This blog has close to 700 posts about St. Paul, and of course about real estate. I went back to July 2006 and thought I would bring a couple of the posts forward from last year. Much has changed in the real estate industry since July 2006, yet some things have remained the same.
July 05, 2006
– Help unwanted
In recent years, housing sector employment boomed with the real estate industry.
Housing-related employment accounted for about 23 percent of the 4.9 million jobs created since the nation’s job market began to grow in late 2003, according to Moody’s Economy.com.
As the sector cools, some of these people will be looking for jobs. The peak demand for REALTORS was in 2005, yet NAR predicts that the total number of REALTORS will not peak until 2007.
The last time I checked 2900 agents left the business this year. Recently new agents have been coming into the business so it is unclear what the net loss is. The 13 county metro area has about 22,000 real estate agents, it might be more accurate to say active real estate licenses.
July 18, 2006
Downtown St. Paul
Condo shopping?
Consider downtown St. Paul. There are currently 200 condos listed and many more that are on the market but not listed. Prices range from $74,000 to 2 million dollars. Sizes range from 365 square feet to 3,600 square feet. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it is a buyers market downtown.
When visiting new construction bring your favorite REALTOR. The REALTOR in the sales model represents the seller. Buyers should have their own representation.
I guess it was OK to go out on that limb. Today the situation is the same 223 active condo listings downtown, representing only a portion of the units currently on the market with more being built.
July 22, 2006
It is not snowing any more!
The weather is wonderful! The days are long, warm and sunny. Yet when I look through the listings in our local MLS I see a lot of snow. It has not snowed here in St. Paul for a few months. If your home is currently on the market look it up on the internet, use the home search button to the left. Look up your home by address and look at the pictures. If there is snow in the picture call your REALTOR and ask to have a new photo taken.
The snow in the picture makes your home look neglected. Buyers think that if a home has been on the market for a long time that there is something wrong with it. We all know that market times are longer now and many of the homes on the market were listed when there was still snow on the ground. How your home is presented on the internet is important.
There are plenty of pictures on the internet with snow in them. They are homes that were listed last winter. We don’t have many still on the market from the winter of 2006.
