Chocolate and October

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

It is Friday and Fridays are for fun.  I am not sure what happened to September but my calendar indicates that it is no more.  I won't miss it September wasn't very good to me and I am happy to put it behind me and move on and I am excited about Chocolate. 

Chocolate is one of my favorite things and starting tomorrow, October 2, 2010 the Chocolate Exhibit comes to the Minnesota History Center.  When I am around most chocolate quickly becomes history.  I am looking forward to the exhibit.  I went to the gift shop at the history center last week to pick up something for a friend  and saw that they have all sorts of books about chocolate including cook books and they are selling chocolate too. 

Last year just for fun one Friday I made a gallery of chocolate on flickr from photos I found that were taken by some folks who really have a way with chocolate.  Chocolate and photography go very well together as long as the chocolate doesn't get on the camera.

Chocolate gallery

 

Metrics for sellers

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

 

Metrics

The chart above shows the number of showings for homes on the market in St. Paul, MN from January of 2009 to September of 2010. The data is provided by BookAShowing which is an electronic system that is connected to our MLS and it is where we schedule appointments to view homes that are listed in the MLS.  The inventory of homes on the market is slowly growing and there are more homes on the market today that there were in April yet there are fewer home showings. Usually buyers have to see a home before they buy it and that is why I like looking at these numbers.  It gives me a kind of high level overview of buyer interest.  Home viewing activity is down from last year and so are home sales.

Most home sellers like to have as much information as they can get about how well there home is doing on the market.  They want to know how long it will take to sell.  If there are few showings they want to know why and they sometimes want to know if their home is being shown more often or less often to buyers than other comparable homes on the market.  They want feedback from every showing.  They want to know what buyers really think of their home.

Some metrics are meaningful and others are not so meaningful.  I can generate reports on my listings from many web sites that show how many times the listing was viewed on the site.  My listings end up on so many web sites including those of the local real estate companies that I never know which site attracted the buyer or if their Realtor found the listing on the MLS.  I like to look at numbers like absorption rates and average days on market by housing type and neighborhood to get a feel for how well my sellers homes are doing on the market.

The only thing I know for sure and that I can prove when it comes to web site clicks is that the homes with the best photos get the most clicks and they get more showings.  How quickly they sell depends upon a number of other vairiables like price, condition, location and even the weather.  Most sellers don't take much of an interest in the photos if they did listing photos would be better becasue they would demand it.  Sellers are more concerned with how the brochures look and how many open houses and Realtors tours will be held. So few people see those brochures that are kept inside the home compared to how many people see the home on the internet. The number of buyers or agents who see a home in person at an open house is extrememly small compared to the number who see it on the internet.

There are all sorts of metrics we can use.  Plenty of reports and charts and graphs. The metrics can be used to prove just about anything. Few agents are staticticians and few home sellers really understand the metrics we give them and some of the metrics we use don't mean much. Selling a home is an art and a science with elements of chance and timing thrown in.

 

Final Real Estate

Posted on by Greg Sax

Gillette by G. Sax, @gsax

"In life we have to live together and be good neighbors and in death we have to live together and be good neighbors, because we leave something behind."
– Kou Vang

Homelessness, recessions, lack of sales activity…

(Deep inhale followed by sarcastically accentuated exhale.)

It's been a fun one around here, hasn't it? Well, let's just pile it on then with a poignant story borrowed from Boyd Hupert, a reporter with KARE-11 TV, the NBC affiliate here in the Twin Cities.

Boyd is our realm's resident master of getting the eyes to water, and I've seen at least one of his stories make its way to NBC's "Today" show. His "Land of 10,000 Stories" has more hits then misses, and he impressed me this week with a story called "New neighbors for founding fathers."

It's about St. Paul's Oakland Cemetery, and it's about how current residents are more likely to have names like Doua Thao Yang than Henry Sibley.

The subject matter could have been morose, but I actually found it uplifting and it made me more appreciative of my city and the people that populate it. It especially made me proud to be among the people who populate the North End.

TCManWalking

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

Homeless TCManWalking is a twitter name.  His real name is Chris.  I met him in person about a month ago.  Chris is homeless.  Up until very recently he was living in his car.  He had a job and a home and enjoyed a kind of middle class life style.

People have all sorts of attitudes about homelessness. Chris is not mentally ill or chemically dependent. He was what we call a "white collar" worker.  He has raised our awareness of homelessness through his blog.  Yes he has a blog, which sets him apart because it gives him a voice.  I learned a lot by reading it and I hope you can take the time to read some of it too. He writes about others who live in their cars and people who don't really have a home but stay with friends and sleep on couches. 

Chris has a place to live now and when I last saw him he handed me a business card.  He is starting a business.

Homelessness is a problem.  The recession . . . oh my I forgot it ended in June of 2009 . . has created more joblessness and in the last three years homelessness has risen. Those if us who have homes and who have always had homes might not have a hard time imagining what it is like to be a little short of money but we can't really imagine what it is like to not have a home. 

There are people living on the street in St. Paul and in Minneapolis. Most of us stopped seeing them long ago.  Why do you suppose that is? We need to start seeing them again.

 

Really Basic Home Maintenance

Posted on by Teresa Boardman

This post is created from questions my children and some of my younger home buyers ask.  There is a Faucet learning curve to maintaining a home.  Everything wears out one day but there are some simple things that can be done that cost nothing or almost nothing that can help preserve your home and some of th appliances in it.  I am not a home inspector or an expert but I have owned a home for many years.

Forced air furnace – Change the filter once a month.  Furnace filters are cheap and in general the cheapest filters are the best because they do not constrict airflow.  If you buy the more expensive filters that are supposed to last three months change them once a month anyway.  Furnaces are expensive, gas is expensive, filters are cheap.

Refrigerators – Pulling your refrigerator out and vacuuming the coils on the back of it once a year can the fridge run cooler and last longer.  It can be kind of scary but it is also a great way to find cat toys.

Water Heater – They never tell you this when they put in your water heater but it needs yearly maintenance.  Most people ignore the water heaters and will they fail they can make a mess. Sediment builds up in water heaters through normal use.  In a nutshell they need to be turned off, drained and flushed once a year. There should be instructions in the manual that came with the water heater.  If not there are detailed instructions on the DYI Network site. Cleaning out the water heater is very important but I don't know anyone who does it.

Outdoor faucets – Before the freezing weather sets in, disconnect all hoses, turn on the outdoor faucet, go in the house and shut off the water to the faucet.

Cloths Dryer – most people but not everyone knows that the lint filter in the dryer needs to be cleaned after each load of wash.  There is one more lint filter you might want to check and that is the filter outside where the dryer vents. Once that baby gets all clogged up you may notice that it takes an eternity to dry a load of wash and like I said early gas is expensive.  If the dryer isn't drying check the vent.

If you are a home buyer reading this it is best to make any offer on a home inspection contingent.  A good home inspector will go over some of these basic maintenance tips with you or provide a CD or booklet with information.  The inspector will also show you some very important things that you need to know like where the main water shut off is located and where the power shut off is located. They will often mark water supply pipes and shut off valves.  You should also ask the sellers for any manuals and warranties they have on the appliances. It is nice to know how old they are too. Newer appliances tend to be more energy efficent.

If your home will be empty this winter now is the time to winterize it. That means turning the water off and draining the pipes and the water heater and the furnace if it is a hot water unit. Water can destroy a home very quickly.

Winter Makes Time Stand Still

Posted on by Jack Boardman

BY Jack Boardman – Guest Author

When I was a kid time seemed to pass ever-so-slowly; summer seemed almMaple_natch_fost endless and by mid-August I  suffered from the “there's nothing to do” kid syndrome and actually looked forward to school starting. Until September actually arrived and school loomed on the more or less immediate horizon.

Now, in my sixth decade, I wish for time to slow down…just a little; this summer passed by in an eye-blink. A very rapid eye-blink at that. Already gone are those perfect 75° days with a light breeze stirring the leaves on the tree in our back yard and the delightful fragrance of our flowers wafting in and out of our consciousness. 

In another such eye-blink winter will be upon us with all its delights.  By delights, I'm waxing a little ironic; I don't mean that first significant snowfall deadening the ambient sound of the city and giving the neighborhood a distinct Hallmark-card appearance. Or our simple pine-laurel and (electric) six-candle-light Christmas decorations making the snow sparkle on the front porch; I like that…a lot.

I mean the weeks of windchill, the days of driving on ice, the gallons of windshield-wiper solvent, and the salt-residue-covered car. The long months of long nights and short days, the breath-stealing winds at -5° howling through the leafless trees, the furnace fighting off the cold with the drafts of a 152 year-old house fighting the efforts of the furnace, returning home to the six inches of snow (that the city expects me to have cleared within 24 hours), and that neighbor who has his snow cleared down to the concrete sidewalk ten minutes after the snow stops…what a jerk!

Not all share my opinion of winter, many of my hardier neighbors like winter for the outdoor activities and Saint Paul has winter activities for those folks: the Como Park Ski Center provides cross-country trails, snowboarding and downhill skiing, and ice climbing and ice skating. And then there is the Winter Carnival!

But for me [SIGH]: now in my sixth decade, I wish time would speed up…just a little…until April.