Yesterday I ran absorption rates for the seven county metro area.  It would have been nice if I had mentioned that an adsorption rate of about six months indicates a balanced real estate market.  Balanced means a market that does not favor the buyer of the seller.  We had a sellers market for several years, in the last two years we have seen a buyers market.  It is still a buyers market but it is coming closer to a more balanced market.  An absorption rate of less than six months indicates a sellers market, an absorption rate of more than six months indicates a buyers market.

Yesterday I checked to see how many registered vacant building there are in St. Paul and discovered that the number is still rising at an alarming rate.  There are currently 1775 registered vacant buildings in St. Paul.  Last time a checked, about a month ago there were 1695.

Here is a breakdown of the vacant properties I found on the city of St. Paul web site:
Commercial  Properties   44
Duplex     472
Mixed Use     3
Multi-family Residential     106
Single Family Residential     1150
Grand    Total  1775

A percentage of these properties are foreclosures. There is not way to know what that percentage is.   Not all vacant homes have to be registered.   The only buildings or homes that need to be registered are those that meet the following criteria:

Absorption rates are a  calculation of how long it will take for all the homes on the market to be sold, or absorbed, based on how many homes are on the market and how many were purchased in the last 30 days. I do love numbers, and these are in months, the data used came from the RMLS, (MLS) and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.  It doesn’t come with a warranty either.  The absorption rates are for  the 7 county metro area not to be confused with the 13 county metro are which covers the same area, plus six more counties.  I also ran seperate numbers for St. Paul and for Minneapolis. 

• St. Paul  6.8 Months
  
• Minneapolis  6.1 Months
  

• Anoka County – 8.0 Months
  
• Carver County – 7.5 Months
  
• Dakota County -  7.7 Months
  
• Hennepin County – 7.4 Months
  
• Ramsey County -  7.1 Months
  
• Scott County – 9.0 Months
  
• Washington County – 7.6 Months
  

Absorption rates went down across the board for the second month in a row. Down means the numbers got smaller which means the homes listed are being purchased or absorbed at a faster rate.  In the spring both the number of houses put on the market goes up and the number of homes purchased each month rises.  Early next month there will be number available that will show if the inventory of homes on the market is declining.

Absorption rates from March 2008

Local Market Conditions & home prices

Some shots from last weekends Lowertown art crawl.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the art work and the artists lofts.  The weather on Saturday was less than ideal for outdoor activities, the Art crawl seemed like the perfect thing to do. It gave me an appreciation for the talented people we have right here in our own community.   I especially enjoyed meeting Carly Stipe, who makes handbags out of duct tape.  She gave me one of her cards which was also made of duct tape.    I guess she stood out because of her unusual use of duct tape.

By Erik Hare

The streets of Saint Paul are laid out in ways that baffle most people.  Governor Ventura famously observed on Leno’s show that they were laid out by Irish people, “And you all know what they like to do” (as he made the drinky-drinky motion with his hand).  This popular belief, that our streets could only have come from some kind of problem, is not only wrong but it hides a more interesting story.

It all started with the Fort Road, which ran from Fort Snelling to the Upper Landing. The fort was built starting in 1819, but the settlement around it was limited by the “reservation” that the military claimed 3 miles in any direction.  The nearest point with a good break in the bluffs to reach the Mississippi was the Upper Landing, and that’s where a rough town was founded.  Fort Road connected the two.

When the town of Saint Paul became the capitol of the Minnesota Territory in 1849, the residents started laying out streets in earnest.  They decided to use a rough grid system, but since they were so heavily tied to the Mississippi the roads had to follow the natural topography of bluffs and breaks.  The result was a system of “Town Streets” that followed the Mississippi and “River Streets” that went down to it. 

The natural curves meant that some of streets came together.  This worked well in a horsecart kind of world where getting around was difficult; the streets, like Fort Road, were primarily about connecting two things rather than about following something as abstract as the points of the compass.  In the most famous result, Third, Fourth, Seventh, Main, and Eagle streets all came together in one central “Seven Corners”.  It looked confusing on a map, but from that one point you could directly get to where you wanted to go.

As time went on, however, the grid system based on cardinal directions became more desirable.  Where these two meet is where it gets really confusing.  The old Fort Road, now called West Seventh Street, has a tremendous number of triangles and odd intersections where the diagonal street that always wants to go somewhere runs into the surveyor’s rigid grid.  But that’s only part of the charm.

The city has worked long and hard to make sense of the old system, usually making things more confusing.  For example, when the High Bridge was installed the street it connected to was named Smith Avenue, after a popular Mayor, and divided reasonably into South Smith and North Smith at the Mississippi River. Exchange Street was cut off from its Downtown section to isolate the residential portion.  The result of this in my own neighborhood is that in the 4 blocks from the bluff of the Mississippi to the rise of Cathedral Hill we have North Smith, West Seventh, South Exchange, and (just plain) Ryan.  The numbering system on Smith runs the opposite direction from the other three as well.

Another feature of Saint Paul is how narrow many of the major streets are.  This is also an artifact of the early days when surveyors used very traditional systems to give developers the maximum amount of land between public roads.  When you have 16 blocks to the mile, that’s 330 feet between streets.   To a surveyor, that’s 20 Rods (a Rod being 16.5 feet).  If you make the streets a narrow 4 Rods, or 66 feet, you have a full 16 rods or 264 feet left over.    Many of our streets, even major streets such as West Seventh and Randolph, were built as 66 foot wide streets.  West Seventh was widened to 80 feet in 1956, and Randolph was built to an 80 foot standard west of Hamline; it is only the later major streets like Snelling that are a full 100 feet wide; University Avenue is our only truly grand street at 120 feet.

When you’re confronted with the strange streets of Saint Paul, remember that we did what we did on purpose.  The examples of the early streets were used to provide quiet neighborhoods later on, but mostly the planners of the twentieth century were doing their best to widen and make sense of what they had.  Sometimes, they only made it worse, but they were trying.  We didn’t make them all as we did because of some problem, we did it because we had our own needs.  They may just seem a little quaint by now.  Quaint is good when it’s your home.

This weekend was Lowertown’s annual Art Crawl. If you’re not familiar with this event, it happens every six months and is a time when artists throughout Lowertown open their studios (often their houses, too!) so that they can show off their work.

Friday April 25, 6-10 pm – Sat April 26, 2-10 pm – Sun April 27,   noon-5 pm

What is remarkable about the arts community in Lowertown isn’t just the size.  At an estimated 1,200 artists in only a few blocks, it is the highest concentration of artists west of the Mississippi.  And that’s why they can have an event like the Art Crawl, which draws tens of thousands of people.  But even more remarkable than that is the effect it has on all of Lowertown.

For all the artists, they still only make up about 20% of the total population of Downtown.  But they bring the cache, the hip, the cool, that makes the other renovated warehouses chic and desirable.  Events like the Art Crawl only serve to reinforce the idea that the neighborhood is just where you want to be seen.

The painting is on the third floor of the Rossmor building at 500 N. Robert, the Rossmor is one of the buildings participating in the spring art crawl.

Where did the time go?  It is Friday again and Friday’s are for fun.  Saturday’s are for breakfast at the Downtowner.

Every Saturday I eat breakfast with my husband and the ancient ones, my parents,  at the  Downtowner Woodfire Grill, which is close to home.   We are there by 7:30 which is early, but that is the only way I can go because I almost always have appointments on Saturdays.

Our server, Pavel knows that I am a Realtor but he is nice to me any way.  I almost always have oatmeal so when I order I just say I want the usual, but it is kind of unusual. 

The server, Pavel,  is an oatmeal artist.  He always decorates the top with raisins. He may be the only oatmeal artist in Minnesota.   I take a picture of his art work with my camera phone and post it to my mobile blog every Saturday.  The blog has a very small following but I am told that one of the readers visits just to see the oatmeal, and he has to travel through cyber space all the way from the east coast just to see it.   I do live in a strange world, but that is a subject for another Friday and probably would work best for a series of posts.

Pavel is very creative so it was hard to select just a few pictures.   He never seems to run out of ideas and he does such a good job with his art work that I can always tell what he has made a picture of.   The top bowl has a picture of a clock on it set to the actual time.  Pavel is not only creative but he is fast.

I think there is room for creativity in any job.  In my job there is sometimes too much room for creativity, except when it comes to legal contracts.  It is tempting to decorate them but I don’t.  I have even thought about printing them on colored paper but decided that I had better not.

Back to Pavel the oatmeal artist.  He makes Saturday mornings fun.  Maybe tomorrow I will give him a break and order eggs and bacon.  

I am noticing these days that peoples attitudes towards home improvement projects run the gamut.

Some folks have no experience with any kind of carpentry or home repair work but they watch HGTV and just know they can rehab a house and turn a profit.  I think they are being kind of unrealistic.

There are others who look at a home they are interested in buying and end up moving on because  they feel it will cost too much to have the entire interior re-painted and they don’t like the colors.  Wall paper is sometimes a deal killer too.   None of these are really insurmountable obstacles.

There are others who have little experience with things like painting a room but are willing to learn.  There are actually many home improvement projects that home owners can do themselves if they don’t mind working, and maybe learning.  it can be rewarding too.

Plumbing and electrical work require expertise and permits.  I would never encourage anyone to install their own furnace or rewire their home.  Gas lines should be avoided as well.

There are some web sites and home improvement books that can help home owners learn how to do some of the work that does not require permits or contractors.  One is: Hometime.  It has videos and instructions on common and not so common house hold projects like laying ceramic tile or doing some landscaping.   There is also an entire section on wall coverings, including paint, with instructions on how to prepare surfaces and apply paint.

I have a friend who learned how to lay ceramic tile from reading books and taking a class at a local building supply store. I have seen her work and she is very good.  She isn’t afraid to learn and has even built a fence and put in some new wood flooring.   I am not sure I would take on putting in ceramic tile but she has offered to help if I ever decide I want to try it.

Home improvement projects are not for everyone but it is possible to learn how to do many things.  For people who are buying  a first home and want to save some money and build a little equity a home that is less than perfect may be the answer. 

When my husband and I bought our home we just assumed we would be doing some work and over the years we have done many smaller projects and even some bigger ones.  It gets easier with experience.  Most of our neighbors have also done a lot of the work on their home themselves.  All of us have had to live for months with wall paper we did not like and rooms that needed repainting but some how we survived it.

I even watch HGTV, I like the design on a dime program becasue they are so creative.  It give me ideas.  i just wish I had more time.  Which is another important point, sometimes it is just better to hire it out.  I’ll never forget the time I decided to paint my office during the peak of the spring selling season.  A painter would have gotten in my way for a day or maybe two but by doing it myself my office was a wreck for two weeks.