Yes today is an election day, don’t forget to vote. I vote in every election and if nothing else you may want to go just so your vote will cancel mine out. I won’t share my political preferences but I will say that I am not a fan of tea parties. If you don’t know where “here” is find out where you vote using the Minnesota poll finder. Just do it!
Robert street is one of the original 15 streets that made up St. Paul in 1849. Did you ever who is was named after? Well wonder no more. It was named after Captain Louis Robert who was a French Canadian fur trader. He owned some boats and part of St. Paul and he named the road.
I know this is all old news but I was driving over the Robert street bridge yesterday and was wondering how it got it’s name so I did a little research.
We all get an extra hour this weekend and I have some big plans for mine but it is possible I’ll need more than an hour for my list of household and outdoor chores.
Other than giving us an extra hour in the fall and taking it away in the spring the only useful thing about daylight savings time is that it is a great reason to advertise. Real estate agents just love to send post cards and emails reminding us all about the beginning and the end of day light savings time. .
For environmental reasons I like to put my post card on my blog. More people see it that way and I don’t have to have anything printed or buy any stamps or annoy anyone by sending them spam drip email.
Oh I almost forgot! set your clock back one hour at 2:00 AM on November 2nd 2104 because daylight savings time ends, and remember we never really know what time it is. Does anyone really care?
It is Friday and Fridays are for fun. Today is Halloween so happy Halloween to all. I have been thinking about what is really scary. I know some people are afraid of ghosts and goblins and bats and zombies but I can think of some things that are much scarier at least to me:
1. losing my phone.
2. A letter from the IRS in July.
3. Ebola
4. The monthly cost of long term care for two 86 year olds.
5. The 2015 health insurance rate increase notice that will come on or about November 15.
6. Climate change.
7. Mortgage processors and underwriters.
8. Dripping sounds in the house.
9. The basements of some of the homes I show.
10. When the snow blower won’t start.
I can think of more but this is supposed to be fun so I’ll stop now. If the worst thing that happens to you today is seeing a ghost consider yourself lucky.
Minnesota isn’t at all like California. The first picture is of trees in California and the second is of trees in Minnesota, St. Paul in fact. Sure they are all green and they grow in dirt but they are not the same and do not grow in the same climate.
It isn’t just the trees that are different from one part of the country to another. The laws are different too. Real estate is regulated on the local level. Laws, business practices, prices and even architectural styles vary by location.
Getting help buying or selling real estate in Minnesota from a California web site may not be the best way to proceed. Don’tcha know.
I love numbers. In our MLS (multiple listing service or database of homes for sale) we can see how many days a home has been on the market and we can see the cumulative days on market which includes a total of days the home has been on the market. If a home is put on the market and then taken off the cumulative total adds it all up so we know how long the home has been for sale.
Recently the MLS added PDOM which is a measure of how many days a home has been on the market since the last price change. We could always look this information up but now it is right on the MLS sheet for every home for sale and is useful information when we look at individual homes for sale. If a buyer wants to make an offer that is significantly lower than the asking price it is helpful to know if the sellers just lowered the price or if the home has been at the same price for six months. It also helps us determine how long it will take to sell a particular home.
Here is an example from a home that was listed last spring. The sellers got cancelled the contract with their agent after 75 days or so and hired another agent because the first agent did not “sell”the house. They dropped the price several times. Ultimately it will sell for about 30K less than the current price and they will probably take the home off the market during the holidays and re-list it with yet another agent.
The median days on market in St. Paul right now is 53. The median cumulative days is 75 and the median days since there was a price change is 26. these numbers are for active homes. For more local numbers please see Local market conditions & home prices
DOM = Days on market CDOM = cumulative days on market PDOM = days on market since the last price change
