St. Paul Home Values 2007 to 2011

These numbers are from a report that I got from the Saint Paul Association of Realtors.  They show a 47% average home price decline in St. Paul and a 36% decline in Minneapolis over the same period.  Median home prices in the metro area have declined by 33% since 2007.

I wrote this in January of 2008 and it came to mind yesterday when I was looking at a new listing  and I saw a picture of a beautiful Tudor style home and the agent listing it described it as a "classic colonial"  sometimes my peers make me cry.  

Tudor Style Home

This architectural style was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and can be found throughout the metro area. The defining characteristics are half-timbering on bay windows and upper floors, and facades that are dominated by one or more steeply pitched cross gables. Patterned brick or stone walls are common, as are rounded doorways, multi-paned casement windows, and large stone chimneys.

The name Tudor  imitates English architecture from the early 16th century, and a much earlier medieval architecture.

I have had buyers over the years specifically request this style of home. On the inside they often have cove ceilings, rounded doorways, exposed wood beams on the ceilings, built in book cases and plenty of woodwork. I have not seen one without a fireplace, a large dining room and bay windows in at least one room. The steep roofs make for some interesting attic rooms.

These homes are more plentiful in Highland Park, part of  West St. Paul and in Minneapolis. 

evernote

I love Evernote.  It is where I store my notes and those notes can be searched but thats not all they are stored in the cloud on the interent and on my computer and accessible from my iPad and my phone.  I can store handwritten notes, and pictures and even audio notes.  If I take a picture of a document with text on it with my phone and put it in Evernote the text becomes searchable. 

elephant

There is a little graphic of an elephant on the tool bar of each of my web browsers that I can click and when I do it will clip web pages and I can store them in Evernote for future reference.  I can gather all of the notes I need for a blog post or a presentation in an Evernote note book and then put it all together when I need it.  

If you are one of my clients your file startes out as an Evernote notebook.  I jot down the measurements of your home and add various documents to the note book.  I can take pictures of receipts with my phone and add them and include a picture of the tree in your backyard that looks as though it is hanging over your neighbors fence.   

When I need to look at my notes a document or a photo I can access them from most anywhere.  If you are a buyer I have notes in Evernote they may say that you don't like yellow houses and list the neighborhoods you like.

Evernote is free but I pay $45 dollars a year for a premium account.  With a premium account I can upload a gigabyte of data a month and I can do more.  I can share a note books with others and more.  

I think Evernote would make a great tool for home buyers hunters.  Todo lists  can be stored in it along with photographs of houses. The web clipper can be used to keep pictures and information of homes that are found on the interent and it can all be accessed through a mobile phone while out looking at houses.

Red wool socks

This winter has been pretty mild but it is still winter.  If you are out looking at houses you will probably have to take your shoes/boots off when you go inside.  many of the homes on the market are vacant and they have the heat turned way down.   It doesn't take long for the feet to get cold.  I have been experimenting with ways to keep them warm because I get cranky when they are cold. On Saturday I failed miserably and had cold feet all day.  

The secret is in the socks.  Sunday I wore two pair of socks under my boots.  The second pair were thick red wool socks.   I was able to stay in a cold house for half without getting cold feet.  

I like to remind sellers that they need to have a rug inside the door and it needs to be big enough to hold several pair of boots otherwise they will end up with puddles on the floor and I will end up with wet socks when I step in them which may cause me to encourage my buyers to make an even lower low ball offer on your home. 

I call this a story because I write it every year.  Properly pricing a home before it is put on the market is critical.  

If I were to sell my own home I would want at least half a million for it.  I doubt if it is worth a quarter of a million and I am relatively sure that in todays market it would appraise for less than 200K, but I still need a half million dollars for it.  

The picture below is a screen print from our MLS.  It tells the story of a home put on the market in 2010.    The property has been listed by three different real estate agents.  I said no to this listing in the fall of 2009 and have been watching it ever since.  

If I were to list this home today I would list it for 189K.  If I had listed it in the fall of 2009 I would have listed it for 199K.  It will be interesting to see how much it actually sells for.

pricing it right the first time

 We are past Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday and it is the waiting time of year.  Would be home sellers are waiting until after the holidays.  Last year 185 homes were sold in St. Paul Minnesota between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Here are some of the advantages in putting your home on the market during the holiday season:

1.  There are fewer homes on the market which means less competition.

2.  People that are relocating because of a job change start looking during the holidays.

3.  What we call the "spring market" starts in January. 

4.  The buyers that are out looking on the cold winter nights are serious buyers.  

In the last 7 days including Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday 40 St. Paul homes went under contract which means that buyers made offers and sellers accepted them even though there was a holiday last week.  

The holiday season alone is not a reason to wait. 

I get a lot of spam. There are legions of businesses that sell to real estate agents.  There are also legions of experts on how to be a better real estate agent but that is a topic for another much lengthier blog post.  There is one email I keep getting from these companies that claim to have all of these buyers or sellers in my area that need my help.  There are variations on the email but they all say they need my help right away.

The buyers and sellers that they are referring to are usually people who left there contact information at a third party web site.  We also call some of those sites lead agregators  

The sites have real estate listings on them and when someone wants more information they click a button and they end up becoming a "lead".  Leads are sold to real estate agents for a fee which is really stupid considering the sites get the information about the homes for sale from us in the first place.

The expert agent listed on some sites became an expert by buying a zip code or neighborhood and becoming featured.  There are much better ways to find and agent.  If you are an agent no one had buyers and sellers waiting for you to respond, they have weak leads they want to sell you.   

Don't be an idiot and leave your contact information on a web site that is going to sell you to a real estate agent.  If you need a real estate agent give me a call.  If I am not good enough for you ask your friends, neighbors, family or co-workers for some recommendations.  

Don't become a "lead".