Seattle Bubble

with Crystal, the pretty pink pony

Hey gang, it’s me again. Just wanted to update everybody on our big road trip. We’ve seen lots of places all across the country. It’s fun seeing new places. It’s like, as exciting as you can expect places outside of Seattle to be, anyway.

January 2:

Happy New Year everybody! Since I last popped in, we’ve driven through Dallas, New Orleans, Tallahassee, and stayed a few days in Fort Myers Beach on the gulf coast of Florida, where we rang in the new year, followed by a day trip to North Captiva Island.

While these places were all fun, I’m sad to report that I still haven’t found a place as special as Seattle yet. Here’s a quick rundown of what these places are missing that could make their real estate market invincible like our own.

Dallas / Ft. Worth: Where are the mountains? I didn’t see any. It’s just flat and brown as far as the eye can see. Yuck. Also, we drove right through town in the middle of the afternoon rush hour, and hardly hit any traffic at all. Those Silllyheads have built too many freeways. How can they expect downtown real estate to gain value when it’s so easy for people to get where they’re going?

New Orleans: We visited the French Quarter for lunch. It was a pretty wild experience! New Orleans totally has a lot of history, but you know what they don’t have (other than protection from hurricanes)? That’s right, Boeing and Microsoft. How can a city expect to have valuable real estate without special employers like that?

Tallahassee: Wow, there was like, nothing going on in this town. Seriously, the capital of Florida is the capital of boring. What do people do around here for fun? I mean, there’s no mountains, I didn’t see a single REI (where do they get their gore-tex?), and there definitely weren’t any Space Needles or EMPs. As our first stop in the so-called “sunshine state,” Tallahassee was a bit of a disappointment.

Fort Myers Beach: This beach town sure had a lot of people from all over the place for new years. And yeah, they had sunshine and temperatures in the 80s. But seriously, that would get so old like, fast. I guess you could say that they’re running out of land, since it is an island after all, but warm temperatures and sandy beaches are hardly a match for mountains, lakes, and Ballard.

North Captiva Island: OMG guys, I swear like, half this island is for sale! We rode on a golf cart from the marina to the house our friends were renting for the week, and like, nearly every other lot had a for sale sign out front! My guess is that people are selling their island vacation home here so they can buy a cute rambler in Kirkland. Best move they ever made, if you ask me.

Well, that’s all for now, gang. I’ll report back again in a few days. We’ve still got a long ways to go before we make it back home to the most specialest place in all the world!

with Crystal, the pretty pink pony

Editor’s Note from The Tim: I’m pleased to introduce Crystal, the pretty pink pony; mascot of Seattle real estate. She’ll occasionally pop in (especially over the next few weeks) to share some of her thoughts about the Seattle real estate. She has a… unique perspective that I hope you will find entertaining. Please give her a warm Seattle Bubble welcome.

Hiya gang! I’m Crystal, and I’d like to thank The Tim for this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you while we travel across the country! I’m so excited about Seattle’s real estate market, and like, this chance to see how other places stack up against our totally awesome town!

December 26:

Today we drove through Arizona and New Mexico. We drove through Flagstaff and Albuquerque, but sadly, we did not get to visit Phoenix, since we stuck to I-40. It was pretty and all, but I can easily see why real estate prices are dropping down here. First off, there’s like, a ton of land down here! I mean, in Seattle we’re totally running out of land, but in Arizona and New Mexico you can see for miles without even spotting a single house. Definitely not special.

Seriously, check it out:

The southwest also comes up short on specialness ’cause it’s way too sunny. As you can see in that picture, here in late December the sun is still shining away. What’s with that? Hey Arizona, hey New Mexico, have you met my friend Winter? Bleh. What fun is a state where it’s this sunny in December? No wonder people don’t want to buy homes here anymore!

Also, I kept a pretty keen eye out for the most common signs of specialness, and was mostly let down. Here’s how Arizona and New Mexico stack up on the checklist:

• Microsoft & Boeing: Barely.
• Trees: Not enough.
• Mountains: Yep!
• Rivers and lakes: Not many :(

As you can see, Arizona and New Mexico don’t have much hope of ever being as special as we are in Seattle. They are fun places to visit, but don’t count on real estate there to make you rich.