“They Can’t Do That!!” (Can They??) Add one more item to the list of annoyances — and expenses — associated with buying a foreclosure in the Twin Cities. So, word the last week or so is that at least some banks in town selling REO (“Real estate owned”) properties — also known as foreclosures — are...Read More
(Also Known as “Serendipitous Showings”) Teresa Boardman (St. Paul Real Estate Blog) has a nice post giving the agent’s side of why, just maybe, you may not be able to show a prospective Buyer you’ve never met a home on the other side of town at 4 p.m. when they call at 3:10 p.m. The...Read More
Cheaper More Expensive By the Dozen Usually, the more of something you have to sell, the cheaper it is. That’s just basic, “supply-and-demand” — Economics 101. So, when is that not the case? When it comes to rental properties in today’s housing market. Buyer’s vs. Seller’s Markets Currently, there is a huge disconnect between what duplexes and...Read More
Are “Traditional Sellers” Waiting For Fewer Foreclosures? Want a shorthand for knowing when the housing market has truly turned around? Watch what’s called “the median sale price” — statisticians’ term for the midpoint of a given group. So, the median price of 101 sold homes would be that price which is lower than 50 of...Read More
Playing Housing Market Arbitrage, or, The Substitution Effect to the Rescue I don’t know about anyone else, but I see an imminent collision — the good kind — between what’s happening in the rental market and the “For Sale” market. In the Twin Cities and nationally, rentals are scarce — and getting scarcer. In the...Read More
“Preapproved Short Sale” (and Other White Lies) If your parents don’t have kids, you won’t either. What’s that line got to do with real estate? Put it this way: if your listing doesn’t get showings . . . it ain’t going to get offers (or a Buyer), either. In a nutshell, that seems to describe...Read More
