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Posts Tagged "Puget Sound"


  • Three Tips to Escape Summer Heat in Seattle

    August 10, 2018 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

    The Puget Sound area has shifted into full summer mode, and it feels (and tastes!) glorious. The blueberries are fat and sweet, and on the Kitsap Peninsula, Local Boys’ special orange creamsicle melon tastes exactly like an orange creamsicle, except better. Plus, taking a dip in the Sound feels a bit less bone-shatteringly glacial than usual. However, it’s no news that Washingtonians aren’t exactly accustomed to heat, and that they tend to wilt when temperatures rise above a mild 70 degrees. In fact, since it only gets this hot for about a month or so each year, only one third of Seattle homes have air conditioning. According to the Weather Channel, this is lowest percentage of households with air conditioning of the 41 metros included in a United States census survey. Even so–who needs air conditioning when you have an entire state full of beaches, rivers, and other shady spots? To help you both escape the heat and make the most of these gorgeous and fleeting summer days, the list below offers a few cool tips. To talk to Pickett Street about real estate in this Puget Sound paradise, get in touch with them at info@pickettstreet.com or 425-502-5397. 1. Get…Read more

  • Where to Spend Your Fourth of July Around the Puget Sound

    June 28, 2018 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

    One year my brothers and I took the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle, then trekked over to Gas Works Park to watch the fireworks over Lake Union. We sat on a blanket in the grass for several hours waiting for it to get dark, which meant we had ample time for people watching. Families, couples, and friends kicked off their shoes, drank beer, ate plates of fried fish from Ivar’s, and sunbathed like bats emerging from a dark cave. A shirtless man did yoga in the grass. I watched as–I kid you not–a woman fed bits of crab meat to her cat on a leash (the woman and cat left before the fireworks). To summarize, everyone was just doing what Washingtonians do best–enjoying the fleeting sunshine and being weird and merry. The Puget Sound is one of the best places to spend the Fourth of July. The weather is usually mild. You can watch fireworks over the Sound or over one of the area’s many lakes. Also, the streets flow with delicious seafood, produce, wine, and beer. Here’s a list of Fourth of July events around the Puget Sound to help you make the most of this holiday. Seafair Summer…Read more

  • Attention All Foodies: It’s Farmers Market Season!

    June 1, 2018 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

    Occasionally my partner sweetly suggests that we buy salmon to cook for dinner, and every time he does so my inner Pacific Northwest food snob kicks in. Because I spent most of my life in the Seattle area, and because I now live in Colorado, which–just to be clear–could not be more landlocked, I always turn up my nose at eating seafood. “Are you kidding me?” I always scoff at him, sounding like a real brat. “I’m from Seattle.” With the exception of river trout, eating fish in Colorado simply cannot compare to eating fish in Washington State. Eating good salmon or oysters in the Pacific Northwest is like eating mermaid ambrosia pulled straight from the sea and plopped directly onto your plate--so fresh, briny, and rich. My summers growing up in Washington revolved around food. My parents' yard overflowed with wild raspberries and blackberries. We spent many days on the Puget Sound digging for razor clams to fry or bake or add to linguine or chowder. On more ambitious days, we lay on our bellies during low tide and shove our hands deep into the mud to catch geoducks. One summer, I remember going to the Ballard farmers market…Read more

  • Pike Place Market

    April 21, 2017 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

    For a long time, I only went to Pike Place Market when my extended family from the East Coast visited Seattle, which might be the reason I’ve since avoided it for much of my adult life.   Don’t get me wrong: I love my family, and I never felt any ill-will toward the Market. If anything, I essentially forgot about Pike Place’s existence, writing it off as a tourist novelty that didn’t warrant attention from a Puget Sound native. Never mind that I was actually from New Jersey, and probably would have spent my life there if my parents hadn’t decided to relocate to the Emerald City (I imagine one of them randomly looking up from the newspaper and saying something like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be swell if we moved to the rainiest corner of the country?”); no, in my mind I was already a true Seattleite, and I couldn’t be bothered by tourist attractions.   Of course, whenever my uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins gathered in the Northwest for reunions, Pike Place was always their destination of choice. On one memorable family outing, everyone insisted on visiting Pike Place’s Starbucks, famous for being the business’ original location. It’s also…Read more

  • Neighborhood Profile: Mercer Island

    April 7, 2017 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

    In the not so distant past, Native American traditions held that Mercer Island was not only a refuge of ghosts, but also prone to sinking into the waters of Lake Washington overnight, only to emerge in the morning. Since enduring a nightly dunk in the briny would be something of an annoyance, it’s hardly surprising that settlement of Mercer Island occurred relatively late compared to the rest of the Puget Sound region. Now, the island is one of the most popular parts of the Seattle area, a reputation that has no doubt been buoyed by the island’s apparent reluctance to sink beneath the waves. Drifting in the middle of Lake Washington has allowed Mercer Island to escape suburban sprawl and maintain a small-town feel in the midst of an urban metropolis. The island’s population hovers just above 24,000 residents, and the community enjoys a calm, peaceful atmosphere. Despite its slower pace of life, Mercer Island’s close proximity to Seattle’s downtown makes it easy to commute to the city for work or recreation. However, Mercer Island has plenty of its own attractions, making it easy to stick around and bypass the city altogether. Just because it’s tucked away from downtown Seattle…Read more

  • For everything there is a season – a market update from Pickett Street

    April 15, 2013 /
    Pickett Street Properties Team /

      Happy Tax Day! I never feel like the prior year is over until today, which can make the first three and a half months a little like purgatory. Now that we've graduated fully into 2013, I feel like it's a good time to give you an update on how the real estate market is moving, and how our team, Pickett Street Properties, is changing with the market. It shouldn't be news that the real estate market has changed. After 5 years of depreciation, after 5 years of foreclosures and short sales, our local real estate market is rebounding, and in an aggressive way. Buyers shopping now are paying 15% more than last year in King and Snohomish Counties (year-over-year), and this upward trend in appreciation appears to have some legs. Simply put, demand is up and supply is down. The data can be confusing though. At first glance, housing sales are actually lower in both counties. Knowing that fewer homes are selling should usually worry sellers, but a closer look at the stats shows a different story. There are fewer homes available this year over last year (down over 4% in Snohomish County), fewer homes going under contract compared to…Read more