Rain City Guide

I just noticed an interesting article published in the Inman News by RCG contributor, Russ Cofano, that provides an interesting perspective on the extent to which a listing broker can copyright a listing (requires a subscription after today).

In a recent news publication, attorney J.T. Westermeier, partner in the firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray [...]

Just found out that a reporter with the News Tribune out of Tacoma has started blogging about real estate. While I’d like to tell you about some of the great posts she’s been putting together, we tend to ramble a little too much her tastes, so I’ll keep this post short!

Zillow has launched!
I just got an email from Zillow’s Director of Communications and she passed along the fact that not only is their blog live, but a beta version of their site is live as well… Rich and David flipped the switch!
So, what does Zillow do?
In two minutes of of a Skype [...]

I just received a newsletter from Todd Litman of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute that describes an innovative project that is being tested by King County Metro.
King County Metro, the Washington State Department of Transportation and other partners has $2,2 million to develop a Pay As You Drive (PAYD) Insurance Pilot project for Washington [...]

A new Broker opens an office and has no listings yet. He goes to area brokers and asks if he can advertise their listings in his “window” to help get him started. Mostly they say yes. They are not trying to force out the competition and they are more than willing to [...]

A recent study was just released that concludes that living in a walkable neighborhood is healthier than living in the suburbs! Another good reason to live in Seattle!
The Seattlest nominated this article for the “No Shit Sherlock” department in that it does not take a study to conclude that people who walk [...]

The common phrase is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In this case, I have some clients who just received a $1,000 ticket for renting a home without a business license. If this was their profession and they had 20 or so units, a $1,000 fine probably wouldn’t be a good thing but [...]

OK, let’s “Get Real” for a minute.
On the one hand we have the consumer who wants what they need, no more; no less, for a price that seems reasonable.
Now, let’s look at the “service providers”, both as you know them, and as I know them as an insider. From an insider’s [...]

And with a title like that, I might just eat my words. There was an interesting story in New York Times story about FSBO yesterday. It describes a (ugly!) FSBO online service in Madison Wisconsin that has grown immensely over the past few years. I feel a little like a curmudgeon [...]

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(via MetroBlogger)