Real Estate Snippets

Concrete Countertops

This is a first for me.  I've seen all kinds of stone, laminate, and composite countertops, but this one is new.  If you click on the image to enlarge it, you will see a beautiful red speckled countertop that's going to last a long time.  What is it?  Formed concrete.  From a distance it looks charcoal gray.  Up close one sees the red speckles.  It's smooth as any stone countertop.  My guess is a hot pot isn't going to mar these beauties!  Set atop the natural finished Mission style maple cabinets in this northeast Minneapolis home, these countertops were a stunning finish to a nicely remodeled kitchen.

Ugly Condos

When these condos were being built on the Upper Landing in St. Paul, it defied my imagination why they chose the color scheme and why they located them where they were.  It's prime real estate next to the river, I know, but these poor buildings are very separated from the rest of urban life, from the other things that make people want to live there! 

Shepard Road parallels the river and allows gorgeous views of parks, walking/biking paths, even the commercial district, and then there are the ugly condos/apartments.  The buildings to the east and the west at least are more in keeping architecturally with St. Paul with more classic design, the use of brick, and more neutral colors.  But those things in the middle!  They're gaudy as can be.  A sty on the landscape of the river.  What were the developers and the city planners thinking?  If they had to destroy a beautiful view, couldn't they at least have been a little more subtle and tried to fit in?

Possibly the thought was that residents would flock to river dwelling.  The high end conversions of old river bank buildings to condos in Minneapolis have met with great success.  Even the new Minneapolis town homes built with brick and classic styling seem to fit along the river in our sister city. 

But the colorful addition pictured above is not working for St. Paul.  There's a high vacancy rate for both rentals and sales in the development.  Maybe there are more people than me that really can't picture this development as "home"!

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Fort Snelling National Cemetery is an impressive, albeit somber place.  Acres of white stones mark the final resting place of so many of the brave who fought for our freedom, even the freedom to spit on our own flag.  If you haven't visited a national cemetery, I highly recommend doing so.  Stand alone and reflect on the many souls who have gone before us and the sacrifice they and their families selflessly have made.

Are Those Weeds?

Gardens are a fun part of home ownership.  In today's St. Paul real estate market it's not unusual to find gardens that have been untended as owners have moved on and left their vacant St. Paul homes behind.  It's fascinating to walk by overgrown gardens and identify the perennials that are struggling mightily to grow amongst the weeds.  Many times these gardens appear hopeless but a patient new home owner might find some real treasures within if they have the patience to weed out the bad stuff and apply a little husbandry to the flowers left behind.

My current St. Paul garden is a perfect example of "found" treasures.  In amongst the weeds were Dutch Iris (lots and lots of these), day lilies, several solid purple columbine, coral bells, some bedraggled Asiatic lilies, gayfeather, and beardtongue.  All were inherited with my new home and its weed garden!  Careful weeding and retention of some of the "unknown" flowers (gayfeather and beardtongue were new to me) have produced a cheerful eclectic mix of flowers. 

To this mix was added neglected and overgrown iris from my mother's garden which had not bloomed in many years (She is deceased and my father doesn't care for flowers!).  There had to be hybrids in with those overgrown weeds.  I just knew it.  Two years passed with no blooms.  This summer was the third of careful tending the transplanted iris.  The link to this slide show demonstrates the results of my patient care.

When my St. Paul real estate clients start proclaiming a desire to pull up all those weeds, I tell my flower stories.  Some still get rid of all the old plantings.  Some are adventurous, start selectively weeding and wait out a season to see what surprises are in store in their abandoned gardens.  The garden adventure becomes part of the new home ownership journey and is equally rewarding! 

Listing a House

Marketing a house for sale is a challenging business.  As is apparent from the many permutations on the square boxes we call homes, what individuals like in a home is as varied as the people that occupy them.  A real estate agent who takes a house listing has a dual challenge: to identify and appreciate why the seller/s bought the house and be able to convey some of that same enthusiasm for the house to potential home buyers. 

The majority of home sellers love their houses.  Many times selling the house feels like a loss.  Just because the sellers like the house, doesn't mean their real estate agent is in love with it!  The challenge for a real estate agent is to get beyond the liking or not liking of the house and present the home in a manner that will bring in buyers!

My way of dealing with this is to imagine myself in the home.  What is here that attracts me?  What is here that might attract a buyer?  What is here that DID attract the seller?  Sometimes sellers will write a little story of why they bought their home.  Most times I have to do it for them!

Today was a perfect example of an epiphany experience for me with a new listing.  The sellers were at work and I had stopped to deliver documents, flyers for the brochure box, and a booklet describing their neighborhood.  Pictures taken before were done at sunset and the sunny weather today afforded much better clarity for new outside pictures.  I walked around the yard without time pressure or having to converse with the owners.  There was a peace about this place.  It was teaming with life from the ducks in the lake to the chipmunk at the bird feeder to the fish swimming the channel.  The bird calls beckoned to me.  The walking path across the street was being used.  It was quiet and I could feel the city being shed from my shoulders.  Indeed, this was why the sellers had bought this house.  It was a beautiful location.

My sense of peace was affirmed when I opened the door to leave this Maple Grove house.  The male yellow headed blackbirds were eagerly eating the bird seed.  They were close enough to see their individual feathers.  I had never seen this species before.  It was a great way to exit a home that was restful, secluded, and a true get-away from the hubbub of city life.  Check out the bird calls and the video below and tell me what you think!

It's Dark in My St. Paul House

There was no storm in my area of St. Paul, just rain.  No blowing or lightening, just rain.  Why is my electricity out?  Now what am I going to do?

• Put the final coat of taping mud on the closet so we can prime and paint and move in this weekend . . . Oops, there’s no light in there and I can’t see.
• Finish the St. Paul real estate virtual tour that was underway when the electricity went out . . . Nope, that requires wireless connection which is operated by electricity.
• Write blog posts on my desktop until the battery on my computer dies.
• Make follow-up calls on my cell phone until it dies.
• Make follow-up calls from my land line phone . . . Perish the thought!  I’d have to sit in one place for the duration.
• Copy seller’s disclosures for next week’s St. Paul open house . . . Nope, the printer needs juice, too.
• Create a flyer for the real estate sign brochure box in Maple Grove.  Everything for that is on my desktop.  I have 1.5 hours of battery to accomplish the task!
• Send a vFlyer to other agents announcing my new St. Paul listing . . . Oops, that’s the internet again.
• Do 3 comparable market analyses for a former St. Paul home buyer who is interested in a property . . . not!  Internet needed again.
• Have a cold pop (soda for you easterners) and sit on the front porch enjoying the rain while the dog hides under my chair.  Yep, that works except I watched all the cold air fall out of the refrigerator when I went to get the pop.
• Read a good book.
• Catch up on all my trade magazine reading by candlelight.
• Vacuum the car in preparation for my St. Paul house showings tonight . . . Electricity again. 

Well, I guess I’ll go take a shower and dress for my showings, curl my hair because that happens naturally, put on my makeup by flashlight, and hope the electricity comes on before I run out of battery power! 

60 Minutes

It's been a hard struggle to avoid the furor caused by last week's 60 Minutes episode on CBS television.  I knew it was going to be on.  I'd heard flap about it prior to the airing.  Someone must have gotten a preview because word got around in the REALTOR® community that the program wasn't going to positively portray REALTORS®. 

It seems some people don't have a life. . . or maybe the real estate market has slowed sufficiently that they have too much time on their hands to ruminate over bad press!  I didn't bother to watch it.  I was too busy getting marketing pieces prepared for one of my listings.  Suffice it to say, the segment has created as big a flap in the real estate world as Zillow did at its inception.  Real estate eyeballs have bugged out and developed a definite need for Visine.

Finally, I caved in and went to the CBS site to watch the re-run . . . er, I mean the CBS News Video!   As usual  misinformation was conveyed, but that usually happens.  My overall impression was that someone at CBS must have stock in Redfin, as it seemed the entire piece was a large infomercial for that discount brokerage. 

Sacrosanct is a big word and of all ways to use it, Lesley Stahl used it to describe real estate commissions.  Whether the public knows it or not, real estate commissions are not sacrosanct!  They are negotiable!  Always!  Evidently Lesley Stahl doesn't know that.

Nor does she know that commissions have changed over time.  When I started in real estate, a common commission was 7%.  Note I said common, not THE commission was 7%.  Even back in the day, commissions were negotiable!  There were higher and lower commissions than 7% as well, but a frequently published commission was 7%. 

Today, 7% is rarely seen in the St. Paul real estate market.  And it takes a lot more work to market a property now than it did years ago.  Staging has to be done.  Internet exposure is created.  Mailings go out.  Domains are purchased and single property websites are created just for that house.  Virtual tours are designed.  Hours more are spent negotiating for inspections.  Often more than one purchase agreement is written before a buyer sticks with one.  Hours more are spent touring houses.  But the "common" commission has decreased as house prices have escalated. 

The Redfin real estate agent who felt guilty about spending 5 hours on a transaction for a house she never saw and for which she received thousands in commission, works differently than I do. Writing an offer for a home buyer on a house without seeing it myself is a recipe for disaster.  What if there was an obvious defect that an experienced real estate agent would see but an inexperienced home buyer might not?  Why was she not spending more time with the client?  Five hours!  Even the young couple I showed only one house to got more than 5 hours of my time.  We spent many hours in the inspection process, the negotiation, getting the title work process started, advising, copying paperwork, investigating workmen, etc.  Hand holding is part of the service provided by a real estate agent.

As to Redfin.  There will always be people who bargain hunt and people who are willing to pay extra to get top-notch quality service.  Most of my St. Paul real estate clients are willing to pay for someone who truly looks out for their best interests.   The pool of real estate clients is big enough that we can all service the home buyers and home sellers in the manner we choose and get paid accordingly. 

Someone else can develop bloodshot eyes worrying about the competition!  I'm going to just get to work!

Time Off

This is not an alien invading from outer space.  Nor is it someone who goes out in public looking like this.  If you're my client, I apologize profusely, but after the tough two weeks of real estate work, I needed some time off. 

Rehabbing our St. Paul Victorian house is relaxing for me, so that's me . . . relaxing!  The gear:  HEPA mask, John Deere hat, glasses for safety, and comfy shirt with big pockets to hold screws and tools.  It looks like I'm hanging sheet rock, but I'm really scraping the old plaster out of the lathe prior to hanging the next sheet.  It's a tedious job, but when it's done I'm hoping there won't be so much dust in my house!  We have our reasons for not removing the lathe as well, but they might not make sense to an outsider!

This is room number three to be stripped of plaster and sheet rocked.  It's a slow process when done only on the weekends, but for me, the reward is great.  We have one more room to do before we move to the main floor.  Our son-in-law has only one concern about this massive project.  He's afraid we might die before it's done and he'll have to finish it!

REALTOR® Profiles

Yep, it's a registered trademark, not to mention that the term REALTOR® only refers to members of the National Association of REALTORS® trade organization, not all real estate agents.

One of the things membership in NAR affords an agent is research that supports a bunch of interesting, but sometimes useless, statistics.  Just recently NAR reported the results of just such a study.  The press release tells one everything you wanted to know, and a good bit more, about REALTORS®.

• Almost 1/4 of the REALTORS® have been in the business for 2 years or less!
• The more experienced the REALTOR® the higher the average income:  $15,300 for 1-2 years experience; $44,200 for 3-5 years; $64,600 for 6-15 years; $76,200 for 16+ years experience.
• Based on the averages above, most REALTORS® are not as wealthy as the general public believes.
• REALTORS® get 41% of their business from referrals.
• Only 17% of the transactions are done with only one REALTOR® allowing that REALTOR® to receive the entire commission without splitting it with another agent.
• Median income for REALTORS® has steadily fallen since 2002.
• The typical REALTOR® is 51, has been in the business 7 years, and works a 40 hour week.
• REALTORS® are educated with 44% holding at least a bachelor's degree.

What a Couple of Weeks

Whew, am I glad the last two weeks are done!  I've been running so fast and for such long hours that my energy is just about depleted!  Wouldn't it be nice if I could join my "stuff" that's being recharged?  The cell phone died today because I paid too much attention to it!  The Bluetooth headset gave up before the cell phone.  The keypad used to open electronic lock boxes is resting safely in its cradle for the night.  The camera battery quietly sucks life from the outlet it calls home.  Me?  Well, my batteries are empty, too.  Do you think I can find a nice little cradle to restore my spent energy as well?