“Party of Five” — Or Twelve If a dozen people came through your Realtor’s Sunday open house, would that qualify as good traffic? It all depends. If the 12 people were the couple contemplating buying, 4 of their friends, 2 siblings, and both sets of parents . . . I’d say, “no,” not really (and...Read More
Rental Double-Takes I assume that I’m not the only Twin Cities Realtor still adjusting to the addition of rental data on MLS (since Sept. 1). So, in addition to finding “for sale” properties on searches I’ve saved for various clients (what Realtors call “hot sheets”), there’s now the stray rental included. If you’re skimming quickly...Read More
Vanity License Plates Not that I ever tailgate, but I’d think twice about getting too close to the car I saw yesterday with the license plate, “IRITABL.” Maybe that’s their point. Or, the owner is named Irit Abelson (“Irit” is a common Israeli name).Read More
Does Your Contractor Know How? In a very popular post last year titled “Contractor Etiquette,” I discussed the qualities that distinguish good contractors from not-so-good contractors. In a nutshell: the former do quality work, at a fair price, when they say they’ll do it. And clean up afterwards. Above and beyond that, the very best...Read More
Make that, “Uptown Very West” “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” I’d actually add a third category to the above: real estate developments. So, once upon a time when I lived in Manhattan, I rented an apartment at One Columbus Place, that was neither “One” nor on Columbus Circle, its putative namesake. In...Read More
Chain-Reaction “For Sale” Signs It’s one of those anomalies that you see from time to time — and that understandably gives Buyers pause: a block where every other house seems to be for sale. At the moment, that phenomenon seems to characterize Basswood Road, a 3 block-long street just west of Cedar Lake that straddles...Read More
