Pet friendly condos in St. Paul

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

There are condos and townhouses where pets are not allowed. I know of one condo building that won’t allow any pets except fish. Some associations have

Cat

height and weight and limit the number of cats and dogs. Maybe they allow cats but not dogs. I haven’t seen any that allow dogs but not cats.

I just want to make two points and that is that there are pet-friendly condos and townhouses and there are somewhere pets are not allowed. The rules are outlined in the association documents. Don’t take the seller’s word for it or a real estate agent’s word for it. Make sure it is all in writing from the condo association.

Pets are important to many of us. According to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), 43% of households indicated they would be willing to move to better accommodate their pets, demonstrating that pets are a priority for many consumers as they look for homes.

Private Property – Public Information

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

As a Realtor, I have access to a property database called “RPR”.  The information in the database is provided through public records. That means I have all sorts of information about houses in Minnesota and in other states. I have even used the database to lookup an address when all I have is a name so that I could send a greeting card.

There is information about mortgages or if the home is owned free and clear and I can find “sell scores” which are not terribly accurate but show the likely hood that someone might be planning a move.

Anyone can put a property address into Google and find all kinds of information about it. The size of the house and number of bedrooms and how much the current owner paid for it and the current value. Even though the property is private the records are public.

It isn’t hard to find pictures of interiors. That should be private but those pictures tend to stay on the internet long after a home is sold.

Property tax information is public too. I always check to see if property taxes are current and the ownership of any property I list. Occasionally someone tries to sell a house that they do not own.

Information about your private property isn’t private.

Remember the bees?

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

It is Friday and Fridays are for fun. I am happy that I have taken pictures of bees. I don’t see many honey bees or bumblebees these days. My friends with pollinator-friendly gardens haven’t noticed a decrease in the bee population. Beekeepers nationwide have noticed a decrease for many years.

Maybe there are plenty of bees but that they have better things to do than congregating in my yard to pose for pictures. They are all hiding in my neighbor’s bee-friendly gardens.

In the world of flower photographs photographing flowers with bees on them is generally frowned upon. Lucky for me I kind of do my own thing, especially when it comes to any kind of rules about photography or art.

I have found that the best way to get a close-up picture of a bee is to use a telephoto lens. That way I don’t disturb them and they leave me alone.

 

bee
Bee on purple aster
Honey bee on sedum taken in 2016

The internet has changed agent networking

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

The internet has changed almost everything. I remember back in the day when real estate agents used to travel in packs and view houses that their company

Historic home

had on the market. Agents networked amongst themselves in their offices and sometimes only with other agents under the same brand.

There are a couple of large companies in the area that really advertise their internal agent networking skills. Internal networking promotes dual agency and it can lead to fair housing complaints.

Most agent networking happens on the internet. We can see which agents have buyers looking for houses like the one we just listed through the MLS. We put information about homes for sale on the internet so that the information is shared with everyone.

Homebuyers have more choices than ever or they would if we had more homes on the market and home sellers can count on drawing from the largest pool of buyers when they list their home with a Realtor.

Technology has leveled the playing field as leveled the playing field and has made it easy for agents to network with a much larger group. Homebuyers also benefit because they have quick free access to information about homes for sale with pictures.

When choosing an agent to sell your house, ignore the song and dance. Choose an agent who knows how to leverage the internet for networking and marketing.

Also, see Broker Reciprocity

Housing supply

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

In general, there is slightly less than a month’s supply of single-family homes in the Twin Cities. I can’t find a time when the supply was lower. The supply is the same as an absorption rate which we use to calculate how long it would take to sell all of the houses on the market assuming no more were added. In most parts of the metro area than the number would be less than a month.

We are entering the end of the peak home-selling season.  The number of houses on the market tends to go down in late summer early fall. Most of the home price gains for the year happen during the first and second quarters.

 

Forbes Ave
Houses on Forbes Ave – West 7th neighborhood

June home sales in St. Paul

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

June was a great month for home sellers in St. Paul. They sold quickly and often for more than the asking price.  The average days on market in St. Paul was just a shade over 14 days.

We are continuing to see multiple offers. We also saw the largest number of new listings to hit the market in a single month since May 2019. The market still strongly favors sellers as the demand is much higher than the supply. It is the high demand that is fueling higher prices.

The numbers used to make the table were extracted from the NorthstarMLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed. A very high percentage of all houses sold in June 2021 were listed on the MLS and are included in this data.

table shows average sale prices by neighborhood
June home sales St. Paul, MN

For more local, sometimes called “hyper-local” housing data please see Local market conditions and home prices.