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Snowmageddon: Last Minute Tips For A Snug Home This Weekend
February 8, 2019 /As I sit here writing this from Colorado, I can’t help but laugh bitterly as I read about the winter snow storm hitting the Seattle area this weekend. Nearly a foot of snow also dumped on Denver this past week. And because I am still a Washingtonian at heart, I eagerly checked my phone approximately once every five minutes to see if the campuses where I teach had issued any campus closures. But no—as soon as it began to snow, Colorado’s battalion of snowplows came out in full force and merrily and efficiently cleared the streets as soon as a mere half inch had gathered. “Campus will remain open today!” the University of Colorado tweeted. “More snow and below-freezing temps in the forecast, so bundle up!” Bundle up, indeed. I can’t help feeling envious of my loved ones in the Seattle area right now as I watch the school closure alerts rolling in. (Here’s The Seattle Times’ list of closures and cancellations.) “How’s the snow storm coming?” I texted my mom earlier this morning. “Nothing yet!” she replied. “But the grocery store yesterday was as busy as at Christmas! SO EXCITED.” However, despite my envy at…Read more
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Community Highlights: Lowrider Baking Company
February 4, 2019 /Pickett Street Properties is dedicated to serving the community and is highlighting businesses and community members that are dedicated to doing the same. In this highlight we are excited to share about Lowrider Baking Company out of Seattle, WA. Here is Emily's story: I was a pastry chef before starting Lowrider and it has been my childhood dream to own my own bakery. I started Lowrider in May 2017 and up until October 2018, we have just done farmer's markets, pop-ups, catering, and wholesale. We opened the trailer in October 2018, which has been great because we can now be open year-round. I have always been a very self-motivated person, but when I do look for inspiration I love to watch Chef's Table on Netflix or listen to How I Built This on NPR. Baking is my passion and cookies are my favorite baked treat to eat so starting a cookie shop made sense. I love creating new flavors and recipes. My mission is to make the best cookies in the city. My favorite quote is: "People who love to eat are always the best people." -Julia Child Lowrider Baking Company is open on Saturday 11am-6pm and Sunday 11am-4pm. Go check…Read more
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Finely Clicked: Margaret and Jesse’s Business-Savvy Podcast
February 1, 2019 /Forget Serial, forget This American Life and Radiolab—have you listened to Jesse Moore and Margaret Smith’s new podcast? Available on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, and Podbean, Finely Clicked covers everything from business and real estate to leadership and personal development to vacations, primordial sludge, ASMR, and whiskey. Margaret and Jesse are funny, honest, and incredibly insightful. Last night on my drive home, I listened to their most recent episode on time. As a university instructor and freelancer, I often struggle with time. Unlike some 9 to 5 positions, my jobs involve strange hours; typically, there are 2 to 6 hours each day when I need to show up at specific times to teach various classes and meetings. When the rest of the work happens—the lesson planning, emailing, researching, writing, grading—is entirely up to me, which means I regularly work evenings and weekends. I’ve also been recently discussing the importance of community and connection, which this episode discusses, with my college classes—according to a recent Harvard study, investing time in healthy relationships actually helps you live longer! As such, my favorite part about this episode was the way it shows how time relates to human connection, an idea that plays such a…Read more
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The Gift of Equity
January 25, 2019 /Because we’ve grown used to living in small spaces together, my husband and I try to avoid giving each other things. Instead, we like to gift each other time together—dinner at a restaurant, a hike in the mountains, or even just time to sit together at home over a bottle of wine and connect. My husband is especially good at these non-material gifts; early every morning he makes a big pot of coffee so that it’s ready when I wake up. He inherited this aptness for generosity through acts of service from his father, who will quietly fix a lightbulb or change the oil in our cars whenever we visit. Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. When it comes to nontraditional gifts, I recently learned the coolest idea from the Pickett Street team—did you know that family members can give each other the gift of equity? Neither did I. Pickett Street can tell you more about this gift (info@pickettstreet.com or 425-502-5397), and you can also read on for the basic rules. 1. What are gifts of equity? According to Pickett Street’s preferred mortgage lender Cody Touchette with Caliber Home Loans, “gift funds or a gift of equity is when…Read more
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Gary Keller’s Return and Keller Williams’ Tech-Inspired Future
January 18, 2019 /The fields of technology and real estate are moving quickly these days. In early January, Gary Keller returned to Keller Williams as CEO. As the company’s co-founder and chairman, Keller announced that he is eager to step back into this role to lead the real estate industry "into the future.” Keller stated that “2019 marks our complete transformation into a technology company that provides unique agent solutions and consumer experiences, positioning us to lead the industry in the years ahead.” In 1983, Gary Keller (who was not yet 30!) co-founded the company with Joe Williams. As of 2018, Keller Williams is the biggest real estate franchise in the U.S. In a live broadcast last week, Keller emphasized the importance of “tech-enabled agents” to enhance customer experiences. Regarding this exciting new period for the company, Keller commented, “We are in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’—an era of the machine-powered ‘know-it-all’ business that’s always on, analyzing, learning, and thinking.” Here are three major developments for the company as it steps into 2019. 1. SmarterAgent partnership The startup company SmarterAgent allows real estate agents to create branded search apps across multiple listing services. This mobile app will also eventually connect to Keller Williams’ database…Read more
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Seattle Real Estate Forecast
January 15, 2019 /Happy New Year! I have a good feeling about this one. What are you most excited for in 2019? What are you choosing to focus on? Pickett Street’s Margaret Smith is jumping into the new year with her focus word “relentless.” I’m attempting to incorporate less car time and more walking in my daily routines—wish me luck. If your New Year goals involve buying or selling a home (or simply thinking about these decisions!), take a look at 2019’s real estate forecast outlined below. Make sure you also reach out to Pickett Street (info@pickettstreet.com or 425-502-5397) for information about your best real estate options. 1. The housing market will slow, but stabilize. While some experts predicted that the 2018 tax bill would cause the housing market to slow, the Washington Post asserts that so far “the limitations on mortgage-interest and property-tax deductions haven’t had a negative impact.” Instead, real estate experts anticipate that the market will slow in 2019 due to rising mortgage rates and the current government shutdown. Experts also say, however, this slowing down is not a complete standstill. According to the National Association of Realtors, “The forecast for home sales will be very boring — meaning stable.”…Read more
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Community Highlights: Side Hustle Doughnuts
January 14, 2019 /Pickett Street Properties is dedicated to serving the community and is highlighting businesses and community members that are dedicated to doing the same. In this highlight we are excited to share about Side Hustle Doughnuts out of the Georgetown neighborhood in Seattle, WA. Here is their story: With no kitchen or baking experience, I’m probably the most unlikely doughnut maker you’ll ever meet. For the past 17 years, I’ve worked for some amazing Seattle companies including Nordstrom, Microsoft, Expedia, and most recently Amazon, however, I felt myself getting increasingly burned out on corporate life and wanted to try something completely new, and different. My significant other, Chris (owner of Lowercase Brewing), and I live above Lowercase’s production facility in South Park where we’re surrounded by spent-grain (a by-product of the brewing process) so we wanted to find a creative use for it. We also realized that Lowercase’s taproom in Georgetown was closed more often than it was open so we wanted to find a way to take advantage of the unused space in the mornings. I happen to love sweets and was convinced Georgetown needed a doughnut shop so we hatched a plan in the fall of 2017 to…Read more
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What’s Your Word for the Year?
December 31, 2018 /What's Your Word for the Year? By Margaret Smith, Director of Operations for Pickett Street In 2018 my word was “Relentless”. I don’t give up and I’m relentless in my pursuit of fulfilling my purpose. The word came to me in May of 2018- so it wasn’t something that I intentionally chose to do before the New Year rolled around, I just realized it was what I was doing. This year I’m making a point of selecting my word for the year ahead of time, with intention. Definition of Relentless: Showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace. My friend Jessica and I used to say “We’re not smart, we just work really hard”. That was our perspective in high school, and I still stand firm with it for the most part. I do believe I’m intelligent, but I also believe I don’t know everything. Nothing comes easily to me- I work really hard for everything I have in my life: my duplex, my career, my family, friends and passion to grow and become the next iteration of myself. What you see on social media is all true, and I work hard to try and show the…Read more
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Pickett Street’s Coziest Holiday Traditions
December 21, 2018 /Right now I’m curled up in my parents’ home in Gig Harbor, which just lost power in the wind storm. Because the house’ sits in a secluded spot in the woods, they lose power several times per year and never know if electricity will return in a few hours or a few days. One Christmas, we lost power for a full week. However, despite the fact that the wind storm has just plunged my family into darkness for the unforeseeable future, the holidays in our home remain infused with hygge. We have a wood-burning stove, a pot of coffee, stacks of reading material, and plenty of candles. Recently, I read about an adorable tradition in Iceland called Jólabókaflóðið (“flood of books”), where loved ones gift books to each other on Christmas Eve, then spend the rest of the evening snuggled up at home reading and drinking hot chocolate. To celebrate tōji, or the winter solstice, people in Japan take hot yuzu baths to warm up, lift their moods, and soothe chapped skin. I’ve learned over the years that homes feel the coziest when you choose a space that feels true to your needs and when you maintain social connections and…Read more
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Community Highlights: Pure Results
December 17, 2018 /Pickett Street Properties is dedicated to serving the community and is highlighting businesses and community members that are dedicated to doing the same. This week we are excited to share about Pure Results Fitness Center in Lynnwood, WA. Our very own Team Administrator Sarah Troske and Owner Jesse Moore attend Pure Results! Hello, my name is Ray Hecita, I am the Owner of Pure Results Fitness Center and a Body Transformation Specialist. I started Pure Results in 2006 with 20+ years of experience in working with people to transform their lives that simply wanted to lose weight, gain weight, getting ready for a competition, rehabilitation, or injury prevention. After working for most of the large gyms in Washington I finally started my gym because unfortunately most people were not being serviced well and they were getting hurt. I opened Pure Results for that specific reason, to help more people transform their lives for the better. By helping them get in the best shape and avoid injury. After doing so, I know I have done my best to help them, so one day they can spread the information and education I taught them to help other people get in better…Read more
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Seattle’s Big Shift: Two More Reasons to Buy a Home Now
December 14, 2018 /You may have noticed a trend in these blog posts over the past several weeks. Here they are, in no particular order: how to buy a home with zero down, why a home should be on your shopping list, and why to buy before the new year. This recent push to buy is not to encourage you to participate mindlessly in the holiday season’s characteristically frantic spending. Rather, Pickett Street wants their clients to know that buying now might be a very mindful, financially smart decision. Buying a home right now is like going shopping at the mall during the quietest, most dead time of the year, when you practically have the whole place to yourself, when stores are eager to move product, and when sales abound. Over the past six years, Seattle has been a difficult place to buy a home. The Seattle Times reports that in 2017, 92 percent of Seattle homes for sale involved multiple bidders. 79 percent of homes had multiple bidders in the larger stretch between Snohomish and Pierce Counties. However, over the past several months, the tides have quickly shifted. In November, just 21 percent of Seattle homes had multiple bidders.…Read more
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Pickett Street’s Holiday Event Guide 2018
December 7, 2018 /Real talk: December can feel difficult for many people. Financial issues, complicated family dynamics, and other personal challenges often rear their ugly heads. Additionally, with its deeply northern location, the Seattle area can feel especially dark and wet this time of year, resulting in low energy and dips in one’s moods. Curious about how people in even darker parts of the world handle winter, I recently read an article about a PhD student who spent a full year researching mental health in Tromsø, Norway. Tromsø is so far north that between late November and late January, the sun never climbs above the horizon. Apparently, however, residents in this town largely avoid seasonal depression. As it turned out, Norwegians “view winter as something to be enjoyed, not endured.” Tromsø residents infuse everything they do with a sense of koselig—roughly translated as “coziness” and similar to the Danish hygge—through fires, warm drinks, candles, and fuzzy blankets. According to the article, the research student also reported that Norwegians typically form close-knit communities and that “Tromsø had plenty of festivals and community activities creating the sense that everyone was in it together.” So, in order to help you embrace winter’s chill, spend more time…Read more
