Twin Cities Real Estate Blog

Friendly reminder to all, if you’re looking for statistics on the housing market in the Twin Cities, here is all you need:
Foreclosures and Short Sales in the Twin Cities (updated monthly – co-created by me!)
Twin Cities Housing Market Activity Report (updated weekly)
City-Level Housing Market Data (updated monthly)
Twin Cities Monthly Market Activity (updated monthly)
Twin Cities Housing Supply [...]

In my job I often find that instead of trying to explain things myself it is better to simply cite the best resources out there already.  It’s not what you know, but who you know, right?
As is typical for them, the Minnesota Home Ownership Center has just put together a great post describing how sellers [...]

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.

As part of its plan to stimulate the U.S. housing market and address the economic challenges facing our nation, Congress has passed new legislation that:

Extends the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit of up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers until April 30, 2010.
Expands the credit to grant up to $6,500 credit to current home owners [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

As part of its plan to stimulate the U.S. housing market and address the economic challenges facing our nation, Congress has passed new legislation that:

Extends the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit of up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers until April 30, 2010.
Expands the credit to grant up to $6,500 credit to current home owners [...]