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Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis Shows "measurable improvement" in Housing Market

Rochelle Allison: Real Estate Agent in Saint Paul, MN

The number of housing markets showing measurable improvement nearly doubled in January, with the addition of 40 new metros to the Improving Markets Index put out by First American and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

The index tracks housing markets that are showing signs of improving economic health based on three independent datasets – employment growth from the Labor Department, home price appreciation from Freddie Mac, and single-family housing permits from the Census Bureau. The index identifies metropolitan areas that have shown improvement from their respective troughs in employment, home prices, and housing permits for at least six consecutive months.

The following 40 metros were added to the Improving Markets Index this month:

  • Florence, Alabama
  • Tuscaloosa, Alabama
  • Fayetteville, Arkansas
  • Denver, Colorado
  • Greeley, Colorado
  • Bridgeport, Connecticut
  • New Haven, Connecticut
  • Cape Coral, Florida
  • Jacksonville, Florida
  • Punta Gorda, Florida
  • Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Ames, Iowa
  • Des Moines, Iowa
  • Dubuque, Iowa
  • Elkhart, Indiana
  • Indianapolis, Indiana
  • Lafayette, Indiana
  • Lake Charles, Louisiana
  • Worcester, Massachusetts
  • Grand Rapids, Michigan
  • Lansing, Michigan
  • Monroe, Michigan
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Columbia, Missouri
  • Joplin, Missouri
  • Fargo, North Dakota
  • Manchester, New Hampshire
  • Cincinnati, Ohio
  • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  • Tulsa, Oklahoma
  • Corvallis, Oregon
  • Erie, Pennsylvania
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Clarksville, Tennessee
  • Nashville, Tennessee
  • College Station, Texas
  • Dallas, Texas
  • Victoria, Texas
  • Madison, Wisconsin

While relatively small metropolitan areas continue to dominate the list, several major metros in diverse parts of the country were added this month, including Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Philadelphia.

The full list now stands at 76, with 31 states and the District of Columbia all represented by at least one entry. The current tally is up from 41 in December. Five metros on the list in December were dropped from the index in January. These included Anchorage, Alaska; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Canton, Ohio; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Charleston, West Virginia.

According to Bob Nielsen, NAHB chairman, the list would be much stronger, were it not for restrictive lending and growing inventories of distressed properties in certain markets.

A complete list of all 76 metropolitan areas currently on the Improving Markets Index is available at:nahb.org/imi. www.dsnews.com

Last Week’s Home Sales Edina and Southwest Minneapolis 1/9/12

Ben Kolkman Real Estate Author & REALTOR Southwest Minneapolis & Edina Minnesota: Real Estate Agent in Minneapolis, MN

Here they are ladies and gentlemen, the first home sales of 2012 in Edina and Southwest Minneapolis!

It was an impressive start to the year with 11 homes sold in Edina and Southwest Minneapolis, however, the highest sale price was only $675,000 for this Minnehaha Parkway 4 bed, 3 bath home in Lynnhurst.

One home sale in Edina that caught my attention was this Kellogg listing which sold for $340,000. This could be a new tear down opportunity. While this particulat part of the neighborhood isn't the most active for in-fill or replacement housing it is right on the edge of some of the hottest spots. Given the location and price, this could easily go either way, tear down or move in as is.

That's all for now. Good luck to everyne going back to work and or school today. Happy Monday!

Click here for: Home sales in Edina and Southwest Minneapolis week of 1/9/2012

Milwaukee Avenue Historic District - Minneapolis Seward Neighborhood's unique walker's paradise

Sharlene Hensrud: Real Estate Agent in Saint Louis Park, MN

Only two blocks long, the Milwaukee Avenue Historic District is Seward Neighborhood's shining star. This group of small homes built between 1884 and 1890 was the first planned workers' community in Minneapolis, attracting immigrants working in the nearby railroad yards and other industries along Hiawatha Avenue. Built in similar style on quarter-sized lots with no front yards, these homes have more of a rowhouse feel.

Milwaukee1a

In 1970, after decades of neglect, the City of Minneapolis planned to raze these homes along Milwaukee Avenue. Thanks to activist neighborhood residents, the area was instead rehabilitated. Houses were preserved and the street was turned into a bike and pedestrian mall creating a unique sense of community and the Milwaukee Avenue Historic District.

Milwaukee3

The Milwaukee Avenue Historic District is a shining example of a neighborhood coming together, creating a unique pocket neighborhood where the car does not dominate. Walk Score gives this area a score of 91, naming it a Walker's Paradise.

Located southeast of downtown Minneapolis bordered by I-94 on the north and the Mississippi River on the east, Seward neighborhood is a very diverse and politically liberal community characterized by college students, immigrants, aging hippies and everything in between.

Seward Neighborhood was ranked #7 in Twin Cities Metro Magazine's list of the 20 most livable neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Its diverse residents include The Playwrights' Center, Northern Clay Center, Seward Co-op, Riverside Park and off-leash dog park, Birchwood Cafe, weekly punk and rock at Memory Lanes bowling alley and vegan Seward Cafe.

As you might expect, homes along Milwaukee Avenue are rarely available but buyers looking for walkable neighborhoods frequently ask about Seward neighorhood homes for sale. Average home price is $193,956.

Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results - Email - Minneapolis Seward Neighborhood Realtor

RELATED POSTS

I'm back! Spring in here and it's time to talk real estate market in Edina and Minneapolis

Ben Kolkman Real Estate Author & REALTOR Southwest Minneapolis & Edina Minnesota: Real Estate Agent in Minneapolis, MN

It's been a while since I wrote but I'm back in the mood as the spring real estate market begins taking hold in the Edina and Minneapolis housing market. As a native Twin Cities guy I am huge fan of winter and took some time off from writing to just enjoy the holidays and the season. The weather has been unseasonably warm, a blessing and a curse, but its time to start talking about the real estate market in Edina and Minneapolis!

During the 'off season' we still succeeded in selling and buying a good number of homes with our home buyer and home seller clientele. We handled some short sales which seem to be getting a little easier to transact (finally) here in the Edina and Minneapolis real estate market. Our sellers found some success in alternative marking techniques via Facebook and Twitter which helps keep quality, detailed info on their homes in buyers hands.

Historically, January brings new listing into the Edina and Minneapolis real estate market. Sales volume however, doesn't begin to heat up until mid February. On the minds of real estate professionals right now is wether or not this warm winter will spur buyers into action early or not. My money is on the historical trend. Personally, I still feel like winter is going to come, with a vengeance, I just hope by April we are back to sunshine and mud!

Happy new year and best of luck to all, especially to home buyers and sellers in the Edina and Minneapolis real estate market!

The Case For More Real Estate Blogs In 2012

01-06-12
Ben Ganje
Ben Ganje: Real Estate Agent in Minneapolis, MN

I know every day all of us are bombarded with an endless amount of blogs on the web relating to all sorts of specific subjects. Bear with me as I take you back to detail my blogging history.

Back in the mid 2000s real estate blogging was a relatively novel idea and SEO for real estate agents was still in its infancy. There were a few little known platforms out there called blogger and wordpress which one could create a reasonable blogs in short order and give someone not only presence on a particular subject on the web but authority from google. My first forray into the blogging world was a simple wordpress blog using nothing more than my name for the URL: www.benganje.com. The objective of the site at the time was to give users access to every Minneapolis condo project site out there along with some brief commentary on the downtown market. I started creating other micro blogs with the intent to focus content on specific condo and loft buildings in Minneapolis. The issue I had at the time was that users not only want to know about a particular building but also what is for sale or lease within that given property.

I soon realized the importance of a good IDX and so I created yet another site tailored to the Minneapolis condo market and also integrated a wordpress IDX plugin for google juice as well as a iframed REW IDX so I could capture leads and track what listings made up their search criteria to make auto searches and truly engage with my leads. Web inquiries started flowing into my CRM at a record pace. I was busy!

Over this same timeline I had multiple google pay per click campaigns pointing to my main site that had yielded good traffic suddenly start to dwindle. Minneapolis is a very web centric market--in our market web traffic patterns started to point to even more organic traffic versus historically significant ppc web traffic and so I needed a competitive advantage fast.

My theory was to channel all of the micro blog traffic to the main site--to this day most people in the SEO industry would cry foul saying every Realtor should focus on building content for ONE web site and one site alone. I very easily put links on my micro blogs labeled: "what's for sale in building X" and channeled these links to specific pages on my main site: I had hit gold and continue to do so today!

My point of this story is that every real estate agent deals in a market and within that market are subdivisions and neighborhoods where buyers and renters search on google all day for real estate. If you can create micro blogs with legitimate content tailored to your areas of focus within real estate and drive the traffic back to your main real estate website I truly beleive you will not only do better but you will harvest higher quality web leads. This takes time and careful execution. Here's an example of a blogger site I did for a building called Bridgewater Lofts long ago and a recent update of a wordpress blog about the Carlyle in Minneapolis--notice the difference in call to action as well as overall layout and detail?

Why this is important? Because as web traffic becomes more segmented users are going to gravitate towards very specific web sites as they narrow in on their web based real estate searches before contacting a Realtor. Users will always start on big sites like Trulia and Zillow, narrow down to sites of your current size then continue coming back to your site if they see your micro blogs catering to specific niche markets they want to buy/lease in.

The agents who can corrently establish micro blogs, web authority and an authentic brand on the web will be the future real estate power brokers of 2012! I wish everyone a happy 2012!