Tag Archive for 'useful-links'

Podcast: Seattle Real Estate Tech Talk

Published by Louise on May 22, 2006 in Technology. 7 Comments

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Today’s podcast was actually recorded a few weeks back at Seattle Mind Camp, a semi-annual gathering of technically-minded folk from around the Puget Sound area. Stuart caught up with Rain City Guide’s Dustin Luther and Shack Prices‘ Galen Ward to talk about trends and portents in the online real estate technology space.

 
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ShackPrices.com - a powerful new online tool for evaluating comparable prices

Published by Stuart on August 30, 2005 in Reference. Closed

Full Disclosure: ShackPrices.com was created by a friend of ours. We’d think the site was wicked cool even if it hadn’t been.

We’re pleased and honored to be among the first to let you know about a new online tool available to home buyers and sellers in Seattle and King County. ShackPrices.com uses an interactive Google Map to display historical sales data for area homes. The site is still in beta, and the authors warn that the sales data should still be considered “riddled with flaws and inaccuracies,” but the promise of ShackPrices is enormous.

When you first load up the site, you’ll see a map of King County with icons representing houses that have been sold in the area within the last three months. Using the drop-down boxes on the side of the page, you can customize the search criteria to your liking. Once the map has been refreshed, just click on a house icon to display the most recent sales date, the purchase price, and other vital statistics. Links in the dialog bubble also let you view the sales history, or send you off-site for more information about the property and surrounding area.

On the whole, ShackPrices.com’s interface is clean and intuitive, and the design is well thought-out. There are a couple kinks to work out, though. For example, the median price display on the top center of the page is confusing. It seems to reflect the median price of the houses displayed on the map, not necessarily the houses reflected in your search criteria. So if you zoom in on a house, the median price changes, a fact a casual observer might miss.

However, such glitches are to be expected in an early release of a new tool, and the main features of the site work beautifully. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to visit the site and leave the developers some feedback. We’ll be keeping an eye on how the site progresses. We’re sure that, in time, ShackPrices.com will become an indispensable tool for anyone in the market for a home.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate Guide

Published by Stuart on July 15, 2005 in Reference. Closed

The Wall Street Journal has a useful and thorough online real estate site. The WSJ’s RealEstateJournal includes sections on home & garden, relocating, buying & selling, home improvements, and city profiles, as well as WSJ articles on real estate issues, and a handy suite of maps, calculators, and other tools. Subscribe to their RSS feed to keep up with the latest headlines from the comfort of your aggregator.

Personally, I like browsing through the WSJ’s Distinctive Homes section (read: if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.) Ah, to be basking in the sun on the deck of my private Gulf Coast beach house. Or entertaining the hoity and the toity in my downtown Manhattan penthouse. Or watching the sun burn a million different reds and purples into the mountains surrounding my Utah trophy ranch. Now, that’s good dreaming.

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Explore Seattle neighborhoods online

Published by Louise on July 11, 2005 in Reference. Closed

The Seattle Times offers a comprehensive profile of neighborhoods in Seattle as well as those in the greater Puget Sound area. It includes descriptions, histories, maps, and relevant articles. Some of the information on the site is slightly out of date, but whether you’re scouting out new neighborhoods, or simply want to learn more about the one you currently live in, it’s a useful guide.

Not to be outdone, the Post-Intelligencer has its own Puget Sound neighborhood site called Webtowns. Webtowns has neighborhood histories, bus routes, maps, schools, transportation links and more. The site even stays current by offering RSS feeds, allowing you to read the latest news headlines for your neighborhood from the comfort of your favorite news aggregator.

We maintain links to both of these great neighborhood guides in our sidebar.

Time magazine’s online real estate guide

Published by Stuart on June 27, 2005 in Reference. Closed

Via Lifehacker, we see that Time magazine has posted a list of online real estate resources. We’ll be evaluating these and other links in the coming weeks. The best will make it over to our “Useful Links” section on the sidebar. In the meantime, Time’s list is as good a place as any for info if you’re just starting to think about buying or selling.

The Seattle Office of Housing

Published by Stuart on June 12, 2005 in Reference. Closed

The Seattle Office of Housing has a wealth of information about affordable housing opportunities for first-time buyers and low income families, as well as free PDF publications on renting, home repair, and housing alternatives for artists. Developers, property managers, and neighborhood associations will all want to bookmark this site for future reference.