April 24, 2006
Just the other day, Forbes published a list of the most expensive zip codes to live in, based on median property prices:
–> 11962, Sagaponack, New York (Suffolk): $2,787,500
–> 92067, Rancho Santa Fe, California (San Diego): $2,445,000
–> 92662, Newport Beach, California (Orange County): $2,397,500
Only one area outside of California and New York, in Miami, cracked the top ten. The top Washington state zip code was in Medina, at #60 ($1.235 million).
April 21, 2006
Our CTO, Brian Marsh, shredded some logs to figure out the most popular neighborhoods searched for by name over the past four weeks on Redfin:
1. Ballard (once the “center of the world’s largest shingle industry”): 47,124 searches by name
2. Bellevue: 46,290 searches by name
3. Redmond: 36,867 searches by name
It took less than 30 days for 723 people to spell Bellevue “Bellvue;” 16 people spelled Georgetown “Gorgetown.” 294 people searched for the country of Spain (but only 83 for Canada), 162 for the state of Georgia, 145 for Hawaii (all me, in a single rainy afternoon). At the bottom of the list, as it so often is, was Reno, which had two searches.
There were no searches for “couldn’t afford Vegas” or “heartbreak” or “had to sell my car to get home.”
PS: folks who signed up for the new Sweet Digs newsletter: we’ll try to get our first one out Monday. We put up a sign-up before we actually had worked up a pretty template. Sorry for the delay.
PPS: Redfin has been in the news! Here, and here, and here. Hats off to John Cook and Jessica Swesey for being such speed freaks.
PPS: Thanks to everyone who told us to fix the way property detail pages popped up from the map. We got it wrong, and you set us straight. A patch went out a few hours after we got the first complaint.
April 9, 2006
The Seattle Times’s Elizabeth Rhodes published on Friday an excellent analysis of why prices have continued to increase in Seattle even as sales have decreased: the number of listings has declined as quickly as sales have. Since it seems like almost every house in Seattle has turned over at least once in the past couple of years, it could just be that people are tired of moving. The median home price in Seattle has increased from $392,950 in February to $405,000 in March.
Interestingly, Redfin Direct offers have been higher than the median. The median Redfin Direct offer has been for $475,000; the average has been $566,000. This is consistent with what E-Trade discovered about its customers: that electronic brokers, unlike discounters, attract more highly educated, higher-income buyers.
