Kenmore Undressed

King County Budget Cuts May Compromise Public Safety: Attend Town Hall Meetings

King County Sheriff, Sue Rahr, has sounded the alarm: Cuts in the County budget threaten Public Safety. An estimated $90 million shortfall requires an 11.4% budget cut for 2009. Sheriff Rahr has indicated that these cuts will be across-the-board and will reduce services such as police, victim services, drug and mental health court, inmate housing and many others. In order to understand the impact of these budget cuts, the public has been invited to a series of Town Hall Meetings in October and November. Kenmore residents can attend a meeting in Shoreline: 

October 20th from 7:00 - 8:30 PM

Shoreline Conference Center

18560 1st Avenue NE

Shoreline, WA  98155 

Here is a map of the Shoreline Conference Center. Click on the map for more detail:

I think it’s important to say that King County has experienced a drop in crime over the last several years. From a local perspective, crime in Kenmore has been better under control as well. We all need to become more involved in our neighborhood, so please attend this critical meeting.

City-data.com - Get to know your favorite city

There are a huge number of statistical resources on the internet. One can literally spend hours pouring over population trends, crime stats, housing prices, you name it. But, there are only so many hours in the day. So where does one find a site that encapsulates data in a coherent and concise way? I think www.city-data.com is an excellent resource. If you’re a resident in Iowa and want to find out about Kenmore, WA because your employer is relocating you, here are some of the interesting statistics you can review:Some of the other very interesting breakdowns include: number of government employees, building permits, crime statistics, educational attainment…..whew, it goes on and on. The only thing I’d like you to keep in mind is that some of the statistics aren’t current (this is not uncommon because it takes a long time to assemble some data). But, go ahead and look through this website. You may learn something for your next cocktail party

Bastyr University - Natural Health Sciences and a Beautiful Location

Yesterday I wrote about my visit to Saint Edward State Park. What I forgot to mention was yet another Kenmore Treasure: Bastyr University which is right next to the State Park. Bastyr is world famous as a center for advancing knowledge in the natural health sciences such as naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, Oriental medicine, nutrition, health psychology, exercise science and herbal sciences. It’s quite an amazing place and it’s right in our backyard. Bastyr is also important to the Kenmore economy as it is the largest employer in the community. It offers conference services, meeting rooms, a vegetarian cafeteria (open to the public) and overnight guest rooms. 

The last time I visited the Bastyr campus was for a wedding. Yes, a wedding in the University Chapel which is a beautiful non-denominational, European-style church built in 1958. Bastyr truly is an important institution in our town. Check it out sometime soon.

A Kenmore Treasure: Saint Edward State Park

Yesterday, the weatherman was wrong. It was supposed to be another gray, rainy day in the Northwest, but fortunately Helios managed to hold off the clouds. This gave me an opportunity to spend some time at one of Kenmore’s wonderful landmarks: Saint Edward State Park. Confession time: I’ve never visited this wonderful park before. I’ve driven past it hundreds of times, and I knew there was was a Catholic Seminary on the premises, but I was never inclined to visit. I think my recent trip to Italy inspired me to take a closer look at the Romanesque brick buildings on the property. Also, I needed a few quite moments away from all the NOISE in the world. I was not disappointed:

The pictures above are examples of the Romanesque Revivalist style of the Saint Edward structures. One sees these types of arches and pillars all over Italy. In some ways, it’s odd to see such an old-world structure in Kenmore:

Just for a comparison, the next picture is from Lucca, Italy. These arches are spectacular examples of Romanesque architecture. You can see their resonance in the seminary details.

This wonderful Seminary was completed in 1931 and operated until 1977 when its 316 acres were sold to Washington State. This is truly a must-see part of Kenmore. I hope you have an opportunity to visit it someday. Make sure you bring your walking shoes.

Current Events in Kenmore: KenmoreBlog.net

As a realtor and Kenmore resident, I’m always trying to discover what’s going on in my home town. If you’re Internet savvy, one of the best resources for Kenmore current events is an excellent blog, http://kenmoreblog.net.

I like this blog because it’s not only informative, but it’s editors do an excellent job of helping the reader link to other relevant sites. For example, in the Octoberfest post, the event is taking place at the Kenmore Community Club . Just click on the link and you go to another nice site with even more information:

The internet is truly an amazing tool.

New Construction Numbers in Kenmore, WA - Resale Is Doing Much Better

It should be no surprise that new homes (those built in 2008) have not been selling at the brisk pace of several years ago. Far from it. Since January 1, 2008, twenty-five (25) newly constructed homes have sold in Kenmore.  Resale has been doing much better at 101 sales. 50% of these homes sold for under $500,000. All of the new homes sold for over $500,000. I believe that the current market trumoil is taking its toll on home sales in general; however, I also think that new construction is facing some tough competitioin from the resale market. There are almost 2-times as many resale properties on the market right now. They are selling for about 8% less than original list price which means those sellers are being more flexible in their negotiations.

Overall, sales of new homes has been lethargic. Please turn your attention to the charts below:

As the turmoil in Wall Street unfolds and we move into the 4th quarter and Presidential elections, I wonder how the real estate market will fair? Properties are selling in Kenmore in the face of some fairly scary economic times, so it’s not the end of the world…yet. The important thing to recognize is that you should do your homework before jumping into (or out of) the real estate market.

Kenmore Newsletter: An Excellent Publication

I received the Kenmore Newsletter Fall 2008 edition. It’s an excellent publication. As a resident there are interesting articles in the newsletter regarding topics such as the Northshore Fire Department, the King Co. Library System and the Utility District. Also, as a real estate agent, it helps me understand some of the “big picture” happenings in Kenmore. One other benefit of the newsletter is that it reminds me to visit the City of Kenmore’s website, which contains a huge amount of information about our community. The web address is http://www.cityofkenmore.com/. For those of you who don’t live in Kenmore, you can see the whole newsletter by going to the website, click on the “About Kenmore” icon which takes you to the next page. Click on “News” at the top. This brings you to a page of events. Scroll down to publications where you will find an on-line copy of the newsletter. I hope this helps give you some insight into our community. Kenmore, WA is my home and I really like it here.  

Isn’t it Cold in the Seattle Area? You’re so far North!

Isn’t it cold in Seattle? We were asked this a lot in Italy. My realtives had a hard time believing that the weather in Seattle is temperate and relatively mild. Because we lie so far north, even most people in the United States think of Seattle as a cold place like Maine or Upstate NY. The fact is, the weather in Puget Sound is unique. Even though Seattle is further north than all other major US cities, we have an oceanic climate. As a realtor, I’ve worked with a lot of relocation clients and it’s always fun to see their faces when I mention that Seattle is a place where the grass is brown in the summer and green in the winter. We are famous for the rain, but most people don’t realize that we have virtually no rain from mid-July to late September. 

Some of my friends told me that last month wasn’t a typical August and, since we were in Italy, I wanted to check back to see what happened. Well, I did some poking around and found a wonderful website called Beautiful Seattle that offers a huge amount of information about Seattle. One section of the site deals specifically with our climate. Below are several pages from the site. Just click on them if you want to visit the site:

In the top left of the site, click on the “select destination” menu which will take you to a whole array of topics. If you select climate you get this page:

From here you can select any number of reports regarding the weather in Seattle. So, for those of you who lived through the August weather and those who don’t live in the area, here’s what happened:

This is a very nice chart as it gives me a good idea of what the weather was like last month. It was a fairly cloudy August (unusual) and the temperatures were fairly mixed. Mid-month got really hot. I will tell you that Italy was downright brutal: mid to upper 90’s, sunny and humid. One similarity to Seattle is that most Italians don’t have air conditioning……………………..ouch!

Kenmore, WA - Home Sale Statistics for August

August was a slow month for home sales this year in King County. The good news is that there wasn’t much of a change in Kenmore from last August. Take a look at the chart below:

There were only 17 sold homes in Kenmore last month, but one year ago there were 18 sales. This is only a 6% drop as compared to an overall drop of 43% in King County. Median prices have dropped a bit since the beginning of the year. In King Co., they have dropped 7% (the median price having dropped from $460,000 to $410,000. Kenmore faired slightly better with at drop of only 5% (from $453, 450 to $430,000). 

In the Seattle Times article from September 10th entitled, “King County home prices in August slide back to April 2006” we have seen a significant erosion of home prices in the area. It’s important for home sellers to understand that the market has been very tough this year. We may not see positive movement until 2009 as we are fast approaching the national election and we will not see significant changes in the capital markets until the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout actually produces some results.

Another factor to consider is the absorption rates of homes in King Co. Remember, absorption rate means the percentage of homes absorbed (sold) as compared to the number of homes available in a given time period. The charts below show, clearly, that home sales are stagnant. Even with a high inventory and dropping prices, buyers are holding on to their money and the lenders continue to be ultra-conservative. As a realtor, I think those of you thinking about buying a home in the near future are going to have a huge opportunity. The most important thing for you to do right now is consult with your lender to ensure that you can get a loan, then start looking now. Home owners, unless you must move right now, take a deep breath, enjoy your home and exercise some common sense.

How I Spent My Sunday Morning: The Bicycling Realtor

Meet your intrepid bicycling adventurers, Virginia my wife and yours truly, James the Bicycling Realtor:

Virginia and I have been tandem bicycling since 1990 and there’s nothing we enjoy more than taking a ride on the bike from our home in Kenmore and doing what we call the mezzo-lake ride: we start in Kenmore, head south to the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and then travel north back to Kenmore. This morning we took off at around 8:00 and got back home at 12:00. We’ve done this ride numerous times and there is always some surprise along the way. So what follows are photos of our short adventure. What you’re going to find is that bicycling is the perfect way to experience communities in a very intimate way. As a Realtor, it’s refreshing to look at homes from a bike. One can see how the house relates to the yard and the street. You can smell the neighborhood and hear the sounds. All-too-often we pass through other peoples’ neighborhoods in our cars hardly taking notice of how things fit together. We don’t have a chance to smile at an owner working in the front yard. We pass through anonymously.

At the intersecton of State Highway 522 and 80th Ave. NE (1 mile south of our home) there has been a huge construction project to upgrade the road. It really is amazing to see the size of this project.

We then head east on the Burke-Gilman Trail to Wayne Public Golf Course and then travel south into Juanita:

We continue south (uphill) to Downtown Kirkland. On the we pass by a wildlife refuge on Lake Washington:

Our big surprise today was reaching Downtown Kirkland and bumping into a huge car show. Check these beauties out:

Fortunately, the only fatality we witnessed today was the Wicked Witch of the West. Poor gal. After drooling over some wonderful cars we continued on our way.

From Kirkland, we head bicycle up an unpleasant hill into Downtown Bellevue.

Virginia loves this portion of the ride because we pass by one of the areas most elegant malls: Bellevue Square. Too bad we didn’t have a chance to stop today (ya, right!!). We continue through Bellevue and finally reach one of the best part of the ride: the I-90 floating bridge. The I-90 path starts in the Bellevue neighborhood of Enatai:

We head west onto Mercer Island and then reach the west point of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. About 2 miles across, this is a wonderfully refreshing stretch of road. We are fortunate to have a bike lane on such a unique stretch of road.

At the west end of the bridge the auto traffic enters the Mt. Baker Tunnel which heads into Downtown Seattle. We continue by heading north on our way back home. We head along Lake Washington Blvd. through the neighborhoods of Leschi, Madrona, Madison and then hook over through the Seattle Aboretum and then over the Montlake Bridge.

It’s then past Husky Stadium at the University of Washington where Virginia must give the mascot a hug:

We usually stop at University Village for a coffee at Starbucks. University Village is one of the most charming shopping centers in the area.

After our caffene fix, we head north on 25th Avenue NE through such neighborhoods as Bryant, Ravenna, Lake City, Lake Forest Park and finally we’re back home in Kenmore.

Today was perfect for a bicycle ride. The weather was clear and comfortable. We didn’t encounter too much traffic on either the Burke-Gilman Trail or on the roads. Over the years, Virginia and I have logged literally thousands of miles on our tandem. It’s one of the most powerful and enjoyable way to enjoy bicycling together.