Twin Cities Real Estate

NEW FUN IN MINNEAPOLIS

There is a new sport in Minneapolis and I would love to try it.  It is polo on bikes.  Leave the horses in the barn and get your bike out for this fun. 

McRae Park in south Minneapolis was the site for this polo match.  They use the hockey rink that no longer is in use.  The people playing had to modify mallets, bikes and used street-hockey balls.  The games tests your skills at bike riding and ball handling.  You really have to know how to steer, brake, pedal, keep your balance and still be able to pass the ball.  Get this you are not allowed to put your feet down.  I think I would have to cheat on that point.  You are allowed to use some hockey moves including shoves and body checks.  Bring a big box of band aids in my case. 

You can go to www.mplsbikepolo.com to get more details.

I vote yes to any physical activity that gets you outdoors and enjoying friends.  We are blessed in Minneapolis with many parks and most of us have a group of friends.  I think it is great when you can grab a group and play and not have to be terribly organized.  Afterwards you can head to your favorite pub or to some friend's deck and enjoy some drinks and talk about who really won.

Give it a try.  You might find a new reason to own a bike. Just remember, I am not to be held responsible for your scabs.

Help was just blocks away

 

I am terrible with my vehicle.  I know the gears and how to put it into park and drive and I know full and empty, but that is about it.  I go nuts if someone changes my favorite radio stations.  Changing the time on the clock is a major frustration.  I have a Jeep and not only it is a passenger van but it hauls staging furniture and all my open house signs.

Last Saturday as I am getting ready to show townhouses to one of my buyers, I notice this painful sound every time I go to turn. I call my husband and hold the cell phone so he can hear it.  He says maybe it is steering fluid.  I say okay and go off to meet my buyer.  Ryan is a stud and a real guy.  I figure cars are his middle name.  He listens to the sound and says it might be the steering fluid.  We stop in to nave it topped off and off we go to see properties. 

As I show him properties, the moaning continues.  I try to chat lightly and act as if nothing is happening.  The poor guy most likely thought the car was possessed.  That, or the vehicle would be in pieces soon enough.

The day ends without me getting an answer to the noise.  It is now Sunday so I am once again off being  a Realtor with my strange noise Jeep.  It is not until Tuesday that I can give up my Jeep for the day so the mystery can be solved. 

Right in the Fulton neighborhood ,just steps from my neighborhood in Minneapolis, is Southwest Firestone.  I leave the Jeep in their hands and wonder what kind of bill I will see at the end of the day.  The guy was talking in the hundreds to the thousands depending on what they found.  This puts fear in the heart of a Realtor who wonders when pay day will come. I tell him I need the car at 4:00 (to show more houses) so just get her done.

He calls at 3:00 and says it is done.  I pause to hear the bill.  He says they took the Jeep apart found something that needed greasing, and then they put it back together.  The greasing was $10.00.  The cost was the labor to take it apart and put it back together. 

I can't say enough about this place.  They don't just sell tires, they save lives for cheap.  The Jeep has been running like a dream. The guy told me all the pot holes this year most likely caused the problem.  What an honest groups of men they are.  I mean I thought I was facing a bill of big bucks.  They could have told me anything and I would have been forced to pay the price to get back on the road, quietly.

I feel so fortunate to have such an honest group of people working in my backyard.  They also know vehicles.  In this world we talk about being treated unfairly and how tough the world is.  I had the opposite experience.  Good going guys.

Hungry? Try the Bad Waitress

The other day Charles and I left an appoint in Minneapolis and we were hungry for dinner.  We decided to get a quick bite and head home.  We were tired.  We did the choice of Mc and Don's and in the end said, "boring."  There is nothing wrong with that fast food restaurant, it just gets boring.  There are times I think I could eat the wrapper with the burger and not even notice.

Last night I told Charles we were going to go to a fast place but something a bit more interesting.  We happened on The Bad Waitress.  Don’t get upset with the name or put off.  You enter your own order on an order pad, pay for it, and then wait for the food to be brought to you.  Young, fun people are the staff.  The place is decorated with horror movie and sci-fi posters.  It has a 50's feel or perhaps it is just a garage sale feel.  My dinner of a great hamburger,taco chips and homemade salsa was most satisfying.  It is grass feed beef so I left my guilt at the door.  Charles had a Reuben on rye with a stack of pastrami and sauerkraut.  He went over-board with has brown and a chocolate malt.  There were lots of create grilled baguettes to choose from.

We will have to go back for breakfast as they serve some great egg dishes.  The pancakes are made from scratch and beg to be tested.  I am not a coffee drinker, but it appeared they had a wide selection of coffee drinks that those around us were raving about.  Back to night time you can have wine or beer.

That bad place was really very good.  I would certainly give it a go again.  Minneapolis has so many fun places to try.  You don't always have to do the repeat routine. 

Smelling Dirt

I walked out my Minneapolis home this morning and I smelled dirt.  I don't know how you describe to someone what dirt smells like, but once you smell it, you know the smell of dirt.  As a Gardner smelling dirt is a definite sign of spring.  The snow has melted. Here in Minneapolis we had 88 days straight of 3" or more of snow. The sun is warming up the soil.  A farmer

must feel so hopeful as he smells the dirt.  It means he or she is ready to get to work and see the miracle of the soil bring a seed to life and have a plant grow.

We take dirt for granted.  We should not.  Those who live in the heart of major cities have concrete covering their dirt so they do not experience what I do.  People living in flood zones this spring are watching their dirt being washed downstream.  The benefactor will be those living miles away.  Desserts offer sand not dirt to those living there.  In the corn belt, where I live, our dirt is the best.  Go a bit north of Minneapolis and you lose this fertile soil.  I might live in the metro area, but I do drive out and see the rows and rows of corn and soy beans that are so much a part of the Minnesota economy. 

The prairies in the 1800's ,especially after the Civil War ,brought people to our area  to farm.  We did not have all the trees of the eastern states, so fields of crops were easier to establish.  The glacier built our great lake of Lake Superior, drew the lines for rivers to flow, and dropped lots and lots of rich soil here.  So very many years ago the definition of who we would be in Minneapolis was  created.  People took this gift and made us who we are today.

So, I walk out my door and smell my dirt.  It is in the air.  I don't need to bend down to sniff it.  The odor is everywhere.  It is why my dog raises his nose to the wind and sniffs and sniffs. He has even greater senses and can smell so much more.  It is why when I ride my horse he goes crazy this time of year.  The snow recedes and leaves behinds so many smells to be blown by the winds of March.  Go outside and breathe deeply.  You will be rewarded by the smell of dirt.  Do is soon, as this wonderful sense will soon be gone.

Have Short Sales been Thrown a Safety Line?)

I have felt that short sales are drowning in a sea of processing and one hand not knowing what the other hand has been doing.  In my market of Minneapolis, agents do not like listing short sale properties.  I happen to be certified in short sales, so I have my share of short sales to get closed.  Many agents in Minneapolis do not like to show short sales.  They feel the wait is too long and they want to get paid and not go through months and several offers before it is pay day.  Short sales in my area are like telling someone, do you want to date my cousin?

There are press releases that state the administration is directing banks to put short sales as a priority.  In fact come April 5th money is going to be offered to parties that participate in short sales.  I say, safe your money.  There are not enough dollars out there to make short sales go more effectively.

Take one of my sales.  Like many short sales it has two mortgages. You go to the first loan and attempt to work with them.  This offer was submitted to Bank of America on December 28,2009.  Now March 17, 2010 it still has not reached a negotiator.  That negotiator then has to work with the investor.  The purchase agreement is redefined by the bank.  Then the bank says they will reduce the commission paid to Realtors.  I guess spending hours and hours on the phone listening to their terrible music, being told they don't have a document I have sent them twice, stating information over and over, and trying to keep a property from going into foreclosure Is not worth much to a bank.  Talk about cutting off the hand that feeds you!

My job is not over.  I go through this process again with the second bank.  They can be a bit easier as they realize if it goes into foreclosure they will get nothing. 

I know these people on the phone have a terrible job and they are paid little.  Some are doing this from a foreign country and must deal with my terrible sense of humor.  It is the bank that is at fault.  Their greed of creating mortgage products that were doomed to fail, giving second mortgages removing all equity from the property, and not being prepared for the collapse puts them in a bad light, so they transfer all the fault to the sellers and Realtors.

Would someone please throw me a life line?  I don't see how the housing industry can ride this out without the system being repaired.  The flood of short sales in Minneapolis is not going away.  It is growing as more home owners see their savings go away and the only solution is to get out from under the mortgage payments.  Wake up elected officials.  Your constituents back home are in trouble and no one at the other end of the phone is able to help them.  If anything, get better music for us to listen to as we endlessly hold for a voice that tells us how very sorry they are that they cannot help us.

March Madness in Minnesota

I know everyone knows about March Madness.  I have even seen ads for the fast food chains that are playing on the idea of March Madness.  In early March we have phase I of March Madness and it has nothing to do with basketball.  It has to do with the Boy's High School Hockey Tournament.

 

Remember, Minnesota is the state of hockey.  Our little boys start skating as they start walking.  Parents flood their back yards and make their own rinks.  Kids put a net on the driveway and use in-line skates to practice shooting.  I once showed an unfinished basement and on the concrete blocks I saw all these black marks.  I came to realize the kids were shooting pucks in the basement.  My first job out of college was teaching English in Duluth, Minnesota.  I had a 9th grade boy who slept through my first period English class.  I called his parents in for a meeting to discuss the problem.  His parents explained to me that his team had indoor ice time at 1:00 am so naturally he was tired at 8:05 am.  I discussed this with my principal.  He wanted to know what my problem was.  After all it was for hockey!

 

We live for this week when schools from all over the state come to play in the state hockey tournament.  As long as a city can lay a sheet of ice, they have a team that competes.  Many don't make it to state, but we have some small schools up on the Canadian/Minnesota boarder that give the big city school a run for their money. 

 

Hockey is a sport where the boys first learn to skate on a pond or lake.  They play pick-up games at the park rink.  In the beginning all they need is a pair of skates and a stick.  Many don't have official pucks but perhaps a tennis ball.  They will skate when it is below zero and a wind chill.  In the end they don't feel their toes or their fingers, but they love hockey.  It gets more organized as they get older and more experienced.  Then they get into real equipment which is expensive, indoor ice, and demanding coaches.  Parents haul them to practice, games, one on one coaching, and traveling tournaments.  A real hockey player will skate year round and play in summer leagues.  Not only do they want to go to state, but they want to go to one of the hockey colleges around here.  Minnesota grooms many of the skaters that play college hockey.  For a few the dream of skating for the NHA is real.

 

Hockey is not just for our high school boys.  We have a girls' high school hockey tournament.  The parents of these kids skate on their own teams.  For several years I went and watched my son-in-law skate on an adult team.  Some states may have football in their blood, but here in Minnesota it is hockey.  By the back door of many a home you will see many sticks and several pairs of skates.  Those equipment bags are large and you don't ever want to smell one.  As a parent of a boy starting to skate you learn what breezers are, how to not die when your son asked for his "nut cup", and you don't lose your stomach when you hand him the mouth guard. 

It is a most exciting week of madness in Minneapolis this week as we watch our boys soon to be men skate and pass a puck up and down a sheet of ice.  You bleed for the goalie and his parents and you cheer for the kid who scores.  Hopefully in the end we all say. "good game."

Potholes

In Minneapolis we have potholes..  In fact you can listen on the radio to pothole alerts.  When I am driving a client around I have to warn them not to attempt to drink their coffee.  It will end up on their chin and not in their mouth.  The ruts are really something this year and you get tossed around in your car as you drive around.  This is not true only for the city streets.  You find potholes on freeways and everywhere.

I was listening to a Minneapolis city engineer and he said this is the worst he has seen the streets be in 15 years.  Does that make us feel better? No.  Usually, they do not try to fill the potholes until after April 1st.  They could not wait that long this year as the broken chunks of pavement were causing accidents.  I have heard one of the reasons we have had it so bad this year is due to all the sunny days in February.  The sunshine was absorbed by the asphalt, softened the tar, and the tires of the car broke up the street.  Now the snow is melting and we are having rain in Minneapolis.  The holes are filling with water and this accelerates the damage.  The water washes away loose particles of the road surface. 

I did a little research to see if only us in Minneapolis have this problem.  I guess people all over have potholes, they just call them something else.  I learned kettle can also be a pothole.  In the Western part of the United States they call them a chuckhole.  I don't care what name you give them, they are a pain.  I drive by service stations and they have pothole specials for wheel alignment.  It goes to show one persons problem is the next persons' reward.

For those of you looking for the Loch nest monster, there is rumor he is living in one of the deep potholes in Minneapolis.  Children walking to school have been warned to stay away from the potholes as they might never be seen again.  Dogs have been walking with their masters and have had to start dog paddling!  If it gets warm real fast here in Minneapolis the mosquitoes will have new breeding ponds.  I wonder if they will find walleye in the potholes.  This is not joke.  We are the state of 10,000 lakes and that many potholes.

If you are coming to visit bring along your waders.  I think you will find them useful.