spa

2013 Minneapolis Home & Landscape Expo

Besides the various window companies, remodelers, and deck builders you’d expect to be well-represented, I saw spas on the floor of the Metrodome yesterday.

Lots and lots of spas.

Except that these babies have as much in common with spas of yore as a fully loaded Range Rover does with a model T.

Spas the Size of Bedrooms

Specifically, they’re vastly bigger and better-built, with more technology, and jets and nozzles  . . . everywhere.

I’ve never seen the chassis for a UFO, but I imagine that that’s what one would look like.

At one point, my 10 year-old son pointed to an especially big one, and observed, “Dad, that one’s bigger than my bedroom!” (given that his bedroom is 12′ x 10′, I don’t doubt it).

While I’m not in the market for a spa, prevailing prices seemed to be anywhere from $5,000 to more than triple that — with sizable discounts available for floor models.

Best Exhibit

At least to me, though, the exhibit that made the windowsbiggest splash impression took up vastly less space, and was easy to mistake for a piece of exercise equipment.

Hosted by Canadian window company Fibertec, it showed a 20 pound weight suspended from a section of vinyl window, and double that hanging from a fiberglass window.

The vinyl window was visibly bowing; the fiberglass window was perfectly straight.

Presumably, the same would be true for metal windows (specifically, aluminum).

P.S.:  One of the worst things a homeowner can do is replace high-quality but aging windows with cheap vinyl replacements.

Prospective Buyers won’t swap out the cheap windows for better ones; they’ll just pass on the house, because they think its integrity and character have been compromised (they have).

About the author

Ross Kaplan has 19+ years experience selling real estate all over the Twin Cities. He is also a 12-time consecutive "Super Real Estate Agent," as determined by Mpls. - St. Paul Magazine and Twin Cities Business Magazine. Prior to becoming a Realtor, Ross was an attorney (corporate law), CPA, and entrepreneur. He holds an economics degree from Stanford.

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