St. Cloud, MN - Real Estate Blog

I just had some outstanding results from requesting a real estate professional to help a friend of mine that I met while in the Marine Corps. 

Norm (my friend) has stayed in the San Diego area and is thinking about starting the home buying process.  I told him that I would get him in touch with my contact out in San Diego  to help him start getting prepared to buy a home.  I had someone in the San Diego area previously that I utilized to keep me up to date on the market conditions and help me whenever one of my in-laws might be thinking of moving.  My wife grew up in PB (Pacific Beach) and we still know a lot of people in Southern California that are close friends or relatives.  Unfortunately, my contact is no longer in the real estate community and I needed to find someone else to help.

I could have used the relocation network within my company, but I wanted to ensure that my new contact was a tech savvy individual to keep me abreast of situations.  Consequently, I used ActiveRain's real estate referral network.

Within 8 hours of posting my request for a real estate agent in the Santee CA area, I had over 30 real estate professionals reply for the potential client. 

WOW! 

It is definitely a testimonial to the ability of the ActiveRain community to connect real estate professionals with other real estate professionals in a very short period of time.

It is also a sign of how much more tech savvy the real estate agents from Southern California are compared to the real estate agents in Central Minnesota.  I'd bet that there are only a handful of real estate professionals in the St Cloud area that have response times to Internet queries of under 1 day.

Now my dilemma is which agent to choose.

Jason Tangen, GRI - Real Estate Broker Associate with Edina Realty in St Cloud MN

www.StCloudEdina.com - Search Homes for Sale in St Cloud MN

www.StCloudEdina.com/blog - REAL ANSWERS for REAL ESTATE in St Cloud MN

Posted by Jason Tangen at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

I was just talking with another one of the real estate agents in the office who is selling a lot of foreclosures in the St Cloud area and one topic became glaringly clear to us.  A lot of people who are purchasing foreclosed properties are not fully anticipating how much it will cost to repair the home.

While not all foreclosed properties in the St Cloud area are completely trashed, most are.  Especially when you look in the <$100,000 market.  These homes generally need much more than just paint and carpet (and paint and carpet can sometimes run $5000 on their own).

With this in mind, if you have been pre-approved for a loan to purchase a home that needs some work, take the time to accurately calculate the true cost to make living there comfortable.  Get bids from contractors if necessary to give you a better picture of all of the expenses involved.  Does the home need carpet? paint? doors & windows?  Do you have some liquid cash to fix potential problems?  The answers to these questions will really dictate the answer to your buying decision.

Jason Tangen, GRI - Real Estate Broker Associate with Edina Realty in St Cloud, MN

http://jasontangen.edinarealty.com - Search for open houses in St Joseph, MN

Posted by Jason Tangen at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

If you haven't caught it in the media recently, we are headed for the "R" word.  Early last fall I started hearing this proclamation about how we are headed for a recession and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it.  The government even went so far as to pass the economic stimulus package to send out billions of dollars to prevent this so called recession from happening.  I think it's working (even before they sent out the money).

So here we are, half way through the second quarter in 2008 and we have yet to have the negative numbers necessary to declare a recession.  We haven't even had one quarter's worth of decline in the gross national production (it takes two consecutive quarters to declare a recession).

So my question is, why do I keep hearing about this inevitable recession?  Anyone??

My guess - it's an election year.  Read into that phrase whatever you would like.

My hope - we don't have a self fulfilling prophecy and create a recession by constantly stating that there is going to be one.

Jason Tangen, GRI - real estate broker associate with Edina Realty in St Cloud MN

www.StCloudEdina.com - Search the MLS for real estate in Sartell MN

Posted by Jason Tangen at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options

I am looking for some ideas and projects that people have done recently.  With spring upon us, it would be great for us to share some of our knowlede with other people in the community.

i.e.  Does anyone know of a quick way to get rid of those darn doggy dead spots (10 pts for execellent use of alliteration)?  Besides getting rid of the dog?

Anyone have a sure fire (and cheap) way to kill multiple dandylions?

Where's the cheapest place to buy patio pavers in St Cloud?

Anyone have an effective way to patch cracked vinyl siding?

I'm sure if you think about it for a little while, you will have lots of cool tricks that you can share with the local community.

Jason Tangen, GRI - Real estate broker associate with Edina Realty in St Cloud MN

www.StCloudEdina.com - Get a free list of the foreclosed properties on the St Cloud MLS

www.StCloudEdina.com/blog - REAL ANSWERS for REAL ESTATE in St Cloud, MN

Posted by Jason Tangen at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

options