Minnesota Homes

A new home to the market is 377 Bluebird Alcove in Woodbury.  This is a detatched 1 level townhome.  It has 2316 finished square feet and has 4 bedrooms and 3 baths.  What is great about this townhome is that all living facilities are on the main level.  On the main level is the kitchen, Family room, dining room, 2 bedrooms, and the laundry room.  This home also features a 2 car garage.  There is a great open kitchen that has room for a table.  Check out the virtual tour for this home.

A great new home to the market is 8789 Dunkirk Court in Blaine.  It is listed at $349,900.  It is a 3 bedroom 4 bath home with 2040 Finished Square Feet of living area.  It also has a partially finished walkout basment that if finished could be another 1000 square feet of finished space.  This home backs up to a wildlife preserve and is located on a cul-de-sac street.  It has 3 bedrooms on the upper level that includes a large master suite with a private full bath.  This level also has another full bath.  On the main level is a great open kitchen that opens up to the living room.  There is also another family room and dining room on this level.  The laundry room is also located here along with a half bath.  This is a great home in a great location.  Visit the virtual tour or call Chad at 612-269-5260 to set up a showing.

Summer is here, and homeowners in Minnesota can finally use their deck.  The deck is a great place to enjoy the summer weather, and get together with family and friends.  The cold winters can be hard on decks in Minnesota, so proper deck maintenance is key to make your deck last a long time.  Here are a couple of tips to extend your decks life.

1) Inspect your deck.  Make sure that all of the boards are secure and that there are no nails or screws sticking up.  If some boards are loose, make sure to re-secure them.  If there are splinters sticking up, sand them off.

2)Clean your deck.  This does not mean just sweeping your deck.  That is important but you must also get on your hands and knees and clean in between the cracks.  Take a screwdriver to clean out in between the boards.  You might not want to pressure wash your deck.  If your deck is made of softer wood the pressure of the water might actually hurt your decking materials.

3) Seal or Stain your deck.  This will help water bead off your deck faster and will not allow water to collect on your deck and rot away the wood.  You do not want to paint the deck.  You don’t want just to create a film over the deck.  It can start to chip and can be a nightmare to get off.  Instead you want to apply a stain or seal that penetrates the wood.

Your deck can last a long time.  Take time to make your deck last longer.

Now that summer is finally here in Minnesota, the grass is starting to grow, and with it there is crab grass and Dandelions.  It is not too late to treat your lawn with dandelion and weed control.  This will help your grass grow green and also keep your weeds down.  There are some great products for sale at your local home improvement stores.  Take time to take care of your lawn and it will becoming green and weed free.

As we have talked about before, Short Sales are becoming more popular with the selling of homes in todays market.  This happens when the homeowner owes more on the property than they can sell it for.  There are many reasons why a bank would accept a short sale.  Of course the banks want the homeowners to keep the home and keep making payments.  But if this can’t happen anymore the banks need to make a decision.  There are many reasons why a person can’t make the payments on a home.  There could be family illness or injury and the homeowners are spending their money on that instead.  There could also be a loss of job or decrease in income, especially if they have a commission based pay scale.  Another reason is that the homeowner had an adjustable rate mortgage and the payments are higher than they can afford.  They get behind a little one month and then can’t catch up.  If a bank is going to accept a short sale, the will need to see some reason why the homeowner can’t make the payments.  This is usually explained in a hardship letter written by the homeowner.

The banks might accept a short sale because they have a better chance of getting some of their money back.  If the home goes into forclosure, the banks will have to pay more fees and the process takes a lot longer.  The banks don’t want to have to take a short sale, but it might be a better option for them.

Because there is now a third party involved, the buyers of a short sale home need to be patient.  Most of the time a bank will have a loss-mitigation department that will deal with the short sales.  The banks don’t act quickly on these, so expect to be in for a long ride.  Be patient with the process and you could end up with a really good deal.

If you have any questions about Short Sales you can call Chad at 612-269-5260

Today is a great Saturday in Minnesota. Get out in your yard and start the clean up process. Rake all of the dead grass in the yard and clean up all of the landscaping in your yard. Have a great day cleaning up your yard!

With todays real estate market and decling house prices in some areas, many buyers or people interested in real estate are hearing and talking about short sales.  Sometimes it is not clear exactly what a short sale is.  Many people know what a forclosure is, but not a short sale.  A short sale is when the proceeds of a home sale do not cover what is owed on the home.  This may sound hard to understand, but many people who bought homes 2 to 4 years ago at the top of the market also were able to get loans at zero percent down.  And now that home prices have not gone up, or in some cases have gone down it is nearly impossible to sell the home and actually break even.  The seller also needs to pay real estate comissions, escrow and title fees to close the deal.  In a short sale the proceeds of the home cannot cover all of the fees and the mortgage payoff, so they sell the home in a short sale.

In a short sale the bank needs to approve all sales, mainly because they are agreeing to take less than what it owed.  Because the bank is now involved in the process it can take a lot longer to get an answer to see if your offer was accepted.  But if you are patient,  the buyers can sometimes get a great deal on a home.

If you have any other questions about short sales or the short sale process you can call Chad at 612-269-5260.

There are many reasons why you might fall in love with a home, it might have a porch that you love or a great backyard.  Maybe this home is close to a lake or great shopping.  Many times when you are looking for a home and even going to write up an offer, you are not critical of the home.  That is why it is always a good idea to have an inspection done on a home that you are thinking of buying.  Usually a home inspection can run about $300.00, so you don’t want to have an inspection done on every home that you tour.  When you decide that you like a home enough to write up a purchase aggrement to buy the home, make sure that the offer includes an inspection addendum.  After the negotiations are complete on the home, which means that you have determined the price and all other factors to complete a valid and complete purchase agreement, then you have a home inspection.  If anything comes up during the inspection that you don’t like, you can renegotiate with the sellers.  You can decide to not buy the home or have the sellers fix items of concern.  Even though you have signed and agreed on the price and terms, if the buyer is not sastified with the findings of the inspection they don’t have to buy the home.  There are many items that come up during an inspection. Here are some things that you want to be aware of and make sure your inspector looks for:  The quality and age of roofing materials, insulation, evidence of mold or pest infestation, condition of the wiring systems, Furnance and air conditioning system quality, and much more.  Your inspector should give you a detailed report and tell you major items of concern.  Getting a home inspection is a good idea when buying a home.

Spring is finally here in Minnesota, and you can finally see how your yard looks after the winter.  Many people are supprised at how their yard looks, and all of the work they have to do.  Hopefully in the fall you did some things to get ready for winter, so in the spring there would not be as much work to do.  One thing that you could do now is to get out the rake and rake your lawn.  This will help clean up the yard and get a lot of the dead grass out leaving space for healthy new grass to grow.  If you have done this already the rain the last couple of days has helped your grass green up real nice.  You should also clean up around your bushes.  Make sure to get all of the leaves and dead sticks away.  This will be good for the health of the bushes, and it also looks a lot better.  You might want to also plant flowers. This will add a lot of color to your home.

If you are looking for a home to buy, you might be hearing the catch phrases like forclosure, pre-forclosure, or short sales.  If you are a patient buyer a short sale is maybe a good option for you.  Short sales mean that the bank payoff is more than the home is worth in todays market.  This happened because someone purchased a home at the height of the housing market and now the home isn’t worth what they paid. It can also mean that the current homeowner refinanced at the heighth of the housing market and pulled out cash and now has a higher balance than the home is worth.  Banks are not in the business to get homes back in forclosure, and forclosure can be expensive for the banks.  That is why banks are willing to do short sales. 

As a buyer you need to be patient when making an offer on a short sale.  Sometimes it can take as long as a month to get an answer back from a bank to see if your offer was accepted or rejected.  But if you are patient enough you can get a good deal.