The secret’s finally out: Seattle is one of the best places to live
I had a very hard time deciding to get back into real estate after a slimy one week of watching a broker tell me that people who bought $15,000 properties weren’t worth my time right out of college. However, one thing I trusted was that Seattle and the area surrounding it was some of the best real estate in the world. I’m biased since I grew up there.
Most of my life people I ran into from around the world in New York, California or Korea asked “You’re from where?” “I heard it rains a lot over there” and a bunch of other questions or comments showing how ignorant they were about Seattle. They didn’t know that Seattle was the home to the biggest software company in the world (Microsoft), the home to where they found the biggest commercial manufacturer of planes (Boeing), the biggest franchise of coffee shops (Starbucks), and many more including Tmobile, Costco, Weyerhaeuser (I’m surprised I spelled this right — first time in my life), Russell Indexes, Almond Roca, Expeditors International, Nordstroms and many more. Online, it’s home for Amazon.com, Expedia.com, Zillow.com and many other dot coms (.com’s) in Seattle. The point isn’t that Seattle has some famous brands, but it has many companies that honest are “smart” and more about the long term. It’s an “undercover” entrepreneurial area and what that means is jobs to me…and jobs means income which equates to better real estate prices in the long run.
While the city has some dreery winters and does get quite a bit of rain (even though on average it really doesn’t), the rain actually does a positive thing: keeps the city really clean. I’ve yet to see a city as clean as Seattle…rather, it’s one of the cleanest in the world…which also means good health — another reason why people want to live there. Also, the rain may be a bit depressing when it’s coming down, at the same time, the summers are honestly one of the best in the world. The entire northwest from the northern tip of California up through Vancouver, B.C. has literally the most marvelous, least humid summers in the world. It was a secret for so long that I hated to tell many people because I wanted to keep it all to myself. Part of Seattle’s secret is that they don’t go bragging to the world they are the best…they just secretly cultivate what is necessary to make it the best. Well, quite a few Californians have recognized it over the years and have been consistently migrating from the south to the North.
The people are not only entrpreneurial, but they are also socially conscious. They debate harder than most people throughout the world. While they don’t agree all the time and it causes delays in public means like transportation and other functions in the Seattle region, they debate it until their faces are blue to make sure it’s 110% right and not some short term solution. Perhaps they could learn a bit from their northern neighbors in Vancouver who cooperate a bit more, but then again, things still seem to be relatively o.k. minus traffic and a few other things.
Anyway, the point is that Seattle is strong & with the latest numbers from an article in Forbest, it shows that they had the highest appreciation last year despite a slower market. Check out more here…