The Seattle Real Estate Podcast – Fun and Wacky Websites

Fun and Wacky real estate websites to visit. The Seattle Specialist goes over some of the more bizarre sites out there. Some of these sites include:

and several others. Jim also talks about some other real estate related podcasts that are fun and interesting. Also mentioned are some hilarious YouTube videos that poke fun at Realtors. Towards the end Jim talks about the new and wonderful virtual world of Second Life and the real estate opportunities that are starting to take place there.
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Transcript:
Jim Marks: Hello and welcome to The Seattle Real Estates podcast. I am your host Jim Marks of Virtual Results and with me as usual I have Jim Reppond, the Seattle specialist and Founder of the Reppond Team, the number one producing Coldwell Banker Bain team in Olive, Seattle. Jim, it's great to have you here.

Jim Reppond: Thanks Jim. I am excited to be here.

Jim Marks: Jim, The Seattle Real Estates podcast has been the conduit of a lot of valuable information. Now, our listeners have certainly commented how much they appreciate the podcast is a way to stay in touch with market.

Jim Reppond: Yeah. Jim, we have covered a lot of ground here recently in podcasts that cover things for the first time buyers, investors, information on new forum changes, financing options, changes in the mortgage market. A lot of good information for a lot of people I hope.

Jim Marks: Yeah. I think it has been, however this week I think we are have going to have some fun, aren't we?

Jim Reppond: Yeah. That is my intent here. I thought it was time to light it up, we have done some dry topics in the past and it's time to have some fun. I thought that since we have a number of listeners who are pretty hi-tech, that it might be fun to just visit some sites that we may haven't heard of before, that are real estates related, but are just kind of fun and wacky.

Jim Marks: Well, I know that you are certainly a techie and a talented realtor and spend a fair amount of time combing the web for cool real estates sites. Can you tell us about some fun and wacky real estates websites?

Jim Reppond: Yeah, absolutely. You are right, I am on the web a lot and I have a presence — I don't maybe a dozen different social networks and listen to maybe 10 or 20 podcasts a day myself. So, I have my fingers to the pulses to what's go on in the web world relating to real estate.

JimReppond: Why not just talk about a number of sites here that listeners have may not heard of, but they might want to checkout and of course I can post them on blog site, theseattlespecialist.com so that they can refer to them there and not have to write everything down.

The first one I thought I talk about is a new and that I heard on a podcast about called rottenneighbor.com. This one is a lot of fun. You can go to a Goggle map of your city and even your address and see if anybody has posted any negative comments about neighbors. There are actually a few positive comments here and there I have noticed too, but it's a fun way to just kind rent and whine about that neighbor, who has got garbage in their yard or plays their music too loud at 3:00 in the morning or anything like that.

So it's kind of an anonymous site, most people post anonymously anyway. Some cities have more coverage than others, but it is a blast just look at stuff. So I suggest just for a giggles, just go to your home address and look and see what is around and hopefully you are not the rotten neighbor, just point it out.

Another one that is a lot of fun is RealEstatesUndressed. Now, that is really a lot more focus too here in the Seattle area and I think most of our listeners are here, but they do have some other ones around the country, most notably I know there is one in Las Vegas and I think there one is Virginia Beach.

This one is just a kind of again wacky, fun look at real estate. These folks like to take things a little bit lightly and a little satirically and it just with the gain of salt. So people who are involved in the real estate industry have a lot fun reading this one. Others who just have an interest real estate, I think would enjoy it as well.

Another area of real estate that I think people don't really think about that much is the area under the ocean. Ocean covers a big part of the planet and there is a lot of real estate underneath it. While that is not being sold currently to my knowledge, there is a company out there that specializes in resorts underneath the water. They are due to open a resort in March of 2008 in Fiji, under water where you actually stay in the resort underwater during your stay there and they bring you to and from by submarine.

It's called poseidonresorts.com and I suggest you to go there it is a really Flash oriented site, it will talk you about the resorts, how to get there, what is included in the package, it's a kind of spendy, I think it's about $10,000 a person to spend a vacation there, but for the people who have the money to spend and want something a little different, I cannot think everything more unique than spending the vacation at a resort under the sea.

Another area of real estate that has kind of been overlooked because it is a very narrow market niche is Missile Silos, a number of Silos have been decommissioned from the various treaties that we have signed. So, as they decommission these things, they are no longer making them available for sale, they are having to demolish them, to comply with the treaties that they have signed.

But there were a number of them from the `60s and `70s particularly the Atlas E and Atlas F and Titan I (ph) sites that were made available for general public to purchase.

There is couple now in Kansas that specializes in just that type of real estate, it's called missilebases.com and you can go to their site, they have some good illustrations and fore plans of what these places are like and for literally just a few hundred thousand dollars you could own your own Silo. Now, most of these structures have been abandoned for 10, 20, 30 years and need a lot of cleanup and reconstruction, but if you wanted to have a very unique home and like the idea of living underground, they come with very solid structures as you can imagine.

Then the other area of real estate that people do not think about are things that are outside of this planet altogether and one of that I think the most interesting is the idea of owning land on a moon. There is a guy named Dennis Hope who asserts that he has secured legal ownership of the moon and most other bodies to owe solar system as well. He did this by setting claims to the land through various countries the US, Russia and United Nations and there was a time period where they would have to contest this. None of the countries contested it, so according to him, he now owns those areas of the moon.

Now, this is all yet to be worked out as you can imagine in the future, but he is selling parcels of land on the moon and so far he has sold over 300 thousands parcels of land on a moon. So that site is called lunarembassy.com and if you want to own a piece of the future, go ahead and buy a piece of cheese.

Then I would also like to talk about a local agent's site here, she is good friend of mine and I have known her since I first started in the business, her name is Marlow Harris and she is with our company Coldwell Banker Bain and she has just sort of a unique style about her. She is a real avid blogger and I am sure you have seen her out there, if you blog a lot and she has got a couple of sites, where she focuses on fun and wacky things. Sometimes they are not very real estate related, but they are definitely very Marlow related.

One of them is called 360digest.com and she is bit of an Elvis fan, so you will find a lot of that type of fun, sometime a little gaudy, sometimes a little colorful types of things. The other one that she has is called unusuallife.com and it is also filled with things about life that are a little bit nostalgic and unique. Again, it's kind of fun and wacky and it's nice see they did do something a little edgy.

That's most of the websites I just wanted bring up today Jim, there are couple of other things going on the web that are unique in real state that I think holds some interesting promises of the future. One of them again maybe some of our listeners have heard of this is, the whole virtual world concept that is being pioneered by the Second Life.

There is a company called Linden Labs it has created this whole virtual world out there and there are literally 100 of 1000s and I think it actually reaching a million at this stage that have registered with this, who spent time in this world and now major corporations are setting up shop there. Coldwell Banker has setup an office on Second Life and I will put the link on website.

You can actually purchase pieces of virtual real state, build homes, purchase homes, purchase slots to build homes, purchase islands and interact with other people in that environment. It's fascinating once you get involved with a Second Life world to realize how complex it is. People are making real money doing this. They create items and they sell them, they use Linden Dollars, but they could be converted there is actual exchange, where you can convert that back to real US dollars. There is actually number of people that are making a living, just surviving in the virtual world there.

So that's an interesting thing to see what is going to happen in future, but I think as people more and more use computers and get involved in virtual worlds. It's good first place to jump off and get a feel for what that's like.

Then finally I would like to talk just little bit about podcast. We do a great audio podcast or at least I like to think so, but there are also some other podcasts out there, video ones and otherwise they are worth paying attention to. There is a guy down in Missouri who has, one that I think is a lot of fun it is kind of wacky, it's called 417 Dwellings! And if you were to type that in iTunes you will see it come up as podcast. I recommend you, you watch a couple of them, if you like it subscribe. He has not they done many in the last month or two, but he has a huge inventory of interesting video podcast, particularly for the investor who handles rental properties. That is his forte. He comes at it with a backwoods, easygoing down-home style that is very entertaining. It is also very informative.

So, if you want a mixture of entertainment and information I suggest looking at his.

I will also post a couple of fun YouTube videos on the website, there are a number of those out there, but the URLs are kind of tough to call out, but there is one fiduciary relationship with a buyer and a agent that's very funny. There is another one where an agent is trying very hard to market and he is using very unconventional means like; shaving the address on the back of his back and that kind of stuff.

Another one, with a realtor who is sort of the epitome of the worst realtor's nightmare of someone who doesn't perform as they should as a realtor and takes liberties with their clients that they probably should not. But again this is all in slapstick humor style and I think they are kind of. So I will post those as well, that is really I will had today Jim. I just wanted to throw out some fun stuff, just for a change and see if our readers enjoy doing something little different.

We will get back to serious stuff next time, but I thought maybe we just do something light this time.

Jim Marks: Well great Jim. Hey I certainly enjoyed it, I think this will be really fun for our listeners.

Jim Reppond: I am hoping so Jim and then let us get back to some more serious stuff next time and as always the market has been changing, we had thanksgiving weekend this last week and it was slow during that, but now the phones are ringing up again. So we are as busy now as we were at Spring a year ago. If the market slows down other places, it sure has not here.

Jim Marks: Well that is great to know, we will talk about that in a couple of weeks and with that let's wrap up this episode of the Seattle Real Estate podcast. Now, as usual before we finish, I would like to remind our subscribers that they can also influence the content of this podcast, by submitting questions or suggestions or topics for the real estate podcast to the Reppond Team at www.seattle-realestate.com. Jim, both informative and fun thank you so much for your time.

Jim Reppond: Oh! You bet I enjoy it every time.

Jim Marks: This has been Seattle Real Estate podcast featuring Jim Reppond. Thanks for listening.