Have you  noticed all of the new web sites with homes for sale? It has to be confusing for buyers.  Last night I hopped from web site to web site and found that each had a different number of homes for sale for the twin cities area. 

Real estate web sites are popping up all over as internet companies and media companies enter the arena.  Real estate is still a local business and it is the local web sites that have all the listings on them.  Web sites like my home search and the web sites of local real estate companies have data fed to them from the Regional MLS. 

Our MLS has all types of homes listed on it including foreclosures, fixer uppers, investment properties, lots and land and some commercial properties and is still a home buyers best bet for getting the greatest amount of information about homes for sale.  Maps, pictures, virtual tours and other information are provided with each listing.  There is also an open house directory and information about all homes that have been sold in the last two years.  The data is from a reliable source.

Using the internet for research when buying a home is a real time saver allowing buyers to compare prices and weed out the homes they don’t want to see.

My listings are advertised on 13 different web sites, and on individual web sites that are created for each property, and on the national web sites too.   This is necessary because my competitors market their listings through multiple web sites.  The strategy impresses my clients but does it help sell their homes? 

How many web sites do we need?  For sellers and their agents does having properties on multiple web sites speed up the sales process?  How does a buyer figure out which web site to use?  Should anyone be allowed to set up a real estate web site and use homes for sale as bait to "capture" and sell "leads"? 

Real estate web sites should be required to disclose the source of their data and the purpose of the site.  I don’t understand "national web sites" with home searches.  Do buyers search for property in several states?  Who is responsible for data integrity?  Not all local MLS’s share their data with the national sites.  How does the consumer know what is missing?  Some national web sites have 25% of the listings in St. Paul, some have a few hundred.  All web sites are national and international if they are on the world wide web.

I typed the phrase "home search" in Google and came up with: 4,300,000,000, listings  for home search.  (0.16 seconds).   Is each one of these sites reliable?

I think I am confused too.  Web sites that are being used for research should help not confuse.

Should You Lock Today? Usually Yes. Maybe No? It’s A Crapshoot.

By Larry Cragun of the Undressed network

I can’t believe I am allowing the word "crap" on my blog but I really like this post.  An honest insightful look at when to lock on an interest rate for  home loan. 

Home buyers are being cautious this year.  They are looking at more homes and making fewer offers.  When they do find the home they want they offer less, sometimes much less than what the seller is asking.

Here are a few things to consider:
    1.  Not all homes are overpriced by 10 or 20% percent.  Last time I checked sellers were getting within 96% of the asking price.

    2.  Most sellers will say no when the offer is for less than the value of the home.   They will wait for a better offer.

    3.  When a home goes on the market we don’t know if someone will make an offer on it the first day or in a few months.  Waiting for the price to go down doesn’t work.

There are homes that get offers the first week they are on the market.   There are homes that are priced right and buyers pay close to the asking price.   We are seeing multiple offers on some homes, with buyers paying more than the asking price.

There are buyers who find that perfect home but decide to hold off on it or to make a low offer.  Those buyers can lose out to buyers who make a serious offer right  away.  Home prices in the twin cities have not gone down by 10 to 20% since last year.

Ask your Realtor for a market analysis before making an offer.  Compare the prices of the comparable homes and compare the home to others that you have looked at.   Don’t pay too much for your next home but don’t assume that all homes are overpriced and will be on the market for months either. 

Homes do get away.  Buyers are surprised when I call them to let them know that the home they have been thinking about buying was just sold to someone who made their best offer right away. 

When I travel for business or pleasure  I always bring a camera.  I met the bull a couple of days ago as I drove near Cameron MO, located about 40 miles from Kansas City MO.  Some  Realtor/bloggers and a competitor suggested that the  next time I encounter a bull behind a fence I climb the fence and get as close as I can so that I get a better picture without the fence in it. I like the picture just fine the way it is.

I was gone for a few days.  I want to thank Larry Cragun for the excellent blog posts while I was away.  Larry does not live in Minnesota and I don’t think he has ever visited, yet he was able to write yesterdays excellent post filled with information about Minnesota home owners and potential buyers.  He also did Friday’s post. I have to say that I admire his courage.  I still find the idea of writing the Friday fun post a bit intimidating.  I understand that this Friday’s post will also be written by a guest.  I will not mention any names in case he chickens out.

Thanks Larry!  Almost makes me feel bad about the spider webs, bath tub, bus bench and oh well you know the rest.  The thing with the squirrel and the wrestlers was your fault.  The truce flags were mutually agreed upon but I guess I may have slipped up on that with the singing bug and the joke about your 100 year long real estate and mortgage career.   

By Erik Hare

This Memorial Day, many people will find themselves nervously standing around a boneyard, uncomfortable being on a piece of land that seems to be reserved for the departed. This is a shame, because one of my favorite places in Saint Paul is Oakland Cemetery.

It was founded in 1853, when the expanding city needed a place to handle the growing number of deceased. The city fathers picked 40 acres of wooded hill just outside the limits which all the churches agreed to use communally. It has been carefully preserved ever since, a small nature preserve now well within the city.

It is much more than just a respite from the city, however. The people who are spending eternity on this land make up a tapestry of stories you can read by going from stone to stone in an afternoon of exploring. There is the section of Civil War veterans (pictured), row upon row of those who gave everything to end slavery and keep the Union whole. There are six former governors, including Alexander Ramsey who gave his name to our county. James Goodhue rests here, the founder of the Minnesota Pioneer that lives on today as the Pioneer Press.

One of my favorite stories is on the stone of a more recent resident of Oakland, a Hmong immigrant. The vital statistics that make up his story read:

Jan 13, 1913
USA Feb 12, 1980
Jan 15, 2001

Coming to America was obviously a rebirth worthy of note to all of eternity. It must have been what made him who he was. There is no better way to me to explain what all the sacrifices of veterans just southeast of him were for.

I often come to Oakland to see the Spencer family, who built my home in 1860, the year Lincoln was elected. The Spencers are buried near the people who built all of the homes around my neighborhood. They were neighbors in life, and they are neighbors for all eternity. That was the pioneer experience.

When I visit the Spencers, I often bring a few flowers from their yard. This is the sort of thing that people used to do back in the 1800s, when cemeteries like Oakland were the only large green places in the city. Whole families would come out and tend the graves and have a picnic – a sort of family reunion made large. They typically did this at the start of summer, when the ravages of winter needed tending to and fresh flowers could be planted. That seems to be the origins of Memorial Day, a holiday otherwise shrouded in mystery until the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the Civil War Veteran’s Association, proclaimed it in 1868.

I will fly my flag of 33 stars and visit Oakland to celebrate this day. To me, it is a Civil War holiday as much as anything. But Oakland Cemetery, there is so much more to enjoy and even celebrate. It’s worth visiting any time of the year.

Dayton Presbyterian Chruch  217 Mackubin Street, St. Paul, MN 55102, Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church is the largest of the churches designed     by Cass Gilbert in the Summit Avenue neighborhoods of St. Paul.  Built in 1886 – 1888, read more about this remarkable church. 

The picture above has nothing to do with the post.  I like brownstones.  I have been hesitant to write about broker reciprocity because reciprocity is so hard to spell.

Broker Reciprocity allows me as a Realtor® to show and sell any home listed by any real estate company.   When I am working with buyers to find that perfect home I don’t look to see who’s listing it is.  It doesn’t matter. Finding the perfect home is all that really matters.   I am often asked if I can show homes listed through other real estate companies and have talked to buyers who believe that if a home is  listed through Keller Williams they have to work with one of our agents to see it.  Not true, any agent from any real estate company can show our listings.

Find the agent you like best.   There are excellent agents affiliated with each real estate company.  I have written about this before.  Real estate companies don’t sell real estate, licensed real estate agents and brokers who are usually independent contractors sell real estate.

For real estate agents broker reciprocity means that there are thousands of agents helping us find buyers for our listings.  It also means that if we are representing a buyer we will get paid through the sellers broker, in most cases the seller pays the commission as an incentive for the buyers agent.  We do need to get paid and buyers need representation and our expertise as they go about making the most expensive purchase most people ever make.

Local real estate companies have homes for sale on their web sites that are listed by their agents and by agents from most other brokerages.  Home buyers should find the site they like the best for research.  Local sites are better than national sites because they have all of the local listings on them.  There is no advantage to searching for homes in Minnesota on a site that also has homes for sale in Iowa and New Jersey.   

This concludes my infomercial for buyers agency and broker reciprocity complete with a picture of a brownstone.

Also see:  The Truth about Real Estate Companies