2 new listings

We’ve got 2 new listings in the same condo building. This building is a senior highrise for 55+ with lots of amenities. In addition to the usual party room, there is a dining room with commercial kitchen available, a game room, exercise room, beauty salon, woodshop with tools, 24-hour security, and more. Of the 2 listings, one is a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom unit on the 8th floor, while the other is a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom on the 2nd floor with a view of Woodlake Nature Center. You can find out more information on my website http://www.StevenHong.com

New Home Search Available

We’ve made some system changes to bring you the best home search on the market.  We welcome you to sign up for free and to look at houses on-line.  You can:

1. Save favorite homes
2. Reject properties
3. Take notes on individual houses
4. Send notes to significant others, spouses, and friends from within the system
5. Much more

Just sign up at http://StevenHong.ListingBook.com and see how powerful this search engine really is.  If you have any friends, relatives, or coworkers who are about to buy a home or who are thinking of buying a home, please have them contact me.  I would love to help them find their dream houses.

HDTV, Digital TV, ATSC….Confused Yet?

Unless you are ready to throw out the old TV and buy a new one before February 17, 2009, you’ll  need  to do something to continue watching your favorite television shows. That’s the deadline when the FCC will make TV stations turn off the old analog channels such as channels 2,4,5,9,11.   This will make our older TVs and VCRs obsolete unless we do something soon.

 The easiest solution would be to get a converter box. These converter boxes are basically a Digital Tuner (ATSC tuner) that you hook up to your existing VCR or TV. This will allow you to watch

 Unless you are ready to throw out the old TV and buy a new one before February 17, 2009, you’ll  need  to do something to continue watching your favorite television shows. That’s the deadline when the FCC will make TV stations turn off the old analog channels such as channels 2,4,5,9,11.   This will make our older TVs and VCRs obsolete unless we do something soon.

 The easiest solution would be to get a converter box. These converter boxes are basically a Digital Tuner (ATSC tuner) that you hook up to your existing VCR or TV. This will allow you to watch and record over-the-air broadcasts after the cutoff date and without replacing your existing TV.

 By hooking up a converter box, you won’t be using your built-in TV or VCR tuner any more. 

 When buying a new TV or VCR or DVD recorder, make sure it has an ATSC tuner, which will be able to tune in the new digital channels.

 This FCC ruling doesn’t affect cable or satellite. If you have either, you don’t need to change anything.  You are set to go.

Our Office Has Moved

This may come as a surprise, but even Real Estate Offices move once in a while.  Our office had been at its previous location for the past 18 years, and it was time for a change.  We have moved to new office space one block away.

The new office space is a wonderful space and will be an ‘all-new’ build-out.  This building is easy to find and has plenty of parking–unlike our last office where parking was at a premium.  Since we won’t have a private street-level entrance, we will have a secure way of communicating with clients to open the door for after hours access. 

We are so happy to be settled into the new space, which happened at the end of last year.  OUr new address can be seen below, but mail sent to the old address will be forwarded for a while, anyway. 

If I were to write a description of the building, it would read something like this:

“Lovely top floor, 12-office / 1 kitchenette space with conference room and reception area.  Wonderful views of Edina.  Shared technology enabled conference room available within the building.  Plenty of off-street parking available.  Security entrance.”

2008 Market Review

We’ve all read the negative news about the Twin Cities housing market.   Star Tribune reported that Twin Cities’ home prices have dropped accumulatively 16% over the last year. 
 
Many people think that the reason for the price decrease is that there are more homes on the market than ever, and they are just sitting there.  This isn’t true.  There are actually LESS houses on the market than in the past, but the problem is that there are even less buyers . 
 
Another big reason for the average price drop is because there has been  large uptick in the number of lender-mediated homes (which include bank-owned, i.e., foreclosures, and also short sales) .  Of course, this will skew the prices of the average downward.
Looking at the graph above, we can see that the number of sales for homes in the under $150,000 price range more than doubled (128%) while the number of sales for houses in the $190,000 to $350,000 decreased 22%. 
 
These numbers show that much of the decrease in selling price is attributed to the lender-mediated sales and that a house can still sell if priced right.