Twin Cities Real Estate Blog

Minnesota Home Ownership Center does a great job of helping struggling homeowners determine and exercise their options.  Their blog post yesterday introduced me to a short article from Public Citizen that explains a large part of our problems in negotiating loan mods and short sales.

In the last 12 months I’ve had a few situations where my client’s offer on a foreclosure was rejected in favor of a cash offer.  In my office, I know of many others that have experienced the same thing.
With the data provided by RMLS that I used yesterday to comment about FHA transactions, I am also able [...]

The housing market continues to change and one of the largest changes in 2009 was the resurgence of FHA financing.  As lenders have tighted up financing requirements and increased down payments from 0% a few years ago to predominantly 10% today, FHA’s more forgiving standards and lower 3.5% down payment requirement have made it a very [...]

Google just put up some new satellite imagery of Haiti that can be viewed as a layer in Google Earth.  I just spent the last 1/2 hour taking a look and here are some of my thoughts:

Most roads look passable
Many people are in the streets and lots of debris around
Some buildings total losses, another right [...]

The 3 local REALTOR associations released 2009 housing statistics and I started going through them and my eyes were drawn to the number of closed sales in 2009 -  45,200.
Since most sales have a Buyer’s Agent and a Seller’s Agent, we’re looking at a total of approximately 90,000 trasaction “sides.”
The Twin Cities associations have approximately [...]

The housing boom brought us a slew of new community developments including condos, townhomes and retail/condo buildings.  While financing on townhomes is still doable, financing options for condo & mixed-use buildings is becoming very difficult.  The developments with the hardest time getting financing are the ones that have had the highest rates of foreclosure.
So many condos built from 2005-2008 in [...]

Dear Owners & Listing Agents of vacant relocation properties, short sales and foreclosures:
Today I showed one house that was completely unshoveled and a 2nd that was partially shoveled but very icy.  In both cases I and my clients almost fell a couple times each.  This is not a good way to get people to buy your [...]