From 16,000 Houses Down to . . . a Dozen or So “Before you’re addicted to heroin, you have lots of worries; after you’re addicted . . . you just have one.” –George Carlin on the “virtue” of being a heroin addict. “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it...Read More
The Value of Contrary Information About all I remember from my one college statistics course is something called “the coefficient of correlation.” Ranging from “+1” to “-1,” it indicates how predictive/associated one variable is with another. Which leads to some counterintuitive insights. Such as (as the Statistics professor noted), if you’re picking investment advisors, the ideal is someone whose stock picks are always right...Read More
Seller Psychology vs. Market Reality Quick! Which of the following are relevant for determining a home’s current value? A. What the owner/seller paid for it. B. What their neighbor sold their home for a year ago. C. What the other neighbor currently is listing their home for. D. How much money the owner spent on improvements. Answer: none of...Read More
Taking Yes Full Price For an Answer “He who governs least governs best.” –Thomas Jefferson “He who negotiates least negotiates best.” –Ross Kaplan Soviet dissident (and now Israeli politician) Natan Sharansky once explained how he and his fellow dissidents helped pass the time in solitary confinement. Adept at Morse code and held in adjacent cells, they...Read More
“Under the Radar” Deals Nine times out of ten, when Realtors refer to a “Comp,” they mean a “Comparable Sold Property” — what agents and appraisers alike rely on to establish fair market value for a given property. So, what’s a “COMP?” An acronym for “Came on Market Pending Sale.” The usual scenario is a private...Read More
Included: $2 Million Guest House On the coasts, $5 million is nothing for a home. Here in the Twin Cities, however, that’s still quite a bit. Especially for a home NOT on a lake. One Two-of-a-Kind To be sure, the home in question — just west of Minneapolis’ Cedar Lake — boasts stunning lake and skyline...Read More
