Retail Roll Out Continues As the West End in St. Louis Park nears completion, the grand openings of various tenants are proceeding on a staggered schedule. The development, formally called “The Shops at West End,” is being marketed as a “lifestyle center” — think, one-stop shopping — and is located just southwest of 394 and...Read More
“Selling Any Homes?” As almost everyone knows, “How are you?” is seldom a sincere inquiry into your well-being. Even if you’ve just been diagnosed with a terminal disease, the correct, Minnesota-nice answer is always, “Good, thanks.” In real estate, the equivalent is, “selling any homes?” Fortunately, most of the time I can enthusiastically answer “yes.”...Read More
“Loved Working with Clark . . . er, Joseph” [Note to Readers: Who knew that Angie’s List had a “Brand Enforcement Coordinator?” I didn’t, at least until I got an email from her today asking me to remove the Realtor review I originally excerpted in my 8/13 post titled, “Realtors & Angie’s List.” Apparently, that...Read More
Buyer’s Budget as Negotiating Leverage I’m seeing and hearing more instances of Buyers, in the course of negotiating for a home, instruct their Realtors (including, sometimes, me!) to tell the Seller that “that’s all I can afford.” Is that a smart tactic? I discourage it, for three reasons. One. Sellers tend not to believe such...Read More
Posner: ‘Blame Regulators (& Economists)’ Let’s place the blame where it belongs. Not on the bankers, who are not responsible for assuring economic stability, but on the government officials who had that responsibility and failed to discharge it. They failed even to develop contingency plans to deal with what everyone knew could happen in a...Read More
