Bloggerrodeo!

While driving through White Center today, I saw something new and intriguing: a roasted corn stand on the corner of 15th Ave SW and SW 98th St.  I had to stop and check it out. Now I'm sure that the four or five of you who read my blog are probably thinking that I have some sort of obsession with food and snacking.  That would be correct.  I do.  And I absolutely L-O-V-E love roasted corn.

After circling the block several times to make sure they were open, I parked the car, walked up to the open air stand and surreptitiously snapped a photo of the A-board.  Then it was my turn; being the economically prudent person that I am, I was so hoping this ear of corn was not going to set me back $5.00.  As it turns out, they are only $2.50 - a pretty good price, I think, especially since you could eat two for $5.      

Anyway,  the friendly man behind the counter, surrounded by stacks of huge boxes of corn, asked me what I would like on it - Mayo? Cotijo Cheese? Lime? I just asked for butter, because what I really wanted was to dredge my corn in Chile & Lime powder.    My mouth was on fire but it was soooo unbelievably delicious.   As Budweiser would say, "Mr. roasted corn stand guy, we salute you!":)

Last Saturday while there was a break in the crazy weather, my son and I went for a drive to do some errands.  We stopped for a beverage at Sokha Deli, a semi-new spot in White Center.  They serve many types of beverages including Bubble Tea, espresso and my favorite, which they call Asian coffee(french press coffee blended with sweetened condensed milk.)

I ordered a Mango Bubble Tea, which is blended with ice and served with your choice of tapioca rice balls or 'jelly'(gelatin) on the bottom.  My son ordered a Sprite, but took over my drink once he saw how delicious it looked. 

The deli also serves sandwiches and an array of main dishes.  It looked and smelled really good, and I look forward to having lunch in there sometime.

Sokha Deli is located on 16th Ave S.W. just south of S.W. Roxbury St. in White Center. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

You can reach me at 206-595-5866, or e-mail me: LisaBosques@PNWRealty.com

Or visit my website:  www.98146online.com

I am an Associate Broker and Marketing Specialist with Prudential Northwest Realty Associates.   I specialize in homes located in the Burien/North Highline/West Seattle area, and I am here to serve all of your Real Estate needs. 
Your success is my goal!

•    What Is My Home Worth?
•    Search For Properties
•    Search Foreclosures
•    Search Sold Property Data By Neighborhood

It's incredible to me how fast this project is progressing.  The new Shorewood Elementary, located on the corner of SW 116th St and 28th Ave SW, has a completion date of September 2008.

I took a couple of photos of the construction, and there are more photos posted on the Highline School District site.

The students are currently attending an interim school located at 11427 3rd Ave South, which is the old White Center Heights Elementary. 

Greetings!

Here are some quick stats in regards to real estate in 98146 for the month of February:

New Listings:

2/2008    30;        YTD 2008   93

2/2007    27;        YTD 2007    77

Closed Sales:

2/2008     20;      YTD 2008   28

2/2007    27;       YTD 2007   53

Average Price:

2/2008    $462,675;    YTD 2008    $433,214

2/2007    $362,770    YTD 2007    $376,698

Median Price:

2/2008    $436,750;   YTD 2008   $400,000

2/2007    $322,500    YTD 2007   $329,000

Days On Market:

2/2008    81;    YTD 2008    80

2/2007    71;    YTD 2007    58

As you can gather from the figures above, we currently have more homes on the market, fewer sales and longer market time than this time last year.  This is probably not news to anyone.

However, the median and average prices are up.  This could be representative of fewer, more expensive homes being sold. 

If anyone would like more information please feel free to contact me directly.  Happy 1st week of April!

As part of Burien's 15th birthday festivities, a big bash was held at the Highline High School cafeteria on Saturday the 29th of March.  I took my 6 year-old son there because I knew he would have a good time. 

The party started at noon, and I wanted to get there right on time since I had an appointment to go to at 2:30, and because they were giving free T-shirts to the 1st 100 kids!

Living only 5 minutes away, I felt that I had plenty of time to get there, until I made a left turn on 4th SW and SW 152nd St.  Only after I made the turn did I realize that I was about 5 cars behind a giant, slow-moving pink birthday bus loaded with city officials on the top.  

We continued to move at a snail's pace until we got to the high school 6 blocks and 10 minutes later. I guess I have the same view of time as my 6 year-old! 

Inside the cafeteria there were various vendor/service provider booths, including my company,Prudential.  Stu and Marco were there answering questions and posing for my pictures.  After chatting with them I took Felix inside; there were several games for the kids, some jumping toys(which I LOVE because it tires my son out and he really enjoys them) and some fun crafts including crazy hat making and tissue paper rose making.  The lady working that booth let me make a flower too. :)

Over in one corner of the cafeteria the Burien Teen Council was selling granola bars, water, pop and cool "I Heart Burien" T-shirts.  Ivar's was there giving away free clam chowder, which was nice on such a weird-weather day.  The friendly ladies from Round Table were also there selling pizza by the slice.  I was bummed that I had already eaten lunch. 

But I waiting for the cake.  There were three cakes donated for the event, two from Albertsons and one from Safeway.

We sat and watched as a group performed "El Baile de los Viejitos"("The Dance of the Old People" in Spanish) There was also a breakdancing performance and a performance by a youth choir.  

After the performances members of the Burien City Council including the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor(dressed as a clown) got up on stage and led the crowd in a chorus of "Happy Birthday".

Then it was off to get in line for a piece of cake!  Burien sure knows how to throw a fun party. I'm looking forward to #20! 

I'm usually pretty laid back in regards to what I call irrelevant e-mails (I don't like to call them 'spam' when they are from fellow real estate agents or others in the industry).  I don't send nasty replies back, i don't unsubscribe...I read the interesting ones, or I just click 'Delete'. 

Now that listings are piling up everywhere, I get dozens of e-mails promoting them every day, so many that I can't possibly open and read them all.  E-mails with titles like, "Gorgeous New Construction", "5% SOC", "Price Reduced", etc, etc, etc.

Now, these are fine titles.  But for me, and perhaps for those of us who have decided to focus on a particular area or go by the 30 mile/30 minute guideline for showing homes, it irks me a little that there is no indication of where the property is located within the title of the e-mail. 

Furthermore, when bulk e-mails come from a 3rd party server, such as I-Flyer, I'm not even able to see the name of the agent who sent me the e-mail.   That would be one small clue for me as to where this particular listing is located; at that point, I can decide whether or not I want to open the file.

Perhaps agents use the line of reasoning that, "the less information the better". I agree, when it's a flyer located in a flyer box outside of a house; at least you know where the property is.  Perhaps people think that the recipient will be intrigued so much by the title that they'll just have to click on the file to get more information.  

For me, personally, I doubt that, especially with the massive amounts of e-mails that end up in our boxes.  I really don't like opening up a flyer just to read about a property that's obviously way too far away for me to have any buyers for.   I wonder how I end up on their list.

What I'm trying to do right now is make a database for all the agents in my area, and all of the ones I come in contact with, and I do it by zip code.  When I get a listing in a particular zip code, I send it to only those agents, and perhaps in the surrounding zip codes as well.  What I don't do (anymore!) send a listing to a blanket 10,000 agents just because they're in Washington State.

So, basically what I've started to do since I'm overwhelmed is to only open e-mails that state a specific location.  The rest? I just 'delete'. And that's the rule I'm sticking to.   I like to support my fellow agents, but I have to take steps to manage my time better. 

On Friday, March 28th Discover Burien will hold a Dinner, Silent Auction and Awards Ceremony at Karuna Yoga Studio on Ambaum and SW 152nd St., from 6 - 10 pm. If you're interested in attending, tickets are $25 and may still be available - contact Debra George at debrageorgemi@aol.com.

If you own a business in the area, donating an item is a great way to help Discover Burien raise money for city-wide events AND promote your business.  I was very lucky that Discover Burien allowed me to donate something mere days before the event.  Once again the day snuck up on me.

Anyway, I've put together a lovely tea basket for the occasion, and I hope someone buys it! Here's a picture of it, below.  My company, Three Tree Tea, has never really focused on advertising in our own home town of Burien; since our focus is mostly on wholesale, our tea is in lots of coffee and tea shops across the country, so I've never really pushed our product right here in my backyard! At least now more people will know about Three Tree Tea.

The auction was a lot of fun last year; it was held at the Burien Elks Lodge.  This year it will be at a completely different venue, a new yoga studio in the heart of Olde Burien.  I'm very much looking forward to it!

A: Three or four, if you time it right!

The Saturday before Easter was a whirlwind for my 6 year-old son and I.  We left the house at about 8:30 in order to be at the first Easter Egg Hunt, held at Sea-Tac's Angle Lake Park, at 9:00 a.m.  Despite arriving early, there was no parking so we had to park at the neighboring Alaska Airlines corporate parking lot and risk getting towed.  With all the people parking there, though, they would have had to call every surrounding city in order to get enough tow trucks! Besides, these hunts begin and end quickly, and we were out of there by 9:20.

If you've never been to Angle Lake, it's a lovely park with a covered BBQ area, play equipment, and sandy beach area with a dock for the fishermen.  It was very picturesque that morning, with the sun's rays reflecting off of the lake and a lone fisherman in a rowboat enjoying the quiet before the onslaught of children.

This hunt was very well organized.  There were different sections of the park cordoned off for different age groups.  There were also dozens of prize Easter baskets under the BBQ shelter, for kids who found a special plastic egg.

Firemen were out spreading candy like grass seed across the lawn as the excitement was building.  Kids were running up to the Easter Bunny to have their picture taken.  The Easter Bunny was handing out huge decorated sugar cookies(600 calories and 26 grams of fat per cookie, BTW!) to each kid. 

Then the countdown began, the yellow tape was lowered so that the kids wouldn't trip, and then the kids were given the signal to go for it!! In one big burst hundreds of kids ran out to get as much candy as they could; or in my son's case, to pick through the candy to get as much banana Laffy Taffy as he could.

The only problem? Even though this was a hunt for kids aged 4 - 6, unfortunately the organizers did not tell the parents to stay back, so...along with the swarm of kids came the swarm of 'helpful'(read: extremely annoying) parents telling their kids what to pick up.  Big, overbearing parents getting in the way of little ones trying to pick up candy.  I guess that's to be expected when giant Easter baskets are at stake. 

I mean, I told my son to go for the plastic eggs, but how he goes about his hunt is his choice, and with every hunt he adjusts his strategy.  It's all part of learning how to problem solve.  Despite all of that, though, it was lots of fun.

After Angle Lake we headed over to our church Egg Hunt at Grace Baptist on 28th in North Shorewood; that was a blast, and how sweet of them to offer free Latte's to the parents! Yeah. 

Once we finished that hunt, as we headed home to Burien, I remembered that the Burien Community Center Egg Hunt was starting in 3 minutes; we pulled into the parking lot, ran out of the car, and got to the area right as the organizers were announcing the rules.  (Rule #1 - NO PARENTS ON THE FIELD!) Hallelujah. 

That hunt started prematurely when, in a Bugs-Bunnyesque twist someone misunderstood the organizer, who was saying, "Now when I say, GO...and off the kids went, stampeding their way to get the candy before all the candy was put out.  As they were hunting, volunteers were throwing out more candy behind them(including huge Nerd Ropes - Yum!) That was fun.

I missed the W. Seattle Thriftway egg hunt, which I've heard is also quite good.  But there's always next year!

A: Three or four, if you time it right!

The Saturday before Easter was a whirlwind for my 6 year-old son and I.  We left the house at about 8:30 in order to be at the first Easter Egg Hunt, held at Sea-Tac's Angle Lake Park, at 9:00 a.m.  Despite arriving early, there was no parking so we had to park at the neighboring Alaska Airlines corporate parking lot and risk getting towed.  With all the people parking there, though, they would have had to call every surrounding city in order to get enough tow trucks! Besides, these hunts begin and end quickly, and we were out of there by 9:20.

If you've never been to Angle Lake, it's a lovely park with a covered BBQ area, play equipment, and sandy beach area with a dock for the fishermen.  It was very picturesque that morning, with the sun's rays reflecting off of the lake and a lone fisherman in a rowboat enjoying the quiet before the onslaught of children.

This hunt was very well organized.  There were different sections of the park cordoned off for different age groups.  There were also dozens of prize Easter baskets under the BBQ shelter, for kids who found a special plastic egg.

Firemen were out spreading candy like grass seed across the lawn as the excitement was building.  Kids were running up to the Easter Bunny to have their picture taken.  The Easter Bunny was handing out huge decorated sugar cookies(600 calories and 26 grams of fat per cookie, BTW!) to each kid. 

Then the countdown began, the yellow tape was lowered so that the kids wouldn't trip, and then the kids were given the signal to go for it!! In one big burst hundreds of kids ran out to get as much candy as they could; or in my son's case, to pick through the candy to get as much banana Laffy Taffy as he could.

The only problem? Even though this was a hunt for kids aged 4 - 6, unfortunately the organizers did not tell the parents to stay back, so...along with the swarm of kids came the swarm of 'helpful'(read: extremely annoying) parents telling their kids what to pick up.  Big, overbearing parents getting in the way of little ones trying to pick up candy.  I guess that's to be expected when giant Easter baskets are at stake. 

I mean, I told my son to go for the plastic eggs, but how he goes about his hunt is his choice, and with every hunt he adjusts his strategy.  It's all part of learning how to problem solve.  Despite all of that, though, it was lots of fun.

After Angle Lake we headed over to our church Egg Hunt at Grace Baptist on 28th in North Shorewood; that was a blast, and how sweet of them to offer free Latte's to the parents! Yeah. 

Once we finished that hunt, as we headed home to Burien, I remembered that the Burien Community Center Egg Hunt was starting in 3 minutes; we pulled into the parking lot, ran out of the car, and got to the area right as the organizers were announcing the rules.  (Rule #1 - NO PARENTS ON THE FIELD!) Hallelujah. 

That hunt started prematurely when, in a Bugs-Bunnyesque twist someone misunderstood the organizer, who was saying, "Now when I say, GO...and off the kids went, stampeding their way to get the candy before all the candy was put out.  As they were hunting, volunteers were throwing out more candy behind them(including huge Nerd Ropes - Yum!) That was fun.

I missed the W. Seattle Thriftway egg hunt, which I've heard is also quite good.  But there's always next year!

For those who are interested in the subject of potential annexation of North Highline to Burien, there will be a Special Meeting on Monday, March 31st at 7:00 p.m. at the Educational Resource & Administrative Center(ERAC) board room.  Address is 15675 Ambaum Blvd S.W., next to Hi-Line Bowl. 

For more info, please contact the City Clerk's office at (206) 248-5517.

Also: 

The next meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council will be on April 3, 2008 at the North Highline Fire Station, 1243 SW 112th St beginning at 7:00 PM.