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Twin Cities Home Builder

Doing Due Dilgence on Small Home Builders

Back to the Future You’d think, in an age of online everything, that it would be easier, not harder, to do due diligence on new home builders. Especially small home builders, who may only build a handful of homes a year (vs. national giants like D.R. Horton and Pulte). Unh-unh. As recently as five years...
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Quick! Who Pays the State Deed Tax, the Buyer or the Seller?

Bonus Question:  Who SHOULD Pay the State Deed Tax? Like most (all?) veteran Minnesota Realtors, I assumed that home sellers paid the state deed tax at closing — .34% of the sales price**, at least in Hennepin County — because that’s what state law prescribed. Unh-unh. Apparently, that’s merely a custom, albeit a universally observed...
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Touting “Name-Brand” Homes

Realtor Name-Dropping After almost a decade attending Edina Realty “Exceptional Properties” meetings — held weekly at an upper bracket Twin Cities home — I figure I’ve now heard my colleagues sing the praises of something like 2,000 homes, cumulatively worth a cool $3 billion or so (and have pitched a few of my own listings at such meetings). And yet, I...
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Downsizing Developers: ‘Stayin’ Alive’

Dave Alan Homes in Minneapolis’ Bryn Mawr Neighborhood Feel the city breakin’ And ev’rybody shakin’ And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, Stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, Stayin’ alive. –lyrics, “Staying Alive” (The Bee Gees) How does a local home builder weather an epic downturn in new construction amid...
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