Isanti - Sherburne - Wright - Anoka County Minnesota Real Estate Blog: April 2009

Yes! You heard me! I LIKED IT BETTER WHEN BANKS WERE PRICING THE LISTINGS TOO HIGH.

When the listing was overpriced at least you could get an offer submitted without 7 other offers coming in on the home driving the price way over asking price!

Now you see a house come up and you have to scramble to go look at with a buyer. Then you have to tell them why they need to offer $10,000 or more over asking price.  Lets say you are successful in getting to the house before its is sold. Then you are successful in submitting an offer well above asking price.  Next comes the news that SOMEONE ELSE MADE A BETTER OFFER.

THIS IS HAPPENING ALL THE TIME!  What a change from the winter months of 2-3 week negotiations to patiently wait for the bank to drop the asking price to make it worthy of a buyer purchasing it. 

ANY HOME THAT IS PRICED UNDER MARKET PRICE IS GETTING MULTIPLE OFFERS ON IT!  Buyer will need to expect this or learn the hard way by making 3-5 offers before finding a house. 

I submitted THREE offers today and I am just hoping one of them go through because there is a lot of interest in all of the homes. 

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

I am about to do some cold calling but I am procrastinating by writing a blog first.  I am not cold calling for Real Estate leads, rather I need to find a few extra softball players for one of our church softball teams.

Cambridge Lutheran Church had two teams last year and this year a few more people wanted to play so I decided we would start a 3rd team.  I captain Team #1, but overall I coordinate the program so to get things going I need to make sure there is enough players. 

I got a list of people I don't know much or at all to call from one of the pastors and this morning I am going to start calling.  I have not cold called for a while, so I needed to post a blog first to get me in the cold calling mode.

Thankfully I don't have to cold call for real estate clients because its not something at the top of the list for me.  If this does not work to find enough players I will have to go door knocking!

It sounds funny but you need to do what you need to do...in this case to get a full softball team.  For Realtors this is something you might need to do if you don't have enough business.

By the way anyone in the Cambridge Area (Minnesota) is welcomed on the team.  Let me know!

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

People need to be aware that right now HOUSES ARE SELLING FAST. In fact many of the homes are getting multiple offers and selling ABOVE listing price.  The market has definately picked up in Minnesota and as I read many of the blogs from around the USA, the market has picked up in many places.

BUYERS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

1. The best houses that are priced to sell are getting offers right away and selling right away. 

2. On those homes that are priced right; they will sell at or above listing price.

3. You want to be be approved through UNDERWRITING before you spend too much time looking at houses.  Loan approvals are taking longer and things are changing so fast you want to make sure you can actually buy a home.

4. Other buyers are taking advantage of the low interest rates, low house prices, and first time buyer tax credit. If your hesitant, figure out what is holding you back, and start to move forward in your home search with more confidence.

5. On BANK OWNED homes - The banks normally will not fix things on the house. Its sold AS-IS.  If the home needs a lot of repairs it won't work for FHA financing. You either need to apply for a loan that is a REHAB type of loan or look for houses in good shape.

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

With me finally getting a featured post today with my 500th overall post; I now have a standard to live up to.  A few more people might seek my blogs.  Or at least see if I updated photos on my profile page (I have been getting random women telling me I am handsome after seeing my profile on Facebook. But I will save that for another blog! And my girlfriend reminds me to tell everyone I am taken!)

Some of the comments on my feature post requested a list of some of my top blogs that maybe I thought were feature material.  Check out the post here: How to Write 500 Blogs on Active Rain and Never Get a Feature Post. Now what you all have been waiting for...

CHUCK CARSTENSEN'S - BEST POSTS THAT NOT MANY OF YOU HAVE READ!

1. The winner in the HUMOR category is :Taking Kids On Showings - It was meant to be funny and of course some Realtors get a little HUFFY about PROFESSIONALISM if you take your kids with you. 

2. The winner in the INSPIRATION category is: Breakthrough Strategies - Never Give Up - This one was part of a series and there were a few good ones in the series.

3. The winner in the RANT category is: Low Ball Offers! - I am not a big fan of ranting on blogs because your customers do read them, but this one is the truth.

4. The winner(s) in the HOW TO category are: 1% Better Each Day- TOPIC #5 - CAREER and 1% Better Each Day- TOPIC #1 - HEALTH.  The one on CAREER probably has more AR Members value, but the one on HEALTH I thought for better for all readers.

5. The winner in the SPIRITUAL category is: Having a Prosperous 2009 - January 9th (Prosperous Soul).I have had a lot of short blogs in this category, and I am sure my readers would select other ones as being much better then this one, but I thought this was one that had FEATURE potential to the Active Rain masses.

I have a had a lot of other blogs worth sharing.  Many of them were likely a little too short and to the point to be a feature, but were probably great little INSPIRATIONAL posts for the readers. 

So I hope this helps anyone who wanted me to share some other blog posts that might be good, but perhaps not many got to see them!

I THINK YOU SHOULD GET A PRIZE OF SOME SORT IF YOU READ ALL SIX OF THE POSTS LINKED ABOVE! -The FIRST FIVE PEOPLE THAT read and comment on all of the posts linked will GET A FREE COPY OF MY BOOK! (Email me via Active Rain if you actually do this with your address and I will ship you a book! Book details in the link below.)

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

I wanted to say the CHEAPEST HOME I EVER CLOSED WAS TODAY, but I thought it was more accurate to say the LOWEST PRICE HOME I HAVE EVER SOLD closed today! Because it was a really nice and cute home for the price.

I bet if I asked many of you what your lowest price sale is; its likely did not happen in 2009.  If you have been in the business for a while like my business partner Mel Beaudry (35 years), your lowest price sale came 35 years ago or somewhere very early in your Real Estate career. Times they are a changing, so onto the details...

The Price: $37,500.  The commission under $1000 dollars.  (Thanks to a 2.6% commission split. I was thinking it was 2.7% and then got my check and did not want to complain about $37.50.)

The Buyer: My sister. Not her first home purchase.  Just going back to school and wanted to not have a house payment.

The location: Mankato, MN.  This is 105 miles from my office according to mapquest! We went out there two weeks ago and looked at 7 homes. She liked this one and we made a cash offer and therefore had the quick closing.

The Kicker: Has in I have a lower price sale pending. Yup!  $21,000 sale set to close whenever HUD lets us as its a cash buyer on that one as well.

My theory on low price sales:  I will take them.  If its family I am going to help.  If its makes sense for all parties involved, then I do it.  If it builds a lasting relationship then I am happy to help.

I have two more closings this week and they are both in the $70,000 range.  Great news for buyers because 2-3 years ago these same homes were twice the price.  So BRING ON THE LOW PRICE BUYERS!

For my Active Rain Friends:  Please share what your lowest price sale is!

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

This might end up having a rant tone!  Its only because its late and I was thinking about low ball offers!

First, I want to point out that I make my fair share of low ball offers.  Because I do that I can actually track the percentage that a low ball offer actually gets accepted. 

Here is what I consider a low ball offer.  Anything less then half price.  So if the home is $60,000 and you offer $25,000 I would call that a low ball offer.  However, if its a higher price listing - lets say $400,000 I would say something 20% off that price, so $320,000 would be a low ball offer.  Perhaps a low ball offer is something you just know won't go through and not even be close to what think the seller would take. Different people will define low ball offers differently then me.

I don't have the exact number of low ball offers I have made in my life, but lets just say its been 100 to make things easy. I would guess its been close to that amount.

Now how many low ball offers have actually ever been accepted?

Drum roll please....

I can ONLY THINK OF ONE.  And it really was not that low...

So in conclusion low ball offers don't get anywhere.  Border line low ball offers might get somewhere eventually.  I am happy to make low ball offers, just expect a less then 5% chance of getting a deal done.

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).

Real Estate is LOCAL!  The media puts a twist on almost all information they spew out.  They make it sound like the world is coming to end, or at least that not many people are buying.  However, the truth is that homes are moving really fast now.  Buyers are in Spring buying mode.  Prices are low and interest rates are low making home affordability at a 30 year high.

Minnesota might be taking a little extra time to heat up on the outside, but in the housing market it is heating up now. If you have been on line looking at homes and perhaps out shopping for a home, but haven't found a home you have liked yet chances are now when you see a good home at a good price, its going to be gone within a week.

Yes!  Houses are selling FAST. The houses that are PRICED RIGHT are now selling for FULL LIST price or higher!  Sure there are overpriced homes out there, but many of the bank owned listings have finally learned to price the homes right. 

Often buyers think because its BANK OWNED they are going to get an extra $20K off. That's simply not the case. If its priced well the home will sell for full price.

So why buy now?

1. Homes are more AFFORDABLE then they have been in years because of the low prices and the low interest rates.

2. $8000 TAX CREDIT for first time buyers. Don't pass up free money!

3. We are NEAR market bottom.  Many of the homes are being price well, so those prices are close enough to the BOTTOM that you will still be in a good equity position.

4. With the low prices your payment is potentially LOWER THEN a rent payment. So why rent when you can own.

5. You help stimulate the economy in your own way by buying now!

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Chuck Carstensen is a Realtor with The Discovery Team at RE/MAX; helping buyers, sellers, and investors of residential real estate.  He is a Dynamic Life Coach; The Discovery Coach- "Helping you discover your talents, desires and purpose." Carstensen is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (NOW available go to http://tinyurl.com/wakeupmoments).