Tami and Steve's I-94 Minnesota Real Estate Blog

The Top 5 Things All Great Realtors Wish Their Clients Knew

2012-05-12T17:45:00.001-05:00

by Tami DeLand

1. Real Estate is Local: Perhaps you’ve heard this before and dismissed it as a meaningless cliché. Yet it is true that every real estate market is unique. When you read/hear on the news that the market is falling or rising; that prices are up/down; that inventory is high/low, realize what is happening in Southern California is seldom the case in heart of the Midwest or upstate New York. The reason this is important is that these facts help determine how you go about your house search and successfully negotiate the purchase (or sale) of your home. Recently we met a newlywed couple excited to be first-time homeowners. They (thought they) had done their homework and were prepared buyers. They were thrilled that they would have so many homes to choose from! We had to inform them that this was actually the lowest inventory our area has seen in two years. They were confident that with all the foreclosures on the market they would be able to find a relatively new home at about 80% or less of its list price. We had to show them the recent sales statistics which reflect that foreclosed homes in our area are capturing—on average--95% of the sales price. It has been difficult for the happy couple to reconcile this data as reality, and as a result, after several house tours, the couple has fallen victim to “buyer paralysis,” unable to make a decision. Remember: all great realtors are willing and able to give you the true picture of your local real estate market. It’s up to you to listen.

2. Market Average Matters. (Price per square foot doesn’t.) When it comes to determining the value of a home, one number is most significant: sales price to list price, or the market average. This number tells you what the sellers recently captured on comparable homes in the area. It helps you formulate a reasonable offer that stands a good chance of being accepted or negotiated to your liking. Other numbers, like price per square foot, are actually irrelevant and vary widely from sale to sale or cannot be measured at all. Think of it like this: the next time you go to buy a sheet set for your bed, instead of researching if its price is wholesale, retail or clearance, you ask the clerk what it costs per square inch. Answer = it doesn’t matter. That’s not how sheet sets are priced. Remember: a red herring in the negotiation process seldom—if ever--produces favorable results.

3. Your Best Interest is in Your Realtor’s Best Interest: The simple fact is your realtor does not get paid if he/she doesn’t successfully negotiate a sale on your current home or the purchase of your new home. Pricing the listing of your home too high is not in anyone’s best interest because the house will not sell until it has taken the required number of price reductions to compete on the current market. (IF then.) But by that time, you will be disappointed in the process and your realtor, easily forgetting the price he/she suggested starting at in the first place. Similarly, bidding too low on a home reduces the likelihood that you will get the home you want. And after repeating the process two or three times, it is easy to become discouraged and give up. The answer is not to blindly follow any advice that is shoveled your way but to choose your realtor carefully and then trust that person to perform as the professional he/she is. Remember: All great realtors are able to demonstrate their value through their track record and skills.

4. The Housing Market is Ever-Changing: Just like the newlywed couple who had a hard time adjusting to the fact that there were few homes to choose from in their price-bracket and those homes were selling rapidly at close to full price, buyers need to be attuned to the fact that the market they were shopping in (or reading about) just a few months ago may be an all-together different place today. Buyers must pay attention to the absorption rate in their specific price bracket. (The number of homes available per buyer.) This determines how quickly they must respond to a new listing. Foreclosures in most markets, for instance, require that buyers be pre-approved with a reputable lender before they walk in the door, the reason being (depending on the area) that foreclosures are selling within 24 hours - 10 days. A buyer under these circumstances must be first in and willing to write at full-price. Inventory in some areas is so critically low, we are seeing multiple-offers even in non-foreclosed homes. Remember: all great realtors will be able to show you the absorption rate in your market and explain its significance.

5. Clarify Your Wants and Needs to Yourself and Your Realtor: On the one hand, this describes your Wish List—all the things you want and need in your new home. But often there is an item that may be hidden from your realtor: that the number one need you have, for example, is to find “the deal.” The reality is if you are looking to purchase a home that will provide the lifestyle that you and/or family desires, expect to pay for a fair price for the property. If you are shopping for “the deal,” expect to write several offers and to give up several of the items on your wish list. Your realtor can guide you in either direction, but he/she needs to know that your primary objective is the price tag. Remember: you will save yourself time and angst by clarifying your most important need and communicating it to your realtor right away.

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Tami DeLand and Steve Hansen
St. Cloud MN and Central Minnesota REALTORS
Coldwell Banker Burnet
(320) 258-6675
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St. Cloud Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Central Minnesota Real Estate
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REMEMBERING WHAT'S IMPORTANT

2012-01-27T12:45:00.002-06:00

Remembering What’s Important about a Home
by Tami DeLand

In recent years we’ve heard a lot about our homes. How they’ve become a bad investment. How they’ve gone down in value. How they have sunk the market and caused a crushing economic recession.

We have heard so much about them, in fact, that we’ve tuned out and forgotten what is true about homes: that they reflect who we are, how hard we have worked, and where we feel most like ourselves.

I have a friend who recently reminded me of what it means to own a home. Me: a real estate agent. Even I had lost in the past few years the essence—the true significance—of home.

I want to share with you her lesson. This is from Ronnie Gaubatz’s blog, “Glass Half Full.”
She says it much better than I ever could. Please read.

http://ronniegaubatz.wordpress.com/our2012/01/12/-home/

Ronnie is battling stage IV cancer. In another lifetime, she was one of my first students. She was 14 and I was 22.

Because Ronnie understands what a home really means, she hopes that her family is able to stay in hers once she is no longer with them. She wants her home to be her legacy.

I am traveling to St. Louis, Missouri in February to join Ronnie’s Rally to help her achieve that goal. If you are able, I’d be proud to have you donate to her cause.

But in any event, take with you Ronnie’s gift: the reminder that home ownership is much more than an investment. It is the place you bring--and live--your love.

http://www.katimari.com/rallyForRonnie/rally-for-ronnie-event/

shared from Ronnie's Blog...

our home

January 12, 2012

Doug and I moved no less than nine times in the first ten years of our marriage. The first place was a tiny, second floor apartment near the school where Doug teaches photography. On the first floor, right below us lived The Snorer. This man snored so loud every night that he would wake us from a dead sleep. I would put on my motorcycle boots and jump up and down on the floor so that he would awaken and hopefully stop the horrible noise. After about a month, I left a note on his door begging for mercy, please sir, let us sleep. That night we noticed that he had moved his bedroom to the front of his apartment so that the snores now filled our living room and our bedroom fell silent.

Then there was the pickle bucket place. This place was an unfinished warehouse that rented for two hundred and fifty dollars a month. The cheap rent excited my husband to no end and rendered him completely blind to the fact this place had no bathroom, no kitchen, no anything. At some point during the renovation project, surrounded by dust and tools and scraps of wood, I sat on a pickle bucket and cried. I mean I cried, a serious weeping that sends the body into a series of uncontrollable motions starting with a heaving up from a crouched fetal position, followed by a loud and desperate sucking in of air, concluding with a wailing of something like Why oh why did you do this to me? Why can’t we just live in a normal place? When will this ever be finished?. This drama went on for about forty-five minutes, while Doug continued to hammer in the space that would become the kitchen.

There were more places too. There was the place with the strange hot tub and shag carpet in the bathroom, the place with the landlady that liked to drop by unannounced and gave longer than comfortable hugs, the third floor place that my mother helped us move into and consequently she will never forgive Doug for his enormous book and record collection. It still comes up at family gatherings how many bags of books she hauled up those stairs. Bless her. There have been a lot of dwellings in our lives, but none of them our home, until this place, my last place.

Our home is a modest two-story, circa 1963. It is the kind of place that Wally and Beaver Cleaver would have live in, clean, functional, and covered with textured wallpaper. I like to think of the girls, upstairs talking with one another about important life issues just the way Wally and The Beav used to do. Of course they would get it all wrong and June and Ward would help them sort it all out over a nice dinner. The thought of Doug and I as Ward and June Cleaver is therapeutic in so many ways; Laughter, especially uncontrolled laughter, is indeed the best medicine. I joke. Our home is simple and modest, but it is filled with love and support for each other. There are no Eddie Haskells here.

Our home sits on just over an acre of land outlined with trees in the heart of a fairly good-sized suburb of Saint Louis. Despite the location, our backyard is private and quiet, except in June and July. Summer evenings are spent on our patio, drinking wine and listening to the loud bullfrog serenade from the pond behind our property. The girls and their friends run through the yard, chasing lightning bugs that morphed into boys in only a few short summers. Friday evenings in September and October, you can hear the high school band and the roar of the crowds at the North High football game from our backyard. The high school is within walking distance. I love football and the girls love hanging out so we attend every home game. Erin will be a junior next year, Mattie and Allie will be a freshman the year after next. I pray that I might be here to see them graduate. Until then, Go North High!

Doug hung a string of clear lights in the trees that surround our patio. We turn them on almost every night. The open bulbs remind me of my favorite place in the world, Greece, where every tiny town has a similar string of lights illuminating the heart of the community. There people gather to drink ouzo and eat peanuts and watch the World Cup on old TV sets that are moved outdoors and precariously balanced on unstable folding tables. They drink and talk and argue and laugh and watch the children run up and down the harbor. The kids eat ice cream and it melts quickly in the Greek summer air and it runs down their arms rendering them too sticky for bed without a bath. Our patio is like that too, a place to laugh and live and drink and eat. And love.

The kitchen has been a “project” since we moved here nine years ago. Until recently, the countertops were fashioned from the old interior doors we took out of the house, not fashioned in the eclectic-antique-door-turned-countertop sort of way but more like the we-desperately-need-someplace-to-prepare-food-and-these-doors-will-do sort of style. The stove and the refrigerator are acting as comic stand-ins for the real appliances I dream of someday owning. Despite it’s odd pairings of cabinetry and appliance, I love my kitchen. The place usually smells of fresh made bread and a roast of some kind in the oven. Family dinners are prepared here every evening, shared with all of us and anyone else who happens to be around at dinner time. Wine gets poured and conversations, big and small, happen over butter and rolls. Mattie and Allie make faces at each other. Funny faces that only your twin would find amusing. My kitchen is where we love, nurture and amuse each other. It is here the girls first made cupcakes. It is here that Erin perfected butter cream icing. It is here that I made the meal we all ate together after I told them about the days.

Our home is home to two dogs, Pearl and Charlie and a cat, Cletus. Hopidink, our lop bunny is buried in the woods, along with Ham-Ham the hamster and an unnamed bird who was the first animal to our knowledge to have passed away on the property. I suspect the cat had something to do with this. Mattie and Allie were only five years old when the bird died. They were quite shaken. We dug a hole together and had a funeral in our back yard. Mattie and Allie held hands while they cried. Erin gathered wild flowers for the grave. I read the 23rd Psalm. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. My girls first learned about death here in our home. They have grieved birds, bunny and hamster. Next they will grieve me. Here. In our home.

Doug and I moved no less than nine times in the first ten years of our marriage, but the second ten years of our marriage have been lived here, in our home, with our girls. I love this place because it is filled with love. Erin wants to someday have this home as her own and that makes me very happy to think about the future of the place. My heart imagines grandchildren I may never meet gathering around a dinner table that means so much to me today. We all love this place, our place, a place to laugh, cry, cook, lovingly mock and sincerely mourn.

This is our home, now and forever, I pray.

TODAY'S HOUSING MARKET

2012-01-24T10:05:00.006-06:00

WHAT IS THE SKINNY ON TODAY'S HOUSING MARKET?
Remember: The Twin Cities real estate market is a great predictor of the Central Minnesota real estate market.

Where has the Twin Cities real estate market been and where is it heading? This monthly summary provides an overview of current trends and projections for future activity. Narrated by Cari Linn (2012 President, Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS®), video produced by Chelsie Lopez.

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Tami DeLand and Steve Hansen
St. Cloud MN and Central Minnesota REALTORS
Coldwell Banker Burnet
(320) 258-6675
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St. Cloud Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Central Minnesota Real Estate
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Condo with Elevator --- 1340 9th Ave So, St. Cloud

2012-01-18T15:34:00.001-06:00

1340 9th Avenue South #307, St. Cloud, MN 56301

Convenience and Security

Property Features:
Convenient south St. Cloud location on bus line
Two bedrooms & two bathrooms
Finished secure and heated garage
Apx 1,060 finished square feet
Spacious living room with slider to veranda over-looking pool area
Full size pool and patio area - great for entertaining
Kitchen with dining area
Full appliance package
Private master bathroom and walk-in closet
Party room and laundry
Third floor unit with elevator access
Association includes: heating, sanitation, snow/lawn care, outside maintenance, hazard insurance, cable tv, water/sewer, security system and shared amenities

Third Floor Unit with Elevator Access
With apx 1,060 square finished square feet this pool side unit in light and bright. The association includes pool and patio privileges, laundry, party room, heated and secure garage. This two bedroom condo includes: two bathrooms, a private master bath and walk-in closet, kitchen with full appliance package, and a spacious living room with slider to veranda (pool-side views).

RoamHomes, is a FREE mobile property search app. It works on ALL smart phones. RoamHomes enables you to view all properties for sale listed in the MLS using GPS technology or any of your personal search criteria.
TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE ROAMHOMES APP:
* For iPhone search your App Store for RoamHomes
* For Android search your Marketplace for RoamHomes
* Other devices go to: http://roamhomes.com/mobile/
When registering, use Coupon Code: 15205255

CALL for details and current price: 1-888-900-9305 Ext: 2062
SEE ALL HOMES and CONDOS FOR SALE: http://www.i-94homes.com/home.htm
Steve Hansen, Realtor, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Coldwell Banker Burnet

SIMILAR PROPERTIES IN: Saint Cloud, Waite Park, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, St. Joseph, Clearwater, Clear Lake, Avon, Albany, St. Augusta, Rockville, Cold Spring, Richmond, Becker, Rice, Royalton, Little Falls, Monticello, St. Michael, Albertville, Rogers, Otsego, Maple Grove, Buffalo, Annandale, Rockford, Corcoran, and Central Minnesota

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Tami DeLand and Steve Hansen
St. Cloud MN and Central Minnesota REALTORS
Coldwell Banker Burnet
(320) 258-6675
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St. Cloud Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Central Minnesota Real Estate
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IS THE BOTTOM HERE AND GONE?

2012-01-17T14:40:00.002-06:00

Housing Market Looking Good

National headlines are beginning to predict an upbeat housing market in 2012. As Julie Schmit of USA TODAY reports, “Optimism is building that the housing industry is nearing a bottom—finally.”

Here is some good news excerpted from Schmit’s “Housing Outlook is More Upbeat,” in today’s edition of USA TODAY.

Housing’s outlook is brightening with signs of a better economy. Last month, U.S. employers added 200,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5%, lowest in nearly three years.
While an economic shock could derail progress, “there’s now more evidence of improvement in the economy, and housing will follow the economy,” says David Crowe, chief economist of Home Builders. More improvement is expected for:
Sales. Existing home sales will rise 12% this year after a 2% increase last year, and new home sales, coming off a bad year, will jump 74% this year, Moody’s Analytics predicts.
November’s existing home sales hit their highest mark in 10 months, and new home sales were the year’s second-best, IHS Global Insight says.
Construction. Single-family housing starts will rise 37% this year, Moody’s predicts, after falling 9% last year.
Home builder stocks are on a run. The S&P 1500 home building index is up 38% since mid-October, vs. 7% for the S&P 500.

To find out how this data affects your home in the central Minnesota area, contact Tami and Steve today. steve@tamiandsteve.com.

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Tami DeLand and Steve Hansen
St. Cloud MN and Central Minnesota REALTORS
Coldwell Banker Burnet
(320) 258-6675
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St. Cloud Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Central Minnesota Real Estate
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208 8th Avenue North, Sartell, MN --- MATURE TREES

2012-01-17T13:24:00.002-06:00

SARTELL HOME WITH MATURE TREES
888-900-9305 Extension# 2392

Private Setting with Mature Trees

Property Features:
Spacious back yard with mature trees
Four car garage (24 x 42) (four over-head doors) and storage shed
New kitchen counter-tops
Four bedrooms & two bathrooms
Finished lower level with spacious family room, gas fireplace with stone surround
Lower level entry with mud room
Full appliance package
New furnace 2009, new hot water heater, new dishwasher, new carpeting
Newer roof, newer siding, new deck door, newer flooring
Unfinished fifth bedroom in lower level

Sartell Home with Mature Trees

This four bedroom Sartell home is located in a quiet neighborhood and offers a private backyard with mature trees. The home features two finished levels including: a full appliance package, two bathrooms, spacious family room with gas fireplace (stone surround), newer roof, siding and flooring, a four car garage with backyard access (overhead door), storage shed and lower level entry with mud room.

CALL for details and current price: 1-888-900-9305 Ext: 2392
SEE ALL HOMES FOR SALE: http://www.i-94homes.com/home.htm
Steve Hansen, Realtor, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Coldwell Banker Burnet

RoamHomes, is a FREE mobile property search app. It works on ALL smart phones. RoamHomes enables you to view all properties for sale listed in the MLS using GPS technology or any of your personal search criteria.
TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE ROAMHOMES APP:
* For iPhone search your App Store for RoamHomes
* For Android search your Marketplace for RoamHomes
* Other devices go to: http://roamhomes.com/mobile/
When registering, use Coupon Code: 15205255

SIMILAR PROPERTIES IN: Saint Cloud, Waite Park, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, St. Joseph, Clearwater, Clear Lake, Avon, Albany, St. Augusta, Rockville, Cold Spring, Richmond, Becker, Rice, Royalton, Little Falls, Monticello, St. Michael, Albertville, Rogers, Otsego, Maple Grove, Buffalo, Annandale, Rockford, Corcoran, and Central Minnesota

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Tami DeLand and Steve Hansen
St. Cloud MN and Central Minnesota REALTORS
Coldwell Banker Burnet
(320) 258-6675
---
St. Cloud Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Central Minnesota Real Estate
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