I am sure you have heard this before but tonight everyone is supposed to set their clocks back one hour. Some years I do that and other years I don't, or I set the clocks that are easy to set and ignore the rest.  

The important thing to remember is that we have an extra hour tomorrow and to spend it wisely. I have big plans for mine.

It is Friday and Fridays should be fun.  Today would be a lot more fun if the whole virtual pumpkin carving contest thing would have worked out better. I posted the rules last Friday and I got six entries and decided to skip the usual voting thing and publish three entries because they were the three that followed the rules. I also mentioned that this year would be different, I guess I write those same words every year. Maybe next year I won't have any rules. Will there be a next year?  It isn't like there is a how to guide out there . . you know . . "virtual pumpkin carving contests for idiots."

Each entry will be awarded a six month Picnik.com premium account.  The friendly folks at Picnik.com generously donated two six month memberships and I will pop for the third.  The entries are better than ever this year.  

This is from Maggie Brady (Brian;s daughter).  a third grader from Solana Beach, CA

This is from Carole Williams a Realtor in Wenatchee WA

This is from John Lauber, a Realtor in Chester County PA

Have a great weekend and don't forget to buy some candy. I like to eat the left overs fro breakfast on November 1st so I buy a lot.

I thought it would be a good day to post some numbers.  It might be because I don't have anything to say or maybe I have not had time to take photos, or a little of both.

Absorption rates are a  calculation of how long it will take for all the homes on the market to be sold, or absorbed, at the current rate of sales. I do love numbers, and these are in months, the data used came from the RMLS, (MLS) and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.  Sadly there are no guarantees in life.

These are for the seven county metro area.

Anoka County 4.3 Months
Carver County 7.6 Months
Dakota County  4.8 Months
Hennepin County 5.1 Months
Ramsey County  5.4 Months
Scott County  6.3  Months
Washington County 6.1 Months

Absorption rates have gone up slightly for the first time in months. That means that it may take slightly longer to sell a home.  The cotton swab will still work but if they are higher next month I will bring out the toilet paper again.  This time of year home sales begin to slow so I am not surprised that the absorption rates have gone up.  The inventory of homes on the market continues to shrink giving buyers fewer choices, yet they still will not look at homes that are over priced. Smart buyers!

Higher priced homes continue to sell slowly while lower priced homes sell quickly.  Those who still wish to take advantage of the first time home buyer tax credit should make an offer before the end of the week and it just might close on time, or maybe not. 

The deadline for the virtual Pumpkin carving contest is 5:00 PM CST, so send your entry now.

by G. Sax

It's my weekly post-midnight posting. The @gsax witching hour in the wee few days before Halloween—still far enough away from the candied hellfire to be reduced to heckfire. Heck. Not as in Denny Hecker, a local name certain to find a way into costume parties this year, but just "For the Heck of It."

I noticed tonight that I'm the primary user of the "For the Heck of It" category to the right of these words on the St. Paul Real Estate Blog. The category serves well as an open window to my off-kilter oxbowing about things Saint Paul and otherwise.

I'm not much of a journalist or a columnist or even a blogger (…or even a writer?). It's why Twitter serves me well. It took some time for me to get used to saying less because I'm so in love with how I say things, but inevitably it's perfect for me. I write about what I want to write about in short sharp shocks.

Blogging is still worthwhile, and I've been doing it since our calendar years started with a 1, but I have a wandering eye and it's entirely possible that I'll be off this blog before the year is out, probably because I've overstayed my welcome. But possibly because I'm troubled by squatting in the same place for too long, even on a wonderfully cohesive site such as this one.

Adult ADD? Probably. Self-defeating? Meh. Restless? Definitely.

I'm attracted to abstract art, the unbeaten path, and the exterior wack of the Weisman Art Museum. Curiously, I'm also attracted to patterns of repetition in music. Hmm.

You probably came here today to see one of Teresa's otherworldly photographs or to read about the Como Park Zoo Boo or to see what the St. Paul Real Estate Blog has to say about the latest Case-Shiller Index. Try back tomorrow. My muse leads me to the restlessness of sameness.

Sameness fills me with dread. I work in the suburbs and I drive (always driving!) to other suburbs when work requires it.

Oh, ye, suburbanites: Your lawns are lovely, your homes are huge, your public schools are palatial, your tax bases are terrific. But I don't get you and your sameness. I don't understand you Woodbury and Eden Prairie and Maple Grove. I don't know what makes you tick Apple Valley and Lakeville and Blaine.

Your landscapes are undeniably groomed. Your pavements are relatively uncracked. Your Super Targets are super convenient. Your fiefdoms are complete with a certain sameness of houses and cars and restaurants and insurance agencies and parking lots and faces.

I don't get it. But maybe it's because I can't help myself but to cut against the productive grain. Saint Paul, with your meandering parkways and unkempt layout and evolving neighborhoods, you and I shall dine in the morrow. We shall revel in the heck of it.

If you are new to this part of the country or are a new home owner you might not be aware of the fact that you need to turn off your outdoor spigots before it gets much colder. Some of the pipes are designed so they won't freeze if left on but I don't think there is such a thing as a faucet that will keep working year after year if you leave it full of water and it freezes.

There should be a shut off valve for your faucets inside your home.  Shut them off and then go out, disconnect the hose and open the spigot, and just leave it open.  Trust me, you will thank me next spring. 

If your home is vacant, now would be a good time to winterize it. One burst pipe can ruin an entire house, and furnaces do go out. The process is fairly simple. Turn off the water at the main and drain all the pipes by opening the spigots. The water heater and tiolets should also be drained.  If you need help you can always call Joe the plumber.

This was posted on a page in our MLS. It was written to warn Realtors that there are some scams on Craigslist.

"There is a rental scam using craigslist that has targeted some properties listed for sale on NorthstarMLS.  Property information and photos are taken by criminals from public broker/agent Web sites and then listed as a rental home through a Craigslist classified ad at an unbelievably low rate. The landlord-who had to leave the country and travel to Nigeria-asks that you wire him two months' worth of rent. You arrive at the home on the agreed-upon date, but there's just one small problem-the house is not actually for rent and its owners know nothing about your agreement. This latest scam being perpetrated by Nigerian criminals located halfway around the world has been seen in a number of U.S. states, perhaps in response to the current housing market-with fewer people buying, more people are renting."

The notice was posted in our MLS last week.  These kinds of scams have been around for years. I had a listing a couple of years ago where a buyer wanted to wire money into my account to buy a house. He contacted me through the interent, but his scam was not very creative, convincing or interesting. 

I advertise on craigslist and occasional buy from it. There are many scams, so be careful.  Never go alone to meet a stranger at a house or apartment for any reason. My daughter used Craigslist and we told her that if she did not have someone to go with her she should call one of us right away.  She found a wonderful apartment through craigslist but was smart about how she went about it. Taking care to drive by first and then set up an appointment and she never went alone.

Some of the email I get from the advertisements I have on Craigslist gets forwarded to our attorney generals office. As the economy struggles it seems like there are new scams every day.  Mortgage fraud as increased instead of decreasing as crooks advertise to distressed home owners that they can help and in the end the home owner ends up homeless.

Craigslist  isn't the problem, it is a great service. People are the problem they are not always so great.

by Erik Hare

Late October is the time for Fall Color.  Many people leave the city for a weeked of cruising around the Northwoods just to take in the sights and smells of Summer going out like fireworks.

You don’t have to leave Saint Paul for the color, however.  We live in a dense “urban forest” that has been carefully cultivated over the years.  After Dutch Elm ripped through the mature trees of the city during the 70s, careful attention to diversity was made as the forest was replaced.  The result is that everywhere you look there is a range of trees in different states of preparing for the long Winter ahead.

This isn’t a great year for color.  The dry Summer combined with a freakish early snow has confused many of the trees into more or less giving up their leaves without a fight.  But we do have a few moments of brilliant display all across Saint Paul.

Rather than drive up north, I think it’s best to drive around and see Saint Paul, my city, in a way that I don’t get to see it very often.  It’s a complex and diverse city, and the diversity is what makes it beautiful.  In the Fall, that’s even more obvious than usual.  It’s worth taking the time to enjoy it before it slips away.