As your agent, my concern for you does not stop at getting you in the front door.  Once you have bought your dream house, you will likely notice that there are a few things that need touching up or a makeover.  Whether you are interested in reselling your home at some point or in staying […]

Many times, searching for the perfect house seems to be a daunting task.  There are so many things to consider, including location, surrounding environs, not to mention features of the house.  With all these thoughts racing through your head, it's easy to overlook one salient fact or another.  The first thing to do is make […]

There is a lot of information available for the first-time buyer, but not so much for the first-time seller.  If you've never sold a house before, it may seem as if everyone is speaking a different language.  There seems to be a million things that need to be done, and so little time in which […]

The National Association of Realtors publishes the Real Estate Insights monthly. If you want a copy of the latest issue in pdf format, just drop me an e-mail. There are some market indicator statistics that are published in this newsletter. A quick glance includes the following: Existing home inventory is up. Existing home sales is […]

I recently was having a problem with PowerPoint 2007 running very slowly. A switch from slide to slide in the editing view, would take anywhere from 4-20 seconds. Just typing a word would take 5 seconds per word!  This was getting very annoying. There are several good suggestions from others in the community about loading […]

When I meet people for the first time, they usually ask THE question when I mention that I'm in real estate. The question: "How's THAT going?" or "Isn't that a tough business?" or "Isn't it hard to sell homes right now?" or somthing else to the effect.  Frankly, the real estate market is not as bad […]

Is Open Office a viable alternative to Microsoft Office? The short answer is maybe. If you don’t need to share files with anyone else, and you only generate documents for yourself, then Open Office may work for you. I just recently installed it to get around a Microsoft problem. But unfortunately, it is not compatible […]

What’s the difference between a Short Sale and a Foreclosure? A Short Sale is when the homeowner owes more than the property is worth, and cannot pay back the difference. They are short of full payoff. Here’s an example: Let’s say the homeowner buys a house for $200,000, with a primary mortgage of $160,000, and […]

If you are looking at a specific house, and want to find out more information than what is on the MLS system, there are free resources that will allow you to find out things such as structure information, assessments, whether the property is in foreclosure, and more. This is public information, and much of it […]

In the Minneapolis / St. Paul and suburbs, the typical process for a foreclosure goes something like this. Upon missing the first mortgage payment, the bank sends a nice, friendly letter reminding them of a missed payment. After another one or two missed payments, the letters get a little less friendly. After 4 or 5 […]