Most of my writings, and today’s Anniversary Post are over on Rain City Guide

Almost as many, though different posts over on  my blog. I tend to be a bit more specific there and am often talking to my clients vs the general public. .

My newest is AskArdell.com which is a WordPress.org vs WordPress.com site.

Then there is my Active Rain blog where I mostly talk with agents.

I can be reached at 206-910-1000 or ardelld@gmail.com.

Just putting up a quick post here today as a “place holder”. I’m reshuffling my blogs and my priorities.

Of particular interest when doing the most recent Seattle Home Price stats through 3rd quarter of 2009, is that bank-owned property and short sales sold higher on a price per square foot than “regular” sales.  So be careful not to overbid the “bargains”.

No matter where you live, there is an “imaginary neighborhood” with “imaginary lines”.  While these neighborhoods only exist in the minds of the residents, and you won’t find them in a book or on a map, they are very real, and greatly impact the value or lack thereof, of real estate.  A good/bad example for those trying to sell their homes, is when you live in the “right zip code, but wrong town” or in the “right school district, but wrong zip code”.

Here on “The Eastside”, some of the people who work at Microsoft, have created a value-based artifical “neighborhood” that I call “The Zone“.  The residents of this “neighborhood” are then, of course, called “The Zonies”.  Zonies being a sub-set, if you will, of “Microsoftees”.  I don’t like the term Microsoftees, though I hear it often, because people who work at Microsoft…are anything BUT soft, for sure.  Property values in “the Zone” are affected greatly by the supply and demand factor of people who work at Microsoft wanting to live near where they work.  Given the number of Microsoft employees, it is pretty safe to say that their actions greatly impact, and to a large extent control, the values in this “zone”.

Thanks Anne and Rex!   

Kirkland already has some fabulous area blogs and honestly, I love living in Kirkland, but there just aren’t enough things for me to say about Kirkland to create a dynamic blog.  Mostly because I can’t point to the homes for sale here and say which houses are great, which are overpriced, which are good investments, etc…  I’d love to, but it isn’t fair to my clients or the homeowners at large for me to do that. 

I will, of course, talk about Kirkland as well as Seattle and other Eastside locations.  Lots of ARDELL blogs, different strokes for different folks. I’ll find a “theme” for this one. 

I couldn’t get this great shot of a 1957 Chevy in here for some reason so I’m cross linking it HERE.  I added a stop by my Open House on the “other” blog to legitimize the entry’s presence on my Real Estate Blog

There we go!  That color is clearly not for everyone…

Pop over to the Kirkland Weblog and post your comments to this article regarding tax dollars funding “Wireless in the Park”.  I don’t go to the park, so don’t have strong opinions one way or the other.  I like having a “small town” atmosphere with “high tech” advantages, based just on principle.  Figure it costs me about a penny as a local taxpayer, so to City Council, I say Go For It!

Downtown Kirkland – Classic Car Show – Don’t Miss it!

It is my absolute favorite Kirkland Annual Event…Hands Down!

Just click on the hyperlinks below for scads of Kirkland info. 

For my own benefit, as well as yours, I am going to list some links to my favorite Kirkland oriented places.  I may pop in a few Seattle ones as well.  I try to keep most real estate advice posts on my main site Ardell’s Seattle Area Real Estate Blog, so there are more ones of area interest.  Also check out Rain City Guide for additional writings on Seattle Area Real Estate by Ardell and others.

The Kirkland Downtown Association Site is chock full of current event info and other usefull info.

The events calendar on the City of Kirkland Official Site, fills in some blanks to the KDL one above.

The Wikipedia on Kirkland is a good overall info source, and the Wikipedia in general is a great reasource for most anything.  This link should provide a permanent link to today’s featured article on Microsoft.

If you are looking for property for sale in Kirkland, try my site for searching property for sale or this nifty site where you click on Washington and then double click on Seattle, then double click on Bellevue to find Kirkland.  These three City links will bring you to the newspapers for each area and the Kirkland link will give you access to Queen Anne and some other Seattle Neighborhoods as well.

This blog is clearly my favorite Kirkland Blog but it is getting much harder to find in the Search Engines for some reason than it was in the past.  So I’m putting a link to it here for both me and you.

We don’t have too many hotels in Kirkland, so I’ll post this link to the Woodmark and this one for short term rentals at The Villagio.  Actually more of my clients have stayed in Downtown at the Westwater just past the intersection of Lake and Central for short term needs, but I can’t find a good link to that.  So call me at 206-910-1000 if you want some info on that one or email me at ARDELL@SoundRealty.biz.

As I was driving home yesterday, I saw a for sale sign on this well known Kirkland House.  It was recently featured in Seattle Homes Magazine and was built in 2003.  It’s one of those homes you can’t miss as it is so completely different from other homes in Kirkland.  It has always been one of Kim’s favorites and surprisingly one of his daughter’s favorites as well.  Kim and his daughter did not grow up together, so it always amazes me when their tastes meld in that fashion.

I was hoping to go to and report back on Broker’s Open Houses tomorrow, but I have a home inspection scheduled at 10 a.m.  

I prefer to search better on msn than Google and my stats for my “regular” blog Ardell’s Seattle Area Real Estate Blog seem to be falling that way.  But a surprising number of people come through Yahoo Search even though I don’t seem to search there as well.  In any event, this paragraph is added to comply with Dustin’s advice on Rain City Guide this morning.