What’s in Store? In keeping with my patented formula for predicting future housing prices — extrapolate current trends — herewith is my forecast for the second half of 2011: –Continued, record-low mortgage and interest rates; –Brisk demand for affordable, updated homes in high-demand Twin Cities neighborhoods (think, Linden Hills, Morningside, Fern Hill, Tyrol Hills, etc.); –Anemic...Read More
Guilty Pleasures First, a disclaimer: the reason I picked up a newsstand copy of “The Real Housewives of the Twin Cities” — the July issue of Mpls – St. Paul magazine — wasn’t to find out who the five women were, where they shop, or eavesdrop on any juicy gossip, titillating personal details, etc. No,...Read More
400′ of Premium Riverfront, Very Spacious In the spirit of Minneapolis’ Biggest Fixer-Upper, I offer . . . Minneapolis’ biggest walkout. That would be the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, facing the Mississippi River on the northwest side of downtown Minneapolis. At least, the north, walkout side of the building faces the river (photo at right);...Read More
Is That Different Than the Regular Kind? I drove past a Realtor’s bus bench today which loudly proclaimed the pictured Realtor an “Executive Sales Associate.” What does that mean? Hell if I know. Best guess is that it’s like being a Senior Vice President at a bank. In other words, what everyone except the janitor is....Read More
Schizophrenic Search Engine, or, Two for the Price of One At least according to Google, this blog now ranks 4th amongst Twin Cities real estate blogs. And also 8th. Huh?? The explanation: the old, blogspot version of this blog shows up #8 on Google — that, despite being inactive since early January. Meanwhile, after six...Read More
Where do houses — like the one pictured above with 3 Bedrooms, 2 Baths and 2,650 square feet (and no basement*) — go for $1.7 million? On Stanford-owned land just south of the campus in Palo Alto. Thanks to booming shares in such companies as LinkedIn and Facebook, demand for housing in and near Silicon Valley is...Read More
