Seattle Bubble

Thanks to the generosity of over 70 readers, the Seattle Bubble Fundraising Drive has finally come to completion, reaching the goal of raising $2,500.

I just wanted to take a moment to extend a big thank you to everyone that donated. Your financial contributions allow me to continue operating this site, providing an independent alternative for real estate news and analysis in the Seattle area.

I look forward to rolling out the exciting things I have planned for Seattle Bubble in the coming months, and I greatly appreciate your continued assistance.

Thanks everyone!

Time for another update on the fundraising drive. So far 39 people have donated a total of $885, putting us over 1/3 of the way to the goal. Thank you for your generosity!

If just 65 more people were to donate $25 each, the goal would be reached. Please consider making a donation if you have not already. If you have—thank you again.

Someone left the following comment on the previous fundraising post:

I’ve wondered how you monetize your detailed, quantitative knowledge of the real estate market once the local market passes its bottom. Seattle Bubble, by the nature of its title is a bit time limited.

That’s a great question, and it’s something I’ve definitely been thinking about. When Seattle Bubble launched in late 2005, the purpose of the site was to explore the housing bubble and how it related to the local real estate market. Since then, I feel like the site has grown into much more than that, and become more of a general news and analysis source for the local residential real estate market.

I think this is a service that has a place even after the housing bubble has played itself out, and as I have said, I intend to continue growing the site and making it an even better resource to that end. That being said, I am interested in more feedback regarding the name of the site. Technically speaking, it would be a piece of cake to re-name the site and automatically redirect visitors to a new domain, but is that really necessary? Does the name of the site really matter if the content is quality? What’s a “Zillow” or a “Redfin”?

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the “branding” of the site, keeping in mind the goal of where I’d like to bring the site over the next few years (which I described in the initial fundraising post).  If you have any good name ideas, feel free to list them here as well.  Thanks!

Well, after two days of the fundraising drive, we’re over 19% toward the $2,500 goal. I’d like to extend a big thank you to the 22 donors so far. I greatly appreciate your generosity.

The level of contributions is more or less in line with any similarly sized drive, as far as I can tell, but I will admit that 22 people doesn’t seem like very many when you consider that over 3,000 people read Seattle Bubble each of the last two days. (This is the obligatory guilt-trip part of the fundraising drive.)

Remember that your contributions help allow me to dedicate more time to bringing continuous improvements to Seattle Bubble. We’re talking extra content, spiffy tools, and useful resources. You are helping to evolve Seattle Bubble into an even more useful and valuable tool for the local housing market.

Just 100 people (less than 4 percent of the usual weekday readership) contributing $25 would be enough to achieve the entire goal. Of course, I completely understand that donating to a free website is not likely to be high on most people’s to-do list, which is why most public TV and radio pledge weeks take forever to reach their goals as well, despite having far, far, more viewers/listeners than a niche website like this. That being said, every donation is appreciated, and brings us that much closer to reaching the goal. Even $10 lets me know that you appreciate the effort that I am putting in daily to bring you the latest comprehensive look at the local housing market.

Thanks for your support.

As you may or may not know, Seattle Bubble is one of a handful of projects that now make up my full-time job. Since dedicating a larger amount of time to improve and expand Seattle Bubble, I have been able to greatly improve the aesthetics, add useful widgets like “recent forum posts” on the sidebar, and create more in-depth and interesting posts.

However, as the housing market returns to sanity, my work here is only just beginning.

So, I’m taking a page out of the public TV playbook, and running a donation drive this week. The goal is pretty modest: $2,500. Considering that a popular local political blog was recently able to raise $6,000 in a week, I think this is a wholly realistic goal.

I would like Seattle Bubble to become so much more than just real estate news and discussion. We’ve already got a lot of useful resources here for anyone that wants to research the local housing market, but I want to give you more. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve got cooking for Seattle Bubble:

• Comprehensive checklists for home buyers and sellers
• Simple to use and easy to interpret market statistics (i.e. – not just the usual static graphs and charts)
• Interactive maps (in-progress sneak preview)
• Succinct quarterly market newsletters

In order to do all these things, I need to keep growing the income generated by Seattle Bubble. So I’m coming to you, the readers with a request for a few bucks. If you would like to support what we’re doing here, there are a number of ways you can donate.

If you’d like to donate up to $25, I recommend the under-utilized Bulls, Bears, and Ponies gimmick.

Alternatively, for donations of $10 to $250 (in round increments), you can use this handy-dandy button here:

For anyone generous/crazy enough to want to give more than that, you can enter any amount you like through PayPal here.

If you want something more tangible in return for your money, consider buying some advertising on Seattle Bubble. Our rates range from $65 to $200 a month, and we are fairly flexible in how we display the ads. Please read through the advertising page and contact us through the link there for more information.

Please consider donating to Seattle Bubble to help this become an even better resource to educate and empower regular people that just want to make the most out of buying or selling a home.

As is the custom with donation drives, I’ll be popping in throughout the week with updates and a renewed request for your support. Rest assured, this will not mean a reduction in the number of quality on-topic posts you get in the mean time. I’ll keep bringing you the latest news on Seattle’s housing market whether you choose to support me financially or not.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and generosity.