Which Broker Is Hotter Than Channing Tatum?

All of them, these days. The optimism about the Seattle market is widespread. Here's some of what's putting spring in the step of Seattle CRE:
Miller Hull's Ron Rochen and Scott Wolf (with ARUP's Peter Alspach, center, at Bisnow's State of the Seattle Market event) have projects under way in all corners of the city. The Bullitt Center is nearly complete, and another new project is getting under way that will connect to the new plan for Seattle's waterfront. A fact about Miller Hull: it has a wide variety of project types: "We tend to do just about anything but healthcare and prisons," Scott tells us. (That mirrors our list of things to avoid, too, if you count the dentist.)
You never know what sort of answer you're going to get when you ask someone what they do for a living, but Terracon's Eric Kunz and MacDonald Miller's David Herr have a pretty good one: "Playing in the dirt," Eric tells us. What kind of dirt? Special inspections for the Lake Washington School District and quality control. The market core in Seattle and Bellevue is definitely gaining strength, Eric says, though he wouldn't mind seeing a little bit of that energy seeping outside CBDs as well.
How do you know when your market has made an impact? When you're not even in said market and people come bustling up to you saying, "Seattle!" That happened to Chicago Title's Daryl Savidis, right, snapped here with Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Krista Knutson. Daryl was one of the few people we've spoken with recently who didn't use some form of the word optimism to describe the market. "I think it's solid," she said instead. (Points for originality.)
Interest rates? Get 'em while they're low, says Newmark Realty Capital's Dan Lowen, snapped here with Ashworth Partners CEO Giovanni Isaksen. Along with "optimistic," we've also been told numerous times that real estate is "cyclical." "Nobody thinks interest rates will be lower in five to seven years," Dan tells us.
Bank of America's Julie Bridge, snapped here with Chad Anderson Group's Chad Anderson and Heather Satterberg of Legacy Partners, senses that Seattle is walking a little taller these days. "Confidence is higher," she says. "It's much more fun. It was pretty dire there for awhile."

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