All posts by Richard

Low Ball Offer

We hit 21 days on the market this past Friday, and received our first offer for our home of 25+ years. If you've read other posts in my series of "Selling a House in a Lousy Economy", you'll understand we were convinced to lower our price $10k after 10 days, and this generated a ton of traffic through our house (during the past 2 weeks, only Tuesday and Friday did not have at least one showing). The end result was one low ball offer. Someone offered us $207k; our original price was $249,900 lowered to $239,900.

This evening over dinner my wife and I discussed the implications of this activity. If one pays a 6% real estate fee, other closing costs and moving costs … why not just sink $25k into some remodeling of our present home. We own it free and clear. It's a nice house. 

Our plan is to purchase a town home, with a monthly association fee. I wonder how much a yard / snow removal service would be for our present home? These are the questions one starts to ask. Is the disruption in our lives worth the aggravation. Is the present value of all the costs to move positive? We don't know. The end of our dinner conversation tonight was to tighten up the amount of money we would ultimately accept for our home. 

Home-5  

$239,900  (our house!)

 

Dining “al fresco” with Spot!

I love my dog. She's a bassamation named Spot (cross between a basset and a dalmatian). Over the past few days she's become my "al fresco" dinner partner. You see, we've had a flurry of real estate showings of our house, and always at dinner time. Thus, my question of the day … what should Spot and I have for dinner this evening? Where would you take your dog out to dinner (and Cyrus that cat, and Molly the wife)?! 

Here's one of my favorite photos from many moons ago. Spot is helping me rake up the Fall leaves! My hair is now white these days to match Spot's fur! 

Spot-leaves
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See the other posts from Selling Our House in a Rotten Economy.

Price Cut

Hi folks. Molly and I are going to be aggressive about marketing our home. We are 13 days into the process, and we have decided to drop our home's price by $10k. Although we believe we have one of the top homes in the neighborhood, we don't think it's wise to be the top priced home. We gave it the old college try at $249,900, but now a price cut in time for the weekend. Our Realtor from Edina Realty originally suggested a $5k price drop, but we all agreed in the end to the $10k number.

Here are some comparable homes from the neighborhood. What do you think? We're we smart? Dumb? A few years back our home would have sold in the $300k to $325k range.

Home-1
 Home #1: $234,000

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Home-2  

Home #2: $249,900

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Home-3  

Home #3: $239,900

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Home-4  

Home #4: $237,900

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Home-5  

Home #5: $239,900  (our house!)

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See other posts: Selling a House in a Lousy Economy

Trans-Superior Tour 2011

Many of you know that Carl and I biked the BWCA Superior Tour this past August (Trip Report / Echo Trail Segment). It's been amazing over the past two months how many folks have asked … will you arrange another ride next year, and can we get involved? The answers are … yes and yes.

Most people seem to want to take a ride in the northern wilderness along the shores of Lake Superior. Thus, tonight, planning officially starts for the Trans-Superior Bike Tour which will take place during the Summer of 2011. 

The distance from Sault St. Marie, Ontario to Duluth, Minnesota via the northern route (i.e. we won't go through Yooper Land) is approximately 625 miles. The tentative dates are Friday, August 5th to Monday, August 15th. My plan is to research hiring a commercial van / bus to drive us from Duluth to Sault St. Marie, Ontario. In addition, we would NOT have a van accompanying our ride. Participants would have to carry all their own clothes and repair gear. In my case that also includes a notebook computer! We would stay at small town motels every night.

Interested? Contact the Northstar Nerd at RichardHoeg{at}Gmail.Com to express interest.

Click to maximize the image given below.

Trans-Superior-Tour

A Blind New Yorker

Sometimes I think the publishing industry must be totally clueless. Notepads (Apple or Android) represent possible salvation for their industry, and then a magazine like the New Yorker proves they just don't get it. If you desire, you can purchase a print subscription to the New Yorker for about $2 per week; if you want an electronic iPad subscription you must pony up an additional … that's right … an additional $5 per week. 

Obviously the monocle is frosted or cracked …

New-Yorker