Is the Twin Cities housing market shifting gears? Put it this way: the public perception certainly has. See, “Twin Cities Home Prices Up; Traditional Sales Strengthen.” In fact, the market does feel different this spring. The weekly Broker meetings — always a good litmus test of market trends — have devoted more time to dealing with...Read More
Who Says There’s No Free Lunch (and Prizes, Too)? To stimulate turnout at Broker Opens, Realtors will often offer a prize of some sort. So, I’ve seen Twins tickets, gift certificates, restaurant coupons etc. given to whomever lucky Realtor had their business card plucked from the bowl. The (occasional) caveat: some Realtors only give away the prize...Read More
“Do Deflated Bubbles Always Overshoot?” Cont. The Green Bay Packers never lost a game. They just ran out of time. –Vince Lombardi If you missed my tête-à -tête last week with Barry Ritholtz (“Why the Housing Bears are Bearish“), let me summarize: Mr. Ritholtz wrote that, even after a 35% drop from the peak nationally, housing...Read More
Here’s one more from the “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” department: staging. Specifically, how do you know when a home has been optimally staged? Unfortunately, there’s no objective test that I’m aware of (like putting a toothpick into a cake to see whether it comes out clean). Rather,...Read More
That’s Your Offer? Really!?! “Pornography is hard to define . . . but I know it when I see it.” –Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart No, there’s no scientific definition of a lowball offer, but like Potter Stewart, “I know one when I see one.” In fact, unbeknownst to laymen, there are actually three types...Read More
Smart Staging How do you make a home that may be smaller and/or have a challenging layout, feel bigger and more flowing? Pick one floor covering to use throughout. Depending on the size home, putting in a new, neutral-colored Berber carpet can cost $5,000 (or more). But, it can easily add 3x – 4x to...Read More
