Robert Lani

For all of you who live in or near Wallingford I wanted to let you know who won this year's "Wally Awards." This information was provided by the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce.

♦ Best New Wallingford Business:
Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream
http://www.mollymoonicecream.com/

♦ Best All Around Wallingford Business:
Not a Number Cards and Gifts
http://secure.notanumberinc.com/

♦ Outstanding Service to Wallingford:
Wallingford Boys & Girls Club
http://www.wallingfordboysandgirlsclub.org/

♦ Personal Wallingford Service Award:
Diana Aurigemma

♦ President's Special Awards:

♦ Selena's Guadalajara - A great Family-owned and Operated restaurant

♦ Women's Wellness & Integrated Social Health (WWISH) - an online, interactive magazine for
and about women.
www.wwish-inc.com

♦ Janet Stillman - best Wallingford Neighborhood Office Director.

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!

Which Neighborhoods Are (Relatively) Hot in Seattle?

An interesting bellwether for how the real estate market is fairing is the "months of inventory" or "absorption rate." This is simply a measure of how long it would take all of the homes (including single family and condominiums) currently on the market to be sold given the current rate of sales. I enjoy crunching numbers and while the data are deemed reliable as they are derived from the King County Association of Realtors, they are not guaranteed.

The number of months of inventory for all of King County doubled from 7 months in November 2007 to 14 months in November 2008. The number of actual homes on the market for both months is similar, between 13,000 and 14,000. So the number of sellers is about the same, but the number of buyers has dropped off dramatically. This should come as no surprise given the doom and gloom of the housing market in the media.

King County covers a big area -- there are areas within it that are performing much better and much worse than the average of 14 months. The "relatively" hot areas would be North Seattle and Ballard/Greenlake/Greenwood. The Ballard/Greenlake/Greenwood area includes the desirable neighborhoods of Fremont, Phinney Ridge, and Wallingford. Both areas enjoy an absorption rate of just under 9 months and median home sales of about $400,000. The Capitol Hill/Madison Park area also has a less than average absorption rate of just 11 months.

The more pricey areas of Queen Anne/Magnolia and the Eastside have longer than average absorption rates as does Mercer Island, where the average sales price nears $1 million and the absorption rate is better described in terms of years than months...

I am just about to finish up a great book on online marketing for real estate agents. The book is called Real Estate Rainmaker: Guide to Online Marketing. The author is Dan Gooder Richard. In particular, the book is structured well; one can read it straight through or jump around and read the most relevant sections. The best feature of the book I found is that it was not just theoretical. Instead, examples of live online examples can be found throughout so that the reader can see practically how each idea/suggestion is executed. Below is a link for additional resources.

http://www.erainmaker.com/homepage.asp

My partner and I went to a great restaurant in Wallingford and had a great meal and excellent service. If you have not tried Joule on 45^th, you must try it soon. One dish we recommend is the whole mackerel - what a treat.

http://www.joulerestaurant.com/