It is Friday and Fridays are for fun.  Instead of my regular Friday post which was going to be about shoe shopping this week I am going to leave the flowers as a place holder.  I really hate shoe shopping but I like flowers. A friend tried to help me with the shoe thing because she loves shoe shopping.  She picked out some shoes with five inch heels, and room for only one toe instead of ten. (I have five toes on each foot)  I am not sure what I would do with my nine extra toes.  If I wore them I would be taller but I would not be able to stand long enough or walk far enough to take pictures of flowers.  We all have our priorities in life.

What do art and the local rental market have in common? For one this this lovely work of art can be found in front of the apartment building at 657 Grand Avenue, St. Paul Minnesota.  I never noticed the sculpture before and I really like it, and the landscaping surrounding it and the beautiful brick building behind it.  There are many works of art around St. Paul and some are in unexpected places.

During the times when our economy isn't doing all that well the arts suffer. People like art and would miss it if it were gone but it doesn't seem like anyone wants to pay for it.  We need art and beauty in our lives especially during trying times. There is a web site called start seeing art that has a map to help us find local public art, we have to find the rest of it ourselves.

As for the local apartment rental market, apartment building owners and renters are saying that rents have gone down with housing prices. There are plenty of rental units available too.  Renters should negotiate for a lower price and look for bargains just like home buyers do.

by G. Sax

The Internet has changed and enhanced the way we communicate with one another in less than 20 years. This is such a dull and obvious statement that I almost feel bad for wasting your time with it. We're so in it and take so much of it for granted at this point, but please indulge me. I sort of have a meandering point. Or rather a set of points to plot in four-year increments:

1992: sent my first email
1996: managed my first website
2000: wrote my first blog post (before blogs were called blogs)
2004: stopped buying CDs and books
2008: embraced Web 2.0

I feel like an early adopter, but I didn't know that social media would so quickly start to supplant "regular" Internet activity like email, websites, and, yes, St. Paul Real Estate Blog fans, even blogs. Just like paper newsletters and postcards, these things won't go totally extinct, but their purpose will shift. Content still needs to exist somewhere, but how you get to there will totally change. If you're maximizing your use of things like Facebook and Twitter, it already has.

The level of immediacy has reached a power point in a medium that was already (but not quite) pretty close to immediate. The ease with which you express yourself and learn about other people in your social circle and other places in your social spaces has expanded something fierce. You can share your ideas, the ideas of others, and that funny thing you saw a second ago in a second from now.

I honestly haven't been this excited about a communications leap like this since email and 1992.

I wasn't feeling inspired to write yesterday, so I posted on Facebook a simple call for help in picking my next topic for this blog. It took me about 15 seconds.

I've been friends with some of the respondents on the image below for a week. I've known others since the mid-1970s. Some responses are off-topic. Some are off-color. All are relevant in their own way. Thanks to everyone for sharing, for embracing Web 2.0, and for proving that there is abundant interest…and pride…in the city of St. Paul.

I'll be exploring some of your topics in future posts and I encourage readers to Google them further ahead of me. The Internet is waiting to serve you. St. Paul is waiting for your exploration.

Blog posts are frequently shared via Facebook and Twitter, and I'm likely to do the same with this here post. But not before I turn the tables and post a Facebook snippet on a blog.

Each of my sellers seems to have a different idea about what it takes to sell a house. Some want high participation in the marketing process and others just want me to sell the house and leave them alone. They all want feedback on showings and communication from me.  They all want to know how long it will take to sell and how much money they will get.

Will a home sell faster if an ottoman is moved out of a room?  Is the open house the magic bullet? Do buyers prefer one type of central heating over another?  Is professional landscaping the ticket, or maybe custom window treatments?

The details are important.  In general what is most important is that the home is clean, in good repair, and advertised so people know that it is on the market and above all priced right. Location is very important but home owners generally can't move their house so that it will sell faster. Most people don't know that there are still homes that sell before the for sale sign arrives. Much of the activity on a home for sale happens in the first two weeks when it is new on the market.  After that it starts to loose momentum, and by about month four it starts to lose value.

When it comes to advertising or marketing there are some things that make a difference. Amazingly the low tech for sale sign and brochure box are still great ways to advertise. The MLS is probably the most important marketing tool because through it property information is distributed all over the internet.

I am finding that photography helps sell real estate and buyers just can't have enough photos.  Buyers and their agents also use the MLS as a screening tool to weed out the homes that they don't feel are worth seeing.  Photographs or the lack of photographs help with the screening process. 

In the eyes of  buyers all homes are overpriced, yet they are buying and the inventory of homes on the market continues to dwindle. 

Will buyers be impressed with your security system, or will they be worried because of it?

There way this home I showed some buyers, the garage had door with bars on it, and a padlock, behind that door was another door with two locks on it.

The home had a security system and it was armed.  I received a complicated set of instructions on how to disarm it.  The alarm system was set so that it would go off if not deactivated within 15 seconds of the time that the door opened.  The door had two locks on it and both were locked.

Having never been in the house, I had to hope that I would immediately see the panel because there would not be enough time to hunt for it and deactivate it.

The home was not located in a high crime area.  My buyers were left with the impression that the home is in a very high crime area and that the owners could not leave it even for an hour on a Sunday afternoon without locking all the locks and arming the security system.

Maybe there is a good reason that a security system needs to be left on but the buyers don't know that and so they imagine the worst. St. Paul is not known for being a high crime kind of town.  Take a chance, leave the system off for showings.

by Erik Hare

Buying local is more than a philosophy, at least if you do it right.  Making it possible for people to buy local is the mission of Mississippi Market Co-op, the latest market to open in the West End.  The mission also includes sustainable agriculture, healthy food, and the member owned and directed co-op philosophy of management.

This store is a replacement for their store at Randolph and Fairview, which had its lease with Saint Paul Academy run out.  The 30-year-old Co-op is happy to have this entirely new store built just for them in a highly visible location.  There’s even space for cooking classes to teach people how to prepare nutritious meals.

Some of the features of Mississippi Market include the ability to buy many products in bulk, using your own bags if you can.  You can get your morning cereal, evening beans and rice, and the products to sanitize your house when you’re done eating without the problems of a bunch of excess packaging.  It’s all part of their programs for sustainable living.  There’s also a unique selection of organic foods which is unmatched anywhere else.

Membership in the co-op is purchased with a one-time fee.  From then on, membership entitles you to various discounts and advance knowledge of events.  You even get a share of the profits sent back to you at the end of the year.  The total sales at the two locations, 1500 W 7th and 622 Selby Ave are about $14 million per year.

The new store hopes to reach out to its new neighbors while retaining the old customers from the old store.  Membership does build a personal connection to Mississippi Market, so hopefully they will be able to achieve this.  For now, it’s time for the West End to welcome a new neighbor who gives us a new commitment to buying local.  Welcome, Mississippi Market!

Did you know that it is impossible to take a photo in St. Paul without getting a sign, or power lines or both in the shot?  I remember a couple of years ago one of my photos received a critique and the photographer told me that it would have been a great photo if I had taken the time to remove the sign in front of the building that I photographed.  I am not sure if he meant that I should remove the sign or if he was suggesting that I use software to erase the sign from the photo. I never asked.

We have a dog ordinance in St. Paul and there are signs in all the parks, right next to the "no skate boarding allowed" signs that the kids ignore. The animal ordinance sign is  also ignored, probably because dogs can't read.  I'll just let you read it for your self.  It has personality.