May 2007 - Page 2 of 7 - St. Paul Real Estate Blog

Broker Reciprocity

Posted on May 24, 2007by Teresa Boardman

The picture above has nothing to do with the post. I like brownstones. I have been hesitant to write about broker reciprocity because reciprocity is so hard to spell.

Broker Reciprocity allows me as a Realtor® to show and sell any home listed by any real estate company. When I am working with buyers to find that perfect home I don’t look to see who’s listing it is. It doesn’t matter. Finding the perfect home is all that really matters. I am often asked if I can show homes listed through other real estate companies and have talked to buyers who believe that if a home is listed through Keller Williams they have to work with one of our agents to see it. Not true, any agent from any real estate company can show our listings.

Find the agent you like best. There are excellent agents affiliated with each real estate company. I have written about this before. Real estate companies don’t sell real estate, licensed real estate agents and brokers who are usually independent contractors sell real estate.

For real estate agents broker reciprocity means that there are thousands of agents helping us find buyers for our listings. It also means that if we are representing a buyer we will get paid through the sellers broker, in most cases the seller pays the commission as an incentive for the buyers agent. We do need to get paid and buyers need representation and our expertise as they go about making the most expensive purchase most people ever make.

Local real estate companies have homes for sale on their web sites that are listed by their agents and by agents from most other brokerages. Home buyers should find the site they like the best for research. Local sites are better than national sites because they have all of the local listings on them. There is no advantage to searching for homes in Minnesota on a site that also has homes for sale in Iowa and New Jersey.

This concludes my infomercial for buyers agency and broker reciprocity complete with a picture of a brownstone.

Also see: The Truth about Real Estate Companies

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For Home buyers
...
- Neighborhoods

Home Values

Posted on May 23, 2007by Teresa Boardman

A big part of my job is helping buyers and sellers determine the value of a home. Buyers need to know how much they should pay and Sellers need to know how much they should ask, and want to know how much they will get. It all boils down to a business transaction.

There is more to owning a home. There are neighbors and communities. In some neighborhoods there is a sense of community and our homes become much more than what we paid for them. I am fortunate in the I live in the Uppertown neighborhood in St. Paul. People who live here tend to stick around. Sometimes homes stay in families through a couple of generations. As a result we have roots. We know each other, and we attend community events and meetings together.

We don’t always agree with each other but we have a lot more in common than not. We care about our neighborhood. I could put a value on my home but my community and neighbors are priceless. Think of a house as a home and part of a community, not just a business transaction.

The green chair in the picture is part of a public art project. it is located in the small park at the North end of the Smith Avenue high bridge in the uppertown neighborhood located along the Mississippi River just East of downtown, it faces the road and is our way of saying that we are here and visitors are welcome. The park and the chair are examples of community pride, the neighborhood made it happen.

"watcher" the sculpture by artist Zoran Mojsilov funded by grants from The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council .

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Uncategorized

It takes a global village

Posted on May 22, 2007by Teresa Boardman

I have wanted to write this post for some months but to be honest there is no easy way to do it without missing someone important. I want my readers to know that writing 6 to 10 blog posts a week for more than 18 months is not easy, but I enjoy doing it. Writing blog posts takes time, energy and commitment, not to mention imagination.

My readers don’t see the tremendous amount of support that I get from blog writers nation wide. People who write blogs are special. I have met some amazing people and can not believe how kind they have been even when I am being bad. They encourage me to try new ideas and help me improve what I am doing already. They send emails and leave kind comments that make my day. They teach me either by example or through comments, questions and suggestions.

They work with many different real estate companies, and related services, and are located all over the country and in Canada too. Even though I have not met many of them in person we have exchanged email and phone calls often enough so that many of us have become friends.

I have more than one blog I also author a new blog, The real estate weenie. It is my bad blog disguised as a hot dog stand. It started as a joke and started a fight. Yet over the months I have received notes of encouragement and comments from friends on the internet encouraging me and in some cases challenging me to continue with that blog too. I have been overwhelmed by the support and only wish I had time to write more on the wild weenie.

This blog has about 850 readers a day through a combination of live hits and RSS feed readers. Most of the clients I am working with today found me here. We have 670 posts, more than 1000 comments and I estimate close to 1000 pictures, and almost 4000 links from other sites. This site has gotten both national and local media attention.

Blogs are started and abandoned every day. I sometimes wonder what would happen to this one if the people pictured below never stopped by.

Thanks for your support. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough. My blog just would not be as much fun without you all. There are more of you and there is the group from Active Rain too. I am sure I am missing people who should be in this post so I will keep updating it until I get it right.

Herb Hamilton

Leanne Paynter
Doug Quance
Darin Persinger

A very special thanks to the B’s. I know that I am impossible, I just admitted it on my blog, take a screen shot before I change my mind.

28 Comments

For Home Sellers

Do you know where your Realtor is?

Posted on May 21, 2007by Teresa Boardman

This weekend some home buyers came to the twin cities from New York. This is their second trip to Minnesota to look at homes. We found a home that they are interested in. They may make an offer on it.

The MLS sheet on the home says that it has a three car attached garage. We could not find the garage. We all looked but it doesn’t seem to be there. The home has been on the market for a year.

I called the agent who has the home listed. I can not find her. Now I am asking her office to help me find her. We are going back to the home for a second look before the buyers leave to go back home.

Which will we find first the agent or the three car garage?

10 Comments

Lofts, Condos & Townhouses

Should we rent it out?

Posted on May 20, 2007by erik

By Erik Hare

My partner and I have found ourselves in a situation familiar to many people: What do you do with a townhome that is slow to sell?

The options we had boiled down to three possibilities:

Rent it out: The market for short term or less than six months rental is largely untapped. Landlords like leases to be at least a year, because anything else is a lot of work. In our case, it’s a lot of hassle no matter what you do.

Rent it out on a weekly basis: This is an even more difficult market, as it requires you to constantly find new people in town for business and other very short term problems. That means that they will want it furnished, which is another consideration. But there are many people looking for this kind of rental, since it is more pleasant than a hotel.

Not rent it out: The easiest way to keep it sparkling and clean for the showings is to just eat the carrying costs and leave the property vacant. But in a market where it can take many months to sell a townhome, this can be very expensive.

With these three choices, we set out to understand them better. The first thing we had to keep in mind is that there are many laws covering how to rent. We checked on your state’s Attorney General’s website first and found out a lot of small details. It was good to ask a lot of questions up front so that we knew just what we might be getting into.

The townhome has been rented out on a month to month lease for a while now. We will probably go back to a week by week basis soon, if we have to. Finding renters is not a particular problem on craigslist, but there is the additional work needed to keep it full all the time. The biggest concern remains having it clean enough for showings.

What it seems to boil down to is that if you need the money, you have to find the renters. All you can do is hope that this does not affect the showings. The work is not especially difficult if you keep thinking of it as temporary.

Will this soon lead to the desired result – a sold property? We can only hope. In the meantime, we’re keeping on top of what we have to.

1599 Juno Avenue, St. Paul, MN

Churches

Saturday's church

Posted on May 19, 2007by Teresa Boardman

Christ Lutheran Church, located at 105 University Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55103. This one is almost right across from the Minnesota state capital. They don’t seem to have a web site. Like so many area churches this one was probably started by one religious group and then acquired by another. The architectural style is Greek making the building hard to date. If anyone has more information on the building speak up.

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