Twin Cities Real Estate Blog

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 [...]

Doing It Again In 2010
What does 2010 hold in store for buyers, sellers and Realtors?  I predict that it will be much the same as what we saw in 2009 here in the Twin Cities:

Foreclosures will continue to come on the market and many will be scooped up quickly with multiple offers.
The “next wave” of [...]

We’re barely into the new year and it is cold…. very cold…. outside.  Why would I be suggesting sellers put their house on the market?
The chart below shows that January historically has a stronger showing activity than November and December and due to the 20% decrease in houses for sale in the last 12 months, there’s [...]

A reader of this blog asked a good question this weekend: what happens to sales when rates rise?
This is an intriguing question.  While I had my suspicions, I wasn’t sure what I would find so I put together this little image from Twin Cities MN Pending Sales and the 10 Year Treasury Note.  While the 10yr [...]

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 [...]

With the extremely cold weather we are having right now, many homeowners complain about wet or frosted over windows.  A little frost at the bottom of windows is to be expected – when that frost is very thick or covers a large part of the window, your windows are telling you that the house has too [...]