Seattle Housing Buzz

This isn’t housing news. But, it’ll likely impact employment in Seattle, so who knows. Locally-based Safeco Insurance is being sold to Liberty Mutual for $6 billion. As a former Safeco employee, I have to say this was expected with the sale of its long-time headquarters in the U-District and the campus in Redmond, significant reduction in staffing and poor performance results for most of the decade.

According to an AP report, Safeco shares shot up $21.02, or more than 46 percent, to $66.25, in morning trading on Wednesday. Dang, I sold my remaining Safeco shares two weeks ago!

More from the Seattle PI.

From CNN Video: Desperate owners burn homes

Quadrant Homes received an Environmental Excellence Award in continuous improvement in resource conservation from the Association of Washington Business (AWB). The AWB presented nine awards to companies that have demonstrated initiative, innovation and outstanding achievements in environmental compliance, protection and conservation.

“We are honored to receive such a prestigious award from the Association of Washington Business that recognizes Quadrant’s longstanding leadership in environmental stewardship,” said Peter Orser, president of Quadrant Homes. “From how we manage a site, to the building materials we use and our efficient homebuilding process, we are committed to sustainable practices that help improve our region’s quality of life.”

Quadrant re-engineered its design and construction processes that reduced framing materials by 30%; implemented electronic transactions that reduced paper usage by 2.5 million sheets over the past 2 years; and is a leader in environmental building, constructing over 4,700 Built Green certified homes.

Tags: , Built Green, Quadrant Homes

Seattle Housing Buzz has been in limbo for awhile as I worked on two other real estate related blogs. In the past, I included info on condos, community events, pets, real estate technology and housing related posts so this blog never had a clear focus.

For now, SHB is being repurposed towards general housing information and market updates.

I’ve created a new blog, Seattle City Buzz, that’ll include community and lifestyle/livability information and things uniquely Seattle.

And, of course, Seattle Condos and Lofts, which provides details and reviews of Seattle’s condo and loft communities.

Moda Condominiums is a new development in Belltown. It got a lot of press and I even have a couple of entries on my Seattle Condo blog, most notably for it’s small studio size (sub 300 sq ft) and pricing starting at $149,950.

Yet, it was popular with buyers as the 250 units sold out in only a few days requiring Moda to start a waiting list. But not everyone who registered or visited their presentation center put their name down so they sent out an email letting interested people know about the waiting list.

They sent the email to hundreds of people. The problem was, they put everyone’s email address in the “To” field instead of the “BCC” field. So, now hundreds of people have hundreds of email address. And, Real Estate is about sales and marketing and those email addresses can certainly fall into unscrupulous hands.

The one month long concrete strike has ended as workers accepted a deal providing a $3.95/hr raise over three years. Stalled civic and private projects (e.g. Domaine, Mosler Lofts) can now get going again.

But, was it all for nought? The longevity of the strike that is, since the $3.95 was on the table for several weeks. Eighty-eight workers holding hostage numerous projects county-wide eventually settled for what they were originally offered. Yet, they probably cost the city and builders thousands if not hundreds of thousands more.

Got the urge for a little DIY? Some people engage in home-improvement to enhance the functionality and comfort of their living space. Most often than not, improvements increase the home resale value bottom line. Some, however, may not:

Homeowners can find plenty of information on which improvements will help boost the value of their houses. But significantly less attention is paid to what to avoid when remodeling your home. Consider the following seven deadly home-improvement sins before committing to projects that may work against you to lessen your resale value.

Read on- the seven deadly sins of home remuddling

Will the real Seattle please stand up.

Recent developments have got me thinking…it seems Seattle is in an identity flux. For generations, Seattle was content being the big fish in the small backwater Northwest pond, overshadowing Portland and Vancouver, BC. Somewhere along the timeline the politicos and business hawks dreamed of the big time. Hey, Seattle had a symphony, ballet, three professional sport teams, Boeing and Microsoft afterall. Grand civic projects were built - a new symphony hall, a sparkling award-winning library, a new city hall and two world-class stadiums. Chicago West? Boston North? New New Amsterdam?

In our not too distant past, politicians envisioned “Cascadia” - a mega metropolitan trifecta consisting of Seattle, Portland and Vancouver with Seattle at the helm.

In the late 1990’s the little city that could got its big chance to shine on the world stage. But something went horribly wrong. For a few days in 1999, Seattle became a war zone. Neighborhoods were tear gassed, mass rioting ensued, overzealous police beating citizens. It was not quite the image leaders wanted to project to the world.

Then, Boeing left. Portland became a model US city and Vancouver is now what Seattle always wanted to be, a gleaming world-class city.

Time heals. The engines of progress are churning again and Seattle is getting another chance. Developers are investing hundreds of millions to revitalize the urban core. But, in the process, are we losing our identity?

Though it’s highly unlikely those 49 proposed high-rise condos will be built, many will, forever changing the landscape and culture. But, who’s skyline is it? By all account, if you listen to the developers and look at the renderings, it’s Vancouver, BC being transplanted south of the 49th parallel. The new buzz term being thrown around lately is “Vancouver-style”.

And South Lake Union? Vulcan’s grand plan is to transport Portland’s Pearl District to the shores of Lake Union, street car and all. Should the Sonics skip town, perhaps Mr. Vulcan will transfer his Trailblazers up I-5. As for Sound Transit’s light-rail & the failed monorail - both were modeled after Vancouver’s Skytrain and Portland’s light-rail system.

Welcome to Seacouverland!

Last month the Seattle Animal Shelter held it’s annual Furry 5K Fun Walk & Run at Seward Park. The Furry 5K is the shelter’s principal fundraising event for it’s Help The Animials Fund which covers veterinary services for the shelter’s animals.

This year’s Furry 5K raised $118,400, an increase of $28,000 from last year.

The shelter depends on volunteers. The next volunteer orientation is August 26, 2006 at Seattle Central Community College. Call the shelter at 206-386-PETS to register. Some of the opportunities include:

• Dog walkers (only time shelter dogs get out of the kennel for play & potty)
• Foster Parenting
• 9 Lives - helping sick/injured cats
• Get Fit With Fido - run and hike with shelter dogs
• Matchmaker - assisting visitors at the shelter

How I spent my July 4th weekend.

My websites and blogs have been generating considerable visitor traffic, as least from an agent’s point of view, but very few leads. I thought part of it was content and part of it was the “look” of my primary website - www.LivingNorthwest.com. Not to mentioned the fact that I had my face plastered on every page. So, I thought of a complete redesign.

In looking over the best real estate web designers out there and contemplating the costs, I decided to hunker down and do some of my own coding. I’m certainly not a developer or designer, but I’m not a novice either having worked in e-commerce web development for five years. So, I decided to learn CSS and do a “make-over” on my tables and navigation links. I did the tables in CSS since Firefox doesn’t display HTML tables nicely. And, that always bothered me since I don’t use IE.

Anyway, I think turned out ok. I also cleaned up the home page and moved my mug to just the “About” page. I added a few more content pages based on the search terms people used in Google that landed them on my site, as well as making it easier to get to those content from any page.

I’ve also been contemplating getting rid of the adsense stuff at the bottom. As they’re hidden, no one see’s or clicks on them. Plus, I have to keep filtering out the competition.

On the very plus side, the SEO guide, tips and info I learned from Real Estate Webmasters and a couple of other sites have paid off fantastically. For most of my main keywords I’m on the first page of Google’s organic results, some on the 2nd page. And on one search term, I’m a little miffed that my ActiveRain profile returned #5 while my website returned #6. Most of this occurred after Google’s Big Daddy update. As a result the number of visitors have gone up 50% in the past couple months and I was able to suspend my adwords campaign.