create an opportunity, though. Since Paul Allen is transforming the South Lake Union district in the image of Portland’s Pearl District, maybe he’ll build a new arena at Lake Union (or at least get us to pay for one) and move his Portland Trailblazers team. It could happen.

With the loss of the team, Seattle’s sparkle has dimmed a bit. I think losing a big-time professional sports team can affect the psyche of the citizens and tarnish Seattle as a big-league world-class city. The loss could affect investments by businesses and developers.

I wouldn’t mind the Sonics sticking around. It’s great for the city and residents. But, it does seem like the Starbucks-headed ownership team were trying to extort the city and ultimately the tax payers.
The news is fresh and people are reacting emotionally. On news reports there are people angrily screaming their distain and others calling for a boycott of Starbucks. But, it’ll pass and life will go on.

Nothing new this week, but I did post an article on pre-construction investing at the Seattle Condos and Lofts blog. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Vulcan and John L. Scott finally issued their official press release this week about John L. Scott handling sales for Vulcan’s current projects - Veer Lofts, Enso, The Martin and Rollin Street Flats. Not quite sure why it took so long considering it was included in the information packets Vulcan handed out at their preview event back on June 17th.

Coldwell Banker Bain introduced a near indentical search function as John L. Scott (same developer). One thing I like about theirs it that users can filter by # of cars and # of stories.

Been playing the points game at ActiveRain and I’ve fallen to third featured agent in Washington. Another JLS agent is listed as the #1 featured agent in Washington, mostly because of some fluffy blog postings.

This past weekend was the annual Seattle LGBT Pride Parade. For the first time in the event’s history, it was moved to downtown Seattle. The route on 4th Avenue went from the Westlake Center to the Seattle Center, passing right in front our office on 4th Avenue where we threw a party for clients and neighbors. An estimated 200,000 people lined the streets and attended the festival at the Seattle Center. This was also the first year that John L. Scott hosted a booth at the festival, joining Prudential, C21 & Wells Fargo.