Googling (Facebooking? Zillow-ing?) Your Buyer/Seller Financial institutions are subject to something called the “Know Your Customer” rule, to prevent identity theft fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing. I’m starting to think that real estate has something equivalent, called the “Know Your Buyer (or Seller)” rule. By that, I mean that I’m increasingly seeing clients “Google”...Read More
“What Have I Got to Lose?”* It could just be my imagination, but it sure seems like there’s an uptick in FSBO (“For Sale by Owner”) activity recently. At least through my Realtor eyes, it seems like that happens at market extremes. When the market is overheated and everything seems to be selling in a...Read More
Hey, why is there a secret passage in the middle of the Bathroom mirror? With what looks like someone wearing a coal miner’s helmet? Oh, I get it! 🙂 P.S.: the amateur photos didn’t cost the home owner a sale — the home sold last August (I pulled the property in the course of looking...Read More
The Wisdom of a Sump Pump With a Battery Backup Q: What’s worse than biting into an apple and finding a worm? A. Biting into an apple and finding half a worm. What’s worse than having water in your basement from one of the two(!) deluges that hit the Twin Cities last weekend? Having water...Read More
“Is it Live . . . or is it Memorex?” I just tripped across a new Fern Hill listing with the lead photo reproduced above. Is it just me, or is the grass too green, the sky too blue? (not to mention uniform). At the very least, this photo looks heavily doctored/colorized; at worst, it’s...Read More
Multiple Lines of Scrimmage In football you wear a helmetIn baseball you wear a cap.In football you receive a penalty.In baseball you make an error.In football, you invade enemy territory.In baseball, the object is to go home. –George Carlin, “Baseball vs. Football” I don’t know about other Realtors, but to me managing a busy real...Read More
