Twin Cities Real Estate Blog

America is in serious trouble and it will take many efforts to bring the country back from a recession/depression.  While most of the measures that the U.S. Government is taking are well beyond my understanding, their efforts on housing are something I believe I have a firm understanding and it is with these efforts which [...]

Every 4 years the National Association of Realtors requires that members take a 2.5 hour class on the Realtor Code of Ethics to refresh their memories on what it means to be a Realtor and the level of professionalism they are expected to maintain and to expect from others.  The deadline for the current quadrennial ethics [...]

I’m sorry this is little bit of a rant outside of my normal commentary but I needed a forum to vent my frustration… I hope you will indulge me.
In the last month or two Star Tribune has started employing annoying and invasive ads on their web site.  First it was “virus alert” popups that took [...]

On Monday I went to lunch with my business partner who works on 5-10 short sales at a time and he told me that of the 7 phone numbers he has for Loss Mitigation Specialists at Countrywide (now part of Bank of America) all have voicemail messages that say they are out of the office [...]

CNBC has a new show called “On the Money with Carmen Wong Ulrich” and I recently saw a segment that drove me nuts.  Click here to see the video.
Here’s a summary:

They send one kid to private school ($14,000/yr currently), the 2nd will be in kindergarten next year
Mom stays at home
Mom can start working 2 days [...]

The last 6-8 weeks have been busy and while the real estate market isn’t what it used to be, it is still keeping me plenty busy.  In addition, I’m busy working with Jeff Allen to release a 2nd Quarter edition of our Twin Cities foreclosure/short sale report.  Lender mediated sales will be with us for [...]

The several years of “loose lending” by mortgage lenders helped bring a surge of bad loan programs with borrowers that were either overextended from Day One or should have been unqualified to begin with.  This surge has now become a tsunami of foreclosures and short sales, which Jeff Allen and I have lumped together as [...]