Standing Out in a Crowd Vacuum On an especially busy Tuesday in March or April, it’s not unusual for the Edina Realty – City Lakes office to have 11 homes on Broker Tour** all by itself. So, you know it’s a slow week when that’s the TOTAL number of Twin Cities homes on tour, excluding St....Read More
Negotiate Formally or Informally? It Depends [Editor’s Note: The views expressed here are solely those of Ross Kaplan, and do not represent Edina Realty, Berkshire Hathaway, or any other entity referenced. If you need legal advice, please consult an attorney.] OK, so “Written vs. Verbal Counter-Offers” isn’t a very sexy title. But it’s a fascinating...Read More
Avoiding “The Bowling Alley” Effect First, a caveat: unless there’s also a detached garage in the back of the house (typically, off an alley), converting a one-car garage into something else is a non-starter. That’s because going from a one-car garage to a no-car garage is guaranteed to destroy much more value than it creates. But, assuming that that’s not the...Read More
What’s the Discount for a Haunted House? In almost 17 years selling real estate, I’ve yet to see an open house ” at least in real life ” on Halloween. The fictional Halloween open house? On TV sitcom “Modern Family,” where Realtor Phil Dunphy decides to capitalize on all the foot traffic in the neighborhood. It...Read More
TWO Duties to Disclose: Owner’s . . . and the Agent’s [Editor’s Note: The views expressed here are solely those of Ross Kaplan, and do not represent Edina Realty, Berkshire Hathaway, or any other entity referenced. If you need legal advice, please consult an attorney.] At least in Minnesota, it’s permissible for Sellers to tell...Read More
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...Read More
