Eagles around the Minnesota state capital building dome.
Angel on the Northern dome of the St. Paul Cathedral
Month: May 2007
New Tucson Blog
Meet Kelley Koehler, Tucson’s house chick. She has a new blog, The House Chick Blog.
She has been lurking here on St. Paul real estate. We all know that there are people who live in Minnesota during the summer and spend the colder part of the year in warmer climates. Tucson is a popular destination for Minnesota snow birds.
Read today’s post and explain to me why we don’t have evaporation coolers in Minnesota. Maybe it is because of the humidity in the summer.
Top Ten Things to Know about Tucson Real Estate – A/C and Evaporative Coolers
Good luck Kelley!
My Office
Located in the historic brick Louise building, built in 1885 271 7th St W, St Paul, 55102, three blocks from my home. Cravings is my favorite office and the coffee is good too. The WiFi is always on, always working and very fast. A great place to write blog posts, meet with clients and talk to neighbors.
My favorite table, by the window. I love to sit here in the winter because the building faces south and is much warmer than my home office. I should post my office hours, if you see me sitting at my virtual desk wave.
Also see Grandma’s Atic
A great place to live
Slide Show Pictures of Downtown
See list of downtown condos currently for sale
See the condo directory for a picture and brief description of some of the condo developments and buildings in St. Paul.
Also see Condo Pie for April numbers
Visit The Condo Domain for nation wide condo news.
April Numbers by Neighborhood
Numbers from the RMLS, the data is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Pending homes are homes that have offers on them during the month of April.
The absorption rate for St. Paul, is 5.9 months which is down from the high of just over seven months in January of 2007.
Related Posts: Local Market Conditions and Homes Prices for Saint Paul, MN.
Interest rates remain low, and have gone down slightly since February 2007, when the average reported by Freddie Mac was 6.34%.
Summary Abatement
By Erik Hare
Every city in the world has its problems. While we have a good life in Saint Paul, in the end its how we deal with the unfortunate circumstances that happen around us is the best way to really understand what we are about.
A constant issue in any city are the “problem properties”. These are the houses, usually rental but not always, which seem to cause the most problems for the neighbors around them. Repeated nights filled with the disco lights of police calls wear down on those citizens simply trying to get a good night’s sleep, and eventually it is time to step in.
Too many police calls in Saint Paul get you an inspection. If the property is found to not be up to code, it may be declared uninhabitable. Through this process, or a foreclosure or tax forfeiture, a house may wind up vacant. If it stands that way too long, it is posted as a registered vacant property. That’s when the “Summary Abatement” process starts in earnest.
A vacant property gets attention right up to the City Council. The owner has to work out a plan for fixing the problems and getting the house back on the market. If they fail to do this, the property can eventually be torn down at the owner’s expense. So far this year, eleven properties have met this fate, the same as in all of last year.
While a nuisance property is a problem, an empty lot is not a lot better. Owners are usually given as much latitude as possible to fix up a property, and those returned to a mortgage holder are often picked up by the neighborhood groups for rehab. No one really wants to see houses torn down, but the threat of doing so is an important motivator.
Naturally, a number of landlords who have had this happen to them are furious. There is a rich and vigorous debate going on right now about how to handle the situation. The City, sadly, can only take action with the tools it has, and these are the codes. Houses always bear the brunt of hard economic times, and neighborhoods are inevitably nothing more than the sum of all the houses in them.
Is there a better way to do this? I hope there is. I’m very glad that Saint Paul is very much on top of the nuisance properties that otherwise make life difficult for everyone. But I hate seeing the houses have to carry that load, and landlords can reasonably say that is not them but the renters that cause the problems in the first place. We will work this out.