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Ups and downs
2007-07-24 05:50:31
I understand that staying in the little house on the bridge has it's ups and downs .  The Robert street bridge is a landmark in these parts.  It is on the national register of historic places,  and was built in 1924-1926.  The current bridge is a replacement for the original which was built in 1885, and was not designed to handle the large volume of car and street car traffic that came a couple of decades later. For those who don't know what a street car was we are currently  building light rail to replace the street cars which were replaced by buses.  Except the light rail lines are replacing the street cars that were on University avenue, not the ones that were on Robert. The original Robert street bridge was named after a Frenchman, Louis Robert (Row-bear') who was a fur trader, an early St.Paul land owner, and a steamboat owner and pilot. Louis Robert arrived in St. Paul in the winter of 1843, walking through the snow and wilderness from Prai


Association Dues, are they really too high?
2007-07-23 11:25:14
$460 dollars a month for association dues, you have to be kidding!  No I am not kidding and it looks like a bargain to me, especially in an older building.  I took the dues for a condo in my own neighborhood that is about the same size  and age as our home and compared the association dues to our monthly expenses. The $460 monthly dues cover Heating, hazard insurance, water, sewer, refuse removal, lawn care, snow removal and exterior maintenance.   Our costs for a similar size home are $363 a month for heating, insurance, sewer, water and refuse removal, leaving $97 a month for exterior maintenance, snow removal and lawn care. I don't even have to factor in the cost of lawn care and snow removal to see that the dues are a bargain.  Our exterior maintenance costs spread out over the length of time we have owned our home easily come out to more than $100 dollars a month. If I factor in the cost of the roof repair we needed, the gutters we had to add to


Saturday's church
2007-07-28 00:28:01
          House of Hope Presbyterian Church, 797 Summit Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota 55105-3392 Ralph Adams Cram was the principal architect of this church, designed in the English Perpendicular Gothic style, construction was completed in 1914. With 49 bells, the Noyes Memorial Carillon is the largest in Minnesota.The House of Hope Presbyterian Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing member of St. Paul's Historic Hill District.               
Read more: Saturday

The secret life of bloggers - Uff Da!
2007-07-27 09:02:58
It is Friday, and here on my blog Friday's are for fun.  I think I will start this post by pointing out that bloggers do not have secret lives.  Our lives are more public than most.  In fact the idea of  a "secret life" cracks me up. I am not complaining, I get wonderful emails from all over the country, and have gotten to meet some interesting people.   Some are more interesting than others . . .a few are kind of scary. With that out of the way I would like to say that some bloggers do have secrets.  I keep discovering great Minnesota blogs and am building a special blog roll for them.  Be patient, I am working on it, and it is OK to send me a note with a link.  I would like to help promote Minnesota blogs, even those of my competitors.  (You know who you are and I know who you are too, just keep your hands off the tiara) Announcing the Minnesota Carnival of Uff Da! since this event is for Minnesota bloggers I won't



2007-07-27 00:55:07



Brewberrys
2007-07-26 17:41:12
Coffee shop's make great virtual offices.  Brewberrys is my favorite Highland Park office.  Located on the corner of Randolph and Fairview Avenue, it truly is a neighborhood coffee shop as advertised.


Congratulations to Horacio and Sara
2007-07-26 17:41:03
In order to take a look at this content, you need a Flash Player plugin.Please install Flash Player from the Flash Website. posted by (C)T Moving is never easy, and neither is finding the right home.  Congratulations to Horacio and Sara, they will be moving from New York to Minnesota, and have just purchased this lovely home in Minneapolis not far from lake Calhoun We started the process on the internet some time last winter, and met in person a few months ago.  We saw some properties that were a bit disappointing too. We worked together on the internet for months.  I would look at properties for them and upload and put pictures on the internet.  I took pictures of furnaces and water heaters too.  I am happy that it all worked out and they got the home they wanted. Real estate is local so there was a learning curve.  In New York lawyers write purchase agreements.  Here in Minnesota Realtors write them.  It does take awhile to understan


Head House & Sack house
2007-07-30 00:16:17
This building stands out, and is located near downtown, on the North shore if the Mississippi River.   The taller structure is the head house, it was used for loading grain into barges, the  structure next to it the sack house, where grain was put into sacks, and in the foreground are some barges. The Farmers Union, under George Lambert, expanded the elevators on the Upper Levee in 1927-31, and persuaded Congress to fund the 9-foot channel in 1930. The complex eventually included 90 grain silos, a mill, the head house  and the sack house.   They have been the subjects of architectural and design contests to decide the future uses of theserelics of past shipping and marketing practices. They are not going to be torn down, but instead turned  into a restaurant and interpretive center, both buildings are on the national register of historic places. The head house is most often photographed from the walking paths along the river. 


I Speak For the Trees
2007-07-29 05:55:42
By Erik Hare - The real estate poet In the bad part of town, where the sidewalks are broken And the windows are cracked and the junkyard is smokin’ There’s a bench by the road with a pic fading grey That says “Onceler Real Estate – call us today!” If you call on his office in an old busted store You’ll find out what happened, and just a bit more. For this is the story he’s eager to tell While he shows you some houses he’s desperate to sell. “It all came so quickly, the real estate boom I sold twenty houses each day before noon. Everyone loved it – the parks and the school And all of the homes had a large swimming pool. They’d start bidding wars; they’d go ten over asking All my staff and myself ran around multi-tasking. Then one day it just happened, right out of the vapor When we all had discovered we ran out of paper. It was trouble at first, but we all learned to cope. Inventiveness gave us all reason to hope. It was simple, you see, since it was all t
Read more: Trees

National Night Out
2007-08-02 00:32:00
National Night out is next Tuesday. Leave your front light on, and go out and meet your neighbors. As a member of the West 7th Community center board of directors I would like to invite you to our national night out celebration, and 35th anniversary celebration, I promise it will be a good time. The community center offers a variety of programs for youth, and older adults, including after school programs and meals on wheels. Help us celebrate our 35th birthday, and meet your neighbors.  I am sure members of the St. Paul police department will be on hand as well some of the local politicians we all know and love.  What is National Night Out? It's America's Night Out Against Crime! The "24th Annual National Night Out" (NNO), a unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 7, 2007. We cordially invite you and your community to be a part of
Read more: National

Time of Essence
2007-08-01 00:17:14
Line 154.  TIME OF ESSENCE:  Time is of the essence in this Purchase Agreement. The statement above can be found on page 4 of the standard Minnesota purchase agreement, which is the most common contract used in these parts to purchase a home. I could go on a rant here but I won't.  The idea is to keep the process moving along.  After the buyer signs the purchase agreement and it is presented to the seller, or more often than not simply faxed to the listing agent, the sellers should respond in a short period of time. Sometimes sellers need a little time to make a decision, that is understandable, but don't take too long.  I have spent many weekends calling anxious buyers just to let them know that I don't know anything because the seller's agent has not gotten back to me.  Time is of the essence applies to buyers too.   I received an offer on one of my listings, on a Friday at about 3:00 PM.   The agent who faxed the offer to me
Read more: Essence

They let me out agian
2007-07-31 10:09:11
Name this city.  KK - yes I do know where I am.


Ask the agent if they have ever sold a home
2007-07-31 00:10:30
When I started in the real estate business I worked with a company that was large and has a "big brand", we were taught that as  new agents who had no experience  we could get listings.  We were strongly encouraged  to charge as much as the seasoned pros.  We were told to tell prospects that we could do as good of a job as an experienced agent, and that we could do more because we had fewer clients and more time. Looking back on it now I can't imagine paying 6 or 7% for someone who has never sold a home before.  My first listing sold in about 25 days.  I charged the seller 7%.   I did  seek advice and get help from a more senior agent, and took care to make sure that I did the very best job that I could, and managed to sell the home in 25 days.  We all have to start somewhere, but is a new agent worth 7%? After selling a few dozen homes I began to realize how important experience is, and that there are thousands of


Saturday's church
2007-08-04 07:57:15
St. James Catholic Church, 650 Palace Avenue, St. Paul, MN. 
Read more: Saturday

From St. Paul to California
2007-08-03 00:31:11
It has been an exciting, yet exhausting week.  I have been at the Inman Connect and Blogger connect conferences in San Fransisco, and was one of the speakers on panels for both event.  It has been an amazing experience to meet so many people in person who used to just live inside my computer. The conference is for the real estate industry with a focus on technology. I learned a lot from the experience and was honored to be chosen to be a panelist. I even met a few people from Minnesota.  Now the folks in California know that we have computers here in Minnesota and that we use the Internet.  Some of the people that I meet seem to be surprised that many of us here in the twin cities are pretty tech savvy.  I think it is an East coast thing. A very special thanks to Pat Kitano of Transparent Real estate for the tour of San Fransisco, it is a beautiful city.


Bridge Collapse
2007-08-06 22:29:07
I had to go see the bridge collapse for myself yesterday.  This is as close as I could get with a camera, but was able to see the entire bridge while I was driving across a nearby bridge.    There are still 8 people missing.  There is a bridge that according to many that is in worse shape than the 35W bridge.  The Lafayette bridge, which is 51 feet high and 3375 feet long.  There are not enough structural supports on the bridge to keep it up if one of the supports goes down.  There are bridges in need of repair through out the state and the country.  Maybe this is our wake up call. Here are some links to just some of the coverage by some of the great local Minnesota blogs: 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapses in Minneapolis - the sky blue waters report Minneapolis Bridge Collapse & Citizen Journalism - e-strategy.com's Internet Marketing Blog MN Speak 35W Bridge collapse by Living in 55404 Twin Cities Daily Planet


Wild Flowers
2007-08-06 00:09:12
Wild Rose Flodman's thistle Tall purple thingy.  I am not making that up.(Yes I am)  For help with identifying Minnesota wild flowers visit the  Minnesota DNR web site.  These plants were found in the gardens around the science museum of Minnesota and in the park along the Mississippi River near downtown. Stop by tomorrow for some nice charts and graphs, instead of flowers as we publish housing market statistics for the local real estate market.  Charts, graphs and numbers are a lot more fun than flowers.  
Read more: Flowers

Summer in the City
2007-08-05 01:05:14
By Erik Hare Summer in Minnesota may be intense, but in one respect it’s the same as it is everywhere else: what do you do with the kids? This is not a simple issue, because most jobs continue just the same as any other time of the year. Fortunately, we have a lot of adventurous and academic programs that are more than just a kind of day care. Kids continue to try new things all year long. I’ve been fortunate to help out with one recently, writing a grant to the Department of Education. Some of these are funded with public money, regardless of the kind of program they have. The group I was working with was church based, but there are many other places that offer any number of other things My own kids attend a number of different “camps” sponsored by different people. Most weeks, it’s one of the many offerings of the Saint Paul Parks Department at one of the parks, rec centers, or schools. These range from theatre camp to art camp to zoo camp, among many others


Get lost
2007-08-10 00:37:11
It is Friday and already August.   It doesn't matter which month it is Friday's are for fun on the St. Paul Real Estate Blog.  Earlier in the week I indicated that it is more fun to post charts and graphs than flowers.  I just made that up so I would have an excuse for publishing some hard data, so that I could be spammed into oblivion by  mortgage companies.   I really wanted to post pictures of flowers. Some people take vacations in August.  I usually wait until September, besides since the end of June I have traveled to seven states, and have gotten lost in 4 or 5 of them.   I have a GPS in my car and it seems to work fine, except for when I am in tunnels or surrounded by tall buildings or not paying attention.     Recently I have gotten lost driving in downtown Chicago, in St. Joseph Missouri, and in Southern Minnesota.  I get lost while I am walking too. I got lost walking, at least once a day in Cal


Getting them through the door
2007-08-09 22:45:49
I went on an appointment a couple of days ago and met some sellers who have had their home on the market for six months and are looking for a new Realtor. These days sellers like to change Realtors and as I drive down the street I see new signs in front of old listings. I ask  questions before I take such a listing to make sure that the sellers are people that I can work with, and who want to work with me.  Some people have expectations that no agent can meet. In general I am not critical of how others do their jobs.  Selling homes is not as easy as it used to be.  I ask what the other agent did and try to determine what the sellers liked and what they did not like. In this case the sellers and I decided that we want to work together and I will take the listing.  When we got down to talking about commissions they were somewhat relieved when the rate I quoted them was lower than that of their previous agent who was charging the absolute maximum.  I tol


Home Prices by Saint Paul Neighborhood
2007-08-09 21:38:45
The data used to make the charts came from the Regional Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.  The numbers are for July sales of single family hones, which does include every type of condominium,  in the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is still very much a buyers market.   Here are some interest rates from Freddie Mac: August 2, 2007                                                                     30-yr                                                                     15-yr  
Read more: Prices , Neighborhood , Home Prices

National Night Out In St. Paul
2007-08-07 22:25:19
We had a great time at this years national night out.  There were block parties all over St. Paul.  I was only able to get to three of them.  I spent a bit of time at the West 7th Community Center because we are celebrating our 35th anniversary.  I would like to especially thank our director, Jeff  Martinka for bringing national night out back to the community center.  It was wonderful to be out on such a beautiful night with my neighbors and friends.  There were streets blocked off around the neighborhood and through out the city.  Not everyone takes the national night out as seriously as we do here in St. Paul, Minnesota but they should. Also see National Night Out


Listings Vs. Sales
2007-08-07 09:43:39
The numbers are taken from the RMLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.  So far this year in the  City of Saint Paul 4212 single family homes have been put on the market and 1477 have sold or currently have offers on them but have not yet closed.  There are  2444 homes on the market.  The math does not quite work.  The 300 or so missing listings are those that have been taken off the market and do not show up as having been sold. More July numbers will be posted tomorrow. 
Read more: Sales

On the River under the Bridge
2007-08-13 00:30:00
The Lexington Avenue bridge, 35E South as viewed from the Mississippi River .  A troll lives under this bridge but he is pretty fast and I was unable to get a picture.    The Smith Avenue High Bridge.  If I had been driving the boat this shot would have been perfectly framed. The Jonathan Paddleford, docked at Harriet Island.  People live along this stretch of river in house boats.


City Elections
2007-08-12 01:02:14
By Erik Hare If you want information on the election in 2008, there are hundreds of websites that can tell you a lot about it. The horserace, the policies, the personalities – it’s all there if you want it. But in Saint Paul, we have an election in November 2007 that is a lot harder to find information about. I happen to think it’s far more important, too. In Our Fair City we elect the City Council, Mayor, and School Board in odd-numbered years. This is done to keep them from getting lost in all the noise of state and national elections. These elections are done on a relatively low budget, around $20k for the City Council, and conducted personally one front door at a time and one festival at a time. While these are active races with a lot of people involved, there are still many residents that don’t know much about them. This is a shame, because the city delivers most of the basic services that we depend on every day. When you leave your driveway, you’re on a city main
Read more: Elections

7th Place, Find Farmers Here
2007-08-16 00:42:15
Pictures of the out door farmers market on the 7th place plaza.  They are here on Tuesdays and Thursdays from May through September.  Check the Farmer's Market web site for other locations. 
Read more: Place

Indian Mounds and History
2007-08-15 00:23:26
The slide show provides a quick walking tour of the Mounds Park neighborhood, and of Indian Mounds Park.  The Park sits high on the River bluff with spectacular views of the river, it is also part of the --- trail system.  The park is named after the mounds that were created by the Hopewell people 1500 - 2000 years ago, they are sacred burial grounds.  At one time there were at least 16 mounds on the bluff but only 6 remain.The Mounds Park Neighborhood is part of the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood located just East of downtown St. Paul, and is a small area located between South of I94, and runs along the river up to Highway 61.   Homes in the area were built between the 1880's and 1940's, and are affordable. Many historic homes in the area have been or are being restored.   There are examples of several architecural styles including Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Tudors, the American Four Square and Colonial style homes.  The neighborhood has a
Read more: History

St. Paul Condo Market Snap Shot
2007-08-14 09:27:15
It has been awhile since I have provided an update on the local condo market.  These numbers came from the RMLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.  They are for the past 30 days and include all types of condominiums that were or are listed in the RMLS . There are more units on the market than there were in March, but fewer new listings in the last 30 days.  The average number of days the units that are currently listed have been on the market is 179, or about six months. Sellers need to know that it takes longer to sell a condo than  a single family home.  Buyers need to understand that they should not reject a unit because it has been on the market for while.  There are some good deals out there on new and previously owned units.  Prices range from $50,000 to 2 million. Related posts: Home Prices by Saint Paul Neighborhood February condo numbers Association Dues, are they really too high? Condo sellers - review rules and bylaws Sh
Read more: Market

Porches and sidewalks
2007-08-14 05:55:13
Most people can't walk by this beautiful Queen Anne style  home located in the historic Irvine park neighborhood with out noticing it.  The place kinds of stands out.  The home and it's surroundings also show some of the most deirable aspects of urban design.  There is a sidewalk in front for people to walk on.   The road goes around the corner at a sharp angle, forcing cars to slow down, and the home is set close to the sidewalk. There is a  front porch, which seems more welcoming than having a garage in front of the house.  They put the garage in the back.  Porches are for sitting on and are a great way to meet neighbors, or at least to see your neighbors. There is also an alley so on garbage pick-up day the trash bin goes behind the house instead of in front of it.  There is a park across the street from the home, a public square of sorts, with a fountain, trees and park benches.  City life is not for everyone but it wor


City Lights, on a Summer Night
2007-08-20 00:42:13
Taken from Harriet Island Regional Park, St. Paul, MN. on the Mississippi river.   Rain was in the forecast but it was a beautiful Friday night. People were out walking along the river.  During the holidays we really light the city up.  The "1st"  on the First Bank building blinks.  It usually turns off just as the shutter on the camera clicks.  It was designed to do that. 
Read more: Lights , Summer , Night

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