New Home Trends 2013 I don’t know about you, but my association with basement wine cellars is vaguely creepy: dark, dungeon-like rooms in tucked-away corners that may (or may not) be shrouded in cobwebs. So, the see-through wine cellar (right) in this new Linden Hills home certainly caught my attention. Just one caveat: I thought...Read More
Hits, Misses . . . and Sleepers If you haven’t seen the splashy cover in the grocery checkout line, the May issue of Minnesota Monthly features the eye candy-ish title, “Eat, Drink, Shop & Play: 12 Best Neighborhoods to Explore Now!” With the caveat that the list is divided into eight Winners and four Up-and-Comer’s, how...Read More
. . . . When Overall Housing Prices are Static How can housing prices (average and median) be galloping ahead in some Twin Cities neighborhoods, when overall prices are only modestly rising (from still very low levels)? Easy. Explanation #1: not all neighborhoods are experiencing modest appreciation — some are doing GREAT; and Explanation #2: tear-downs....Read More
A Multi-Modal Bicyle Adventure The best way to explore the Twin Cities? You certainly notice things on foot — but your range is limited that way. A car solves the latter problem but at the expense of the former. Which leaves . . . . bicyling! — or in our case, two stints on bikes leveraged by...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
Out: Gaudy. In: Practical Hummer’s are out, BMW 3’s and 5’s are in. Auto’s, right? Those, too, but I was thinking about the housing market equivalent: well-built and updated homes with all the bells & whistles in high-demand Twin Cities neighborhoods like Tyrol (Golden Valley), Fern Hill (St. Louis Park), and Linden Hills (Southwest Minneapolis)....Read More
