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Twin Cities Pending Home Sales 2nd Highest in 7+ Years

April 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Home Sales on the Rise

 Twin Cities pending home sales for the week ending April 20th, 2013 surged to their 2nd highest level in more than 7 years. In one week, 1,337 homes went under contract, which was the highest level since August 2005 except for a single week in 2010 when the first time home buyer tax credit was expiring. Pending sales were nearly 10% higher than the same week a year ago and continues the trend of increasing sales, declining inventory and rising prices. While sales are up, new listings are effectively flat … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Housing Analysis, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats

What will you do in a multiple offer situation?

April 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
multiple-offers

With the strong activity and low supply we're seeing in the Twin Cities, it is important for sellers to discuss how multiple offers will be handled BEFORE they come in. When discussing this with your agent, here are a few important questions to consider: Will we disclose the multiple offer situation to all parties? This is a decision for the Seller but most of the time it is in the Seller's best interest to inform all parties of the multiple offer situation.  Many brokerages make this their standard … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Info for Sellers, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With:

Old School Real Estate: Communication

April 24, 2013 by 2 Comments
frown

As the tightest Twin Cities housing market in the last decade continues, houses are selling left and right in multiple offers and leaving many buyers disappointed. Regularly I am hearing stories of situations that went bad mostly due to poor agent to agent communication. In some of these situations, listing agents are not informing buyer agents of competing offers, buyers agents are not contacting the listing agent before an offer is submitted, or neither party is talking to one another at all. In such a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Info for Buyers, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With: ,

Real Estate Domains for Sale

April 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Real estate related domains for sale

Over the years I've collected hundreds of domain names and have decided to sell off some of my portfolio.  Below is a list of domains I am currently offering for sale.  For real estate agents out there, a great domain name is invaluable in today's Internet-centric business.   Contact me if you are interested in purchasing one or more domains. Domain … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts

Flood Season is Coming! Tips for Protecting Your Home

March 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
flood

With flood season just around the corner, now is the time to make sure you and your home are prepared.  Here is some information from the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH). [pb_vidembed title="Tips for Protecting Your Home from Flooding" caption="" url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NykjdRaYLxg" type="yt" w="480" h="385"] … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, General

Just 10 Weeks Supply of Twin Cities Housing

March 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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As the news media has been reporting with greater regularity recently, the supply of homes for sale in the Twin Cities has been shrinking dramatically - down over 31% in the last 12 months. As of March 14th, 2013 there were 12,399 homes for sales in the Twin Cities on the NorthstarMLS system.  That works out to approximately 13 weeks of supply or approximately 3 months of homes for sale.  A balanced market between supply and demand is typically considered to be in the 5-6 months of inventory range, so we're … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Opinion, Statistics

Bad Data on Trulia & Zillow is the Agent’s & Broker’s Fault

March 8, 2013 by 3 Comments
trulia-zillow

I was reading a post today from the recently departed Trulia employee, and industry veteran, Todd Carpenter, called Data Accuracy is a Community Effort.  I went into this article, and through a couple additional readings, thinking that Trulia and Zillow were to blame for all the inaccurate data displayed on their sites.  I've come away with a different understanding now. The pre-foreclosure property information Zillow offers I think is still a big mistake and a source of consumer misinformation. For that, I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Buyers, Featured Blog Posts, Opinion, Personal Experiences, Sellers Tagged With: , ,

It’s Ok To (Slightly) Overprice Your Home Again

February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
overpriced

For 6 years agents and homeowners suffered terribly when they've overpriced a home for sale.  Some agents did not have the courage to give sellers the bad news and in some cases the sellers wouldn't listen to reason, even if there was a mountain of proof. With a huge glut of homes for sale and few buyers, there was so much competition at every price point that an overpriced home was getting few showings, if any, and wasn't making it onto buyer's followup lists.  This meant the home would sit on the market much … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Market Updates, Opinion, Personal Experiences

Twin Cities Builders Stymied by Lack of Financing

February 15, 2013 by 1 Comment
dollars

As the Builders Association of the Twin Cities continues to report strong increases in the number of building permits and units issued, I've heard from several small builders that the difficulty in finding construction financing is impacting their ability to take advantage of the dramatic increase in buyer demand. With the quickly approaching and ever-important spring market, builders are looking to build up their inventory of available homes but finding that few lenders are willing to step up to the plate with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, New Construction, Opinion Tagged With:

Twin Cities Preforeclosure Notices Down 45%

January 23, 2013 by 2 Comments
2012_Q4_CountyBreakdown_Graph

The positive trends in housing continue as the Minnesota Home Ownership Center released Q4 2012 preforeclosure notice statistics that show such notices declined an astounding 45% from a year ago in both the Twin Cities and Minnesota as a whole: (click on images for a full view) As preforeclosure notices proceed a sheriff sale by 2-6 months, the continued decline of notices foretells future declines in sheriff sales and the continued waning of foreclosures in our housing market. There were still 39,000 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Blog Posts, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Housing Analysis, Market Stats Tagged With: ,

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TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com is not a Multiple Listing Service MLS, nor does it offer MLS access.
This website is a service of Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty, a broker Participant of the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc.