City Spotlight- Blaine, MN

 "Blaine was the fastest growing Twin Cities suburb from 2010 to 2012, and it is closing in on Coon Rapids for the title of largest city in Anoka County."

All the new businesses and developments in Blaine have certainly added to its allure. Town homes in the Club West development have great family amenities like a pool, fitness center and clubhouse. People living in The Lakes Community have lakes to fish and relax on and the TPC area offers a great golf setting for players and people watchers. 

Welcome Walmart

The building of the new Walmart on HWY 65 brought 300 jobs to the community, and the company says it will offer a job to any honorably discharged veteran within the first year he or she is off active duty. That's pretty fantastic! The new store is set to open Fall 2013. 

The city is hosting a neighborhood night out type deal in the next couple weeks! You can sign up and pick up FREE yard signs at the local police stations. Hurry, sign up ends July 26th!! For more info and to register your neighborhood party, click HERE
 

 Outdoor Fun

With over 60 parks and 70 miles of trails and sidewalks, Blaine offers a variety of leisure and recreational opportunities for residents and visitors of all ages. From neighborhood parks to athletic complexes, you can enjoy a quiet walk, a ball game, or time in the playground. 

Check out their Facebook page to find a park near you and get info on local happenings!!

And finally, so you can rest assured your family is safe, check out the new North Memorial Urgency Center that opened up a couple months ago in a central location in Blaine!!

The first of its kind in Blaine and the surrounding area, the facility will offer high-quality emergency care at a lower cost than a hospital emergency room. 7 days a week, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.


















Blaine Is Growing Link

A little slice of history

Looking to check out a small chunk of history in our own backyard? Blaine property to be preserved, July 25 site tour

A rare piece of Anoka County’s natural history, which includes nearly a dozen threatened and endangered species, will be dedicated July 25 as a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources natural preserve.

The public is invited to tour the site and learn about its features of the new Blaine Preserve Scientific and Natural Area. To reach the site from I-35W, take the 95th Avenue NE exit in Blaine and travel about 0.3 mile east to the Blaine Preserve Business Park, 3787 95th Ave. NE. The site is across the street.

The dedication ceremony begins 6:30 p.m. July 25 with remarks by state and local officials. The program will be followed by a 45-minute site tour led by biologists. People can stay after the site tour for 45 minutes of site stewardship work such as cutting invasive buckthorn or pulling knapweed. Participants should come with waterproof footwear, drinking water and bug repellent.

The Blaine preserve offers a snapshot of what parts of the north metro area may have looked like 100 years ago. The 63-acre site represents one of the state’s rarest type of wetlands, a rich fen, where layers of peat and slightly acidic groundwater create the conditions needed by unusual plants such as cross-leaved milkwort, twisted yellow-eyed grass and the tubercled rein-orchid.

The fen is within what biologists refer to as the Anoka Sand Plain — likely an ancient glacial lake bed that includes most of Anoka, Sherburne and Isanti counties — and much of the area has been severely modified by drainage, agriculture and development.

Minnesota’s 159 scientific and natural areas represent some of the rarest and best preserved examples of pre-European settlement plant communities. They are open to the public for passive recreation, such as hiking, wildlife watching and studying nature. They generally have no developed trails, restrooms or other such amenities found at parks.

Original article : HERE

Cool new TECHY thing....the future of #RealEstate

In Real Estate you totally need to be creative and come up with new ideas to market homes. Something kind of neat that just started is through Twitter, its called Vine. It's essentially a quick little video snippet that you can tweet to share with your followers to get them more engaged in what's going on! Here's a link to explain: CLICK HERE FOR VINE!!

I think as an agent this could be pretty neat, even though the video clips are short, they could leave you wanting more. You know, lets say you shoot the entry of a home and as the door opens you can see the beautiful interior but then the clip stops. WELL!! WHERE'S THE REST!!?? That's what I would be saying!!!

How cool, we could then drive viewers to a website custom created for your home's listing. And capture more viewers by kind of, leaving them hanging? Sounds brilliant if you ask me :-)

My plan is to create a couple test videos over the weekend and I'll report back on what I think and share for you to see too!!

The market (and weather) is HOT!!

Oy. The air is thick with moisture and humidity. And, the market is thick with buyers. And fewer homes to pick from! 

I know I have rambled on before about multiple offer situations you may find yourself in as a buyer, but do you really know the best way to handle those? As an agent, I try to come up with ways to make my buyers stick out from the crowd. I like to personally hand deliver offers to other agents, I put time frames in writing on purchase agreements so sellers cannot sit around and wait for more offers to come in, I write letters about my buyers and my confidence in their ability to buy. Little things like this will help you as a buyer stand out from the crowd :-)

Late Nights....

Well it's been a long week.....or two!! Late nights are becoming a regular activity for me as a Realtor! Showing homes, writing offers and now embarking on a great new adventure!!

Here is some mortgage news:

Rates in the 3%'s have gone bye bye. From what I have heard from my trusty mortgage sidekicks, we will be sticking around the mid to upper 4%'s from here on out. Not a HUGE deal, we just need to make sure we find you a home within your comfort range for monthly payment.

Secondly, sellers are having a HAY DAY. I cannot begin to explain how *awesome* it is when you list a home for sale and you have an offer (or two) within the first couple days. Buyers are smart, and so are their Realtors. Everybody knows that when something good comes on the market, you've got to jump on it IMMEDIATELY!!

Here are some excellent tips if you are preparing to sell your home!!

Putting your home up for sale can be an exhausting, stressful experience. But there are several things you can do to improve your home's marketability. By expending a bit of effort before it goes on the market, you can ensure that your home presents well, stands out from the crowd and doesn’t turn off potential buyers so that you can sell quickly…and at the best price. 

Tone Down Personality

Your bookshelves may be filled with Pulitzer-Prize winners and your collection of Americana figurines may reflect your personal interests, but to home buyers, it looks busy and cluttered, and may distract them from truly seeing your home’s unique architectural features and spacious rooms. Also consider whether family pictures help or hinder a sale; future home owners may not be able to look past your kids’ smiling faces plastered all over the walls and see themselves building their own future in your home.

Since you hope to move soon anyway, go ahead and box them up and put them in storage in advance of the open house or showing.

While that red accent wall opposite the lime green fireplace perfectly ties in with your ultra modern furniture, a potential buyer at your open house may be turned off immediately and decide that the entire house doesn’t reflect their style. Consider painting walls a neutral color such as beige or taupe. The interior paint job should be fresh and clean and in a single, neutral color throughout.

The same goes for the exterior. Don't forget shutters and windows. If your home has vinyl or aluminum siding, be sure it's clean. Moldy, dirty siding will tell a buyer that your home has not been taken care of properly.

Old, matted carpeting will be a detriment to your home selling. Real estate agents all have a dozen stories of a home that sat and sat on the market until the old carpeting was replaced. Then, it sold immediately. If you have hardwood floors under old carpet, tear up the carpet to expose them; today's buyers love hardwood floors.

First Impressions Count

Clean your house top to bottom including walls, floors, furniture and tabletops. Everything should be sparkling clean when a buyer makes that all-important first visit. Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter or laundry stacked in the bedroom.

Take a long, hard look at your home from the street. Does it have curb appeal? Is it warm, inviting and well-kept? Make sure by mowing the lawn, weeding garden areas, trimming unruly bushes, resealing the driveway and sweeping the porch.

Pay particular attention to your front door. Repaint it if necessary. Polish the doorknob and knocker and clean the glass and screen door. When a buyer waits at the front door to enter, make sure he or she sees that your home was cared for lovingly.

Don’t Burden the Buyer with Repairs

If there are problem areas in your home, get them fixed before the showing. When prospective buyers tour the house and see leak stains on the ceiling or peeling paint, they will also see future work and assume that bigger maintenance and repair issues are lurking behind those small problems. 

This is particularly true in kitchens and bathrooms, which are often the two rooms that make or break a sale. The expenses you incur on the front end sprucing up your home will be cheaper than the profits you could lose by having to lower the price to meet buyer demand.

If your home's appliances, like the dishwasher, oven, refrigerator and washer and dryer, are old and outdated, it could pay to replace them. Buyers do not want to be faced with the possibility of having to replace appliances upon moving in to a new house. Shiny, new appliances already in place will be a big selling point.

Maximize Exposure

Lastly, take advantage of new technology to find unique ways to market your house. Use YouTube, a video sharing website, to introduce yourself and your house for free. Take home shoppers on a virtual tour and tell them about its uniqueness and strengths from a first-person point of view. 

Use Internet social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter to create a Web link with a profile of your home. Include pictures and a description of your home’s features. Email the link to your friends and ask them to forward it on to their network of contacts. 

Get your home listed on real estate websites. There are some that are national in scope and others focus on your specific markets. Examples include Redfin and Zillow.

Be sure that you are using traditional marketing techniques to your best advantage. When photographing your home for promotional purposes, invest in a wide-angle lens for your camera so that rooms appear bigger and in proportion when they are displayed on Internet home listing sites or in marketing flyers. If you decide to create a virtual tour, look for professionals who will be able to film and upload your video using the best techniques and technology.

 

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Project Pics

I was just reading back to previous blog posts and I had promised project pics. I am so bad at remembering things. Sorry. Here they are:

"If you price it low enough, they will come"

Sorry I have slacked on my blog duties. It's been a hectic few weeks in Real Estate Land. 

Sold my project house in one day, pretty sweet. 

You know what's really making my blood boil right now? Multiple offers. 

Unreal. That is the only word that doesn't contain naughty language that I can use to describe the feeling when you have a buyer who writes an offer and all the sudden there are multiple offers. I had a guy write an offer on a home that had been on the market for 7 months, yes, 7 MONTHS. All the sudden, the same day I submitted our offer- another offer comes in? Give me a break! I just about ripped my hair out. But.....it's the nature of the beast. I like to say, "If you price it low enough, they will come" and it must be a tactic banks use because it works. Don't be discouraged. If you love the home, pay for it and give it your best offer. If you don't get it, I can find you a better one :-)

On a lighter note, my little brother is building a new home. It's awesome, and I think it is going to be exactly what he wanted. He switched out the rod iron spindles for more modern wood ones and picked a really rich golden brown stain...what do you think!? Nice huh!?

I'll ramble some more later, I have a home inspection tomorrow (should be interesting) and a rather large life event to dish about sometime soon :-)