Found this on the way to breakfast this morning.  This Ford Focus, some how landed in Irvine park .  The airbags were deployed, but it seems that who ever was in this vehicle just walked away.   I sincerely hope that the driver and any passengers are OK.    It looks like the car rolled, or was driven down Walnut street and then bounced off the side of the fountain.  The fountain is a replica of the origional that was placed in the park in 1881.  The current fountain is not an exact replica but resembles it in height and general design. The cost of the replacement fountain was $40,000.

Sellers often ask about holiday decorations, when their home is on the market.  During the Fall through Christmas some outside decorations add a nice touch.  On some of my listing that are vacant I have decorations that I use for a little outdoor staging so the home looks more inviting and less vacant.   To buyers a few decorations make the house look more like a home.

Out door decorations do not have to be expensive or elaborate.

Another Friday, the weeks are just flying by, but Fridays are for fun.  I hope the pumpkin is not too scary.  Hard to imagine but I did this all by myself to show that it can be done, using nothing but the paint program, my trusty mouse, and a couple of glasses of  wine.  It isn’t too late to enter the second annual virtual pumpkin carving contest.

Now that Halloween is all most here the holidays are not far behind.    If there is a blogger in your life that you would like to buy a holiday gift for I think I have something here that might work.

The T-shirts are available through  Despair.com,  I have been buying calendars from them for years.  When I worked in corporate America my bosses always hated the calendars, which is probably part of the reason I am now self employed.

Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty and author of Twin Cities Real Estate Blog sent me the heads up on the T-shirt.  I am not taking it personally, or looking for a hidden message.  (Run Aaron,RUN) I have hung in there for two years with this blog.  I remember the early days when I tried to write posts that would please both of my readers.  I think my dad hung in there and still reads it even though I stopped paying him.

According to Technorati, they are tracking more than 109 million blogs, written in English, which includes blogs like mine because there is no seperate category for blogs that are written in misspelled English.  I have been told that some bloggers even become famous.  I know that it is true becasue I read about it on a blog.

Have a great weekend, buy real estate, I need to pay my annual Typepad subscription fee.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Just trying to mix it up a bit today.

"The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that sales of existing homes fell 8 percent in September, the largest decline to show up in records dating to 1999."  as reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Real estate is local and from looking at the numbers in our MLS, sales of existing homes in St. Paul dropped by at least 8%.  The inventory of homes on the market also went down.  593 homes did sell in St. Paul last month, and there were 3852 on the market.  See:  Local market conditions and prices by neighborhood.

The pictures were all taken around town.  After a few weeks of rain and clouds I guess I got a little camera happy last weekend.   Fall only comes once a year and it doesn’t last that long. 

I published this post last January but I think it is time to do a repeat.  It isn’t winter yet but will be soon enough. 

Sellers, Can we talk?

Red Wing Minnesota, home of Red Wing Pottery.  Red Wing was founded by German immigrants and they started making pottery in 1865.  I go there every fall with my neighbor.  It is only 45 miles from St. Paul but we make a day of it.  We start at the Red Wing Pottery store and then on to downtown Red Wing.  We say we are going Christmas shopping but we rarely do.  We bring home shoes, Holiday ornaments,  pottery, and what ever my neighbor buys to spoil the grand neighbor. 

There is a little resturant and bakery, the smoky row cafe, attached to the Red Wing pottery store has the best  homemade bread and soup. 

It is a beautiful drive to Red Wing when the leaves are turning.  The city is another Mississippi River town with a quaint downtown and  a park along the river front.  A great day trip if you live in the Twin Cities and are looking for something different to do. . . . it is more fun if you like pottery, your neighbor and eating.

There are more homes on the market, in St. Paul and Minneapolis, listed for less than 100K  than there have been in a long time.  People who would like to buy homes but have not been able to afford one have started looking them.

They are available and even though they have a price tag of $100,000 or less they are really much more expensive than that.  It reminds me of when our son Andrew was 16 and he wanted to buy a car.  (Sorry dude)  He kept saying that he could find an inexpensive car that he could afford.  My husband and I kept saying that there is no such thing. 

He would either have to make car payments every month which at 16 he could not afford, or he would have to spend money for repairs each month which he could not afford.  There are some cars that are more affordable than others but there is no such thing as a cheap car for a 16 year old.

Unfortunately it works in a similar way with a house.  A 100,000 house may require thousands of dollars in repairs and upgrades, and by upgrades I mean a working stove, refrigerator, and toilet, before it can even be inhabited and then several thousand dollars after that for a furnace, roof, plumbing and electrical. 

If a home is  priced at 100K  and the homes around it sell in the 300K  range, you can bet the home needs extensive repairs.  Yet first time home buyers flock to these because they really want to own a home.  Often they don’t understand the difference between expensive repairs and inexpensive repairs. 

I am not saying that all homes priced under 100k is St. Paul and Minneapolis are total wrecks, what I am trying to say is that  in general 100K is not enough money and that people purchasing these homes need to have the  financial resources to have them repaired. 

Most of the first time home buyers that contact me about the low priced homes are very young.  It is possible that in just a few years they will be able to afford a home that needs fewer repairs, or they will be able to buy a fixer upper and have the resources to fix it up.  Like I told my son, there is no such thing as a cheap car, or a cheap house for that matter.  (Cheap is his word, not mine)

The picture is of one of the bay windows on the Alexander Ramsey house.