I have an unusual listing for sale, it’s an American Institute of Architects-award winner and was featured in Pacific NW Magazine, so I’m excited about the property and wanted to share the details.

I just did an interview with NPR and it’s featured on their website. There’s a short article about light and how it affects Seattle home prices. You can read the interview on the NPR website, or you can listen to the Podcast and my interview starts at minute 10.00. It’s on the local channel KUOW. It’s always so weird to hear yourself on the radio. Why do I sound like Minnie Mouse?

I also did an interview for the television show “What You Get For The Money” on HGTV. You can watch the clip on YouTube and have a laugh.

And in case you’re particularly intrigued about this home, you can view the website here: http://BarclayCourt.SeattleDreamHomes.com

It seems to be a home-grown mix of local, regional and national news, politics, events of interest and local photos, and welcomes input and submissions from area residents. It does have ads and classifieds but, oddly enough, the only real estate brokerage advertised is Marunde’s own brokerage, Sequim and Port Angeles Real Estate.

The site it beautifully done and will no doubt bring him attention and success if he can keep it fresh and updated and relevant to the people in the area. He’s turned the idea of a neighborhood blog on it’s ear by making the new media “blog” into something more like an old-fashioned newspaper, so the format is accessible and readily understandable to everyone. Great idea for anyone trying to stay in touch with their constituents and present and future clients.

N.B. Chuck has been a writer with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Real Estate Professionals column for the past few years and he said he hatched the idea prior to the Seattle PI’s closure. At the time, he wasn’t sure if the PI was going to try to stay an online newspaper, so his move was a reaction to that. The fact that it has stayed online hasn’t disuaded him, and I hope he will continue to write for both.

• Our friend David Gedye, who is always leading projects he cooks up with mind blowing results, just sent us an email for his newest project, a collaboration with CNN and Photosynth for an ambitious presidential inauguration project. He writes:

You’ll be interested to know that I’m on my way to Washington DC to help CNN with an ambitious presidential inauguration project that we cooked up a month ago.

The idea is to use Photosynth (the 3D photo technology I’ve been working on for the last few years) to capture the exact moment when the President-Elect becomes the President. We are using about 10 CNN photographers and thousands of people in the crowd, who are being asked to send us their photo of “the moment”.

If all goes well there will be a “synth” on the CNN website a few hours after the inauguration, and if it’s great, they will show it on their big Magic Wall on their TV broadcast sometime during the afternoon or evening of inauguration day. CNN is promoting the project on air already, so if you tune in today you’ll see graphics for “The Moment”, and Photosynth being demonstrated by Tom Foreman.

Exciting stuff! You can see how CNN is promoting it at http://cnn.com/themoment

• You may remember the post that my husband wrote for UnusualLife.com with the video embedded of the Synth that David Gedye did of our living room for the Photosynth release Demo/How-To video last August. Here is a link to the article with the video.

I am hoping that Photosynth will be adopted and used more in the real estate industry, as it’s a natural fit for our business.

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said that the Internet search leader hopes its recently acquired advertising service DoubleClick will aid newspapers as they struggle to corral more online revenue.

“It’s a huge moral imperative to help here,” Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session at an event hosted in San Francisco by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Without providing specifics about how it might be accomplished, Schmidt said DoubleClick’s system for serving up online display ads could generate “significant” revenue online for newspapers.

There’s been much concern and controversy concerning the drop in relevance of newspaper real estate ads.

Seattle’s a two newspaper town but due to a Joint Operating Agreement, only the Seattle Times publishes a Sunday newspaper.

Real estate ads reign supreme on Sunday, but the section’s a mess with random ads scattered over a dozen or so pages. It’s impossible to find the property in the price range and neighborhood you want without reading every single page and filtering out the unsuitable properties.

The best solution I’ve seen so far is the “booklet” published by such papers as the Santa Barbara News-Press. It’s published by a company called Classified Concepts, and they make an incredible interface by selling classified Open House ads around an area map. Visually and graphically, a buyer can see the house location in an easy-to-carry magazine format.

Though I respect the Fourth Estate and the honorable separation of the editorial and advertising departments, I am tired of journalists publishing press releases verbatim from real estate vendors.

The unthinking and unquestioning publication of press releases from alternative online real estate companies is ironic to say the least. Our local bricks-and-mortar real estate firms spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in newspaper advertising. Online firms, who NEVER advertise, get so much ink that you’d think the editors and reporters were on the payroll.

Reporting news is good. Endlesslessly pushing and promoting online companies that will NEVER BUY ADVERTISING is bad journalism and poor judgement.

Press Release Journalism?

ZipRealty Launches Real Estate’s First Certified Pre-Owned Home Program

Sawbuck Realty Website Serves 1,000,000th Listing

Redfin claims sale of $7M home

Trulia Launches Self-Service Marketing for Real Estate Professionals

Two years ago, seeing the success of Craigslist, Microsoft created Windows Live Expo. Hopes were, it was going to be a “Craigslist Killer”. It didn’t work out that way, however, and MS announced that the site will be discontinued at the end of July.

According to a message on its homepage, users can no longer create a new account, post or extend listings, or upgrade listings to “premium.” Although Microsoft hasn’t commented on the reasoning behind Live Expo’s departure, there’s speculation that because the service wasn’t as well advertised as it could have been, it never took it off in the way the company would have liked.

Online classifieds continue to be dominated by Craigslist, and none of the major players have been able to mount a good product to compete successfully. Google has Googlebase, which hasn’t seemed to take off with the real estate crowd, though here in the Pacific Northwest, Windermere and Coldwell Banker Bain has supplied them with a feed. Ebay has Kijiji. There’s Backpage, owned by Village Voice Media. Oodle, Vast, LiveDeal, now Overstock and literally hundreds more. None seem to have gained the traction that Craigslist has. Even with the looming threat of elimination of html, Craigslist will probably continue to reign supreme.

As an agent, I know that I have very limited patience with manually entering my listings to all of the sites out there. I’d much rather put it on one or two aggregators and call it a day, as I don’t have an assistant to post my listings on every single classified website in the entire universe. With the MLS, you get your listings posted automatically on every other real estate website and my brokerage, Coldwell Banker, is now supplying a feed to Zillow, GoogleBase and Trulia. If I make a Postlets ad, then it gets on Oodle and Lycos and Hot Pads. Manually entering each one of my listings to each of these sites is too labor intensive. Though it’s noted that each ad to Craigslist must be manually loaded, if it didn’t work, we wouldn’t do it.

Microsoft shuts down Live Expo classified ads site

By far the best explanation I’ve heard of the Housing Mortage/Credit Crisis is — improbably — a podcast from the motherlode of story-telling on NPR, This American Life. This podcast is a bit different from their usual slice-o-life stories in that they try to explain something extremely complex and abstract — but in personal stories. The episode is called The Giant Pool of Money and it’s worth at least an hour of your time on your next commute. Hearing the agents all along the “chain” of events describe what they [were] thinking in their own words is about 100 times better than reading about it.

Link via Kevin Kelly

Because of UnusualLife.com, I get frequent inquiries from television producers and magazine editors about unusual homes, and 3 of the houses I’ve written about were featured this week on Evening Magazine.

This castle house is located in Winthrop, WA in the Methow Valley.

The custom home is designed to look like a medieval castle, complete with moat and battlements.

A labor of love on over a acre, designed by Ken Cramer.

Another interesting home is this church and art gallery in Sultan, Washington, on HY 2 on the way up to Stevens Pass.

It features an art gallery, a frame shop, a beautiful atrium, studio and shop space, plus living area. This would be a great place to have a little espresso stand too, and is a great stop on your way over the Cascades.

Several years ago, the Hunter’s bought this old bank in Douglas County, in the town of Waterville. Mr. Hunter restored the bank to run his law firm and he lives there with his wife. They converted one of the vaults into their guest room.

An added plus is it’s cool in the summer and very quiet!

Unusual Homes for sale in the Pacific Northwest

Real estate agents launch defamation action against Google – ABC News

‘So sue me’ taunt to agents over ‘defamatory’ web articles – The Age

Many folks have asked me what prompted my interest in Google and I have to think it was looking at the Space Needle most every day outside my window. We’re living here with the largest known monument to Googe Architecture right in our backyard. What’s not to love?

Googie Architecture is most closely associated with the popular architecture and culture of 1950′s and 60′s Southern California, but the Seattle area had it share as well. Though quicky disappearing, there are still some remnants of this modern and space-age look around Seattle, and this Ballard Mannings building is one of them, and that’s why it’s so important to try to preserve this building.

Googie Architecture features bold angles, sweeping cantilevered roofs and pop-culture design. It was a way to grab and hold the attention of a budding car-culture, as we sped by on the freeways. It was a glimpse of the future, Today.

Knute Berger has a great series of articles about the controversy at Crosscut, our local online magazine of news from the Great Nearby.

Denny’s fans hunger for a historic grand slam in Seattle (Los Angeles Times)