Chuck Carstensen

The Dalbo Ministerial League Softball Tournament is now underway with 7 games tonight. My team Cambridge Lutheran #1 got the 7th seed and faced Harvest Evangelical Church the #26 seed and got a big scare sneaking out a 6-5 win.

We simply could not string together any hits. Thankful they did not string together many hits either. Chris Goebel our normal pitcher was gone and my sister Michelle Carstensen convinced me to let her pitch and thankfully she pitched awesome which was key for the win tonight.

Brandon Erickson, Michelle, and Al Wolfe had 2 hits each tonight to lead the team. Next game is at 7:30 am Saturday vs Grace at Maple Ridge the #17 seed team but the #3 team from the lower division so they had a 10-3 record on the season which was better then our 7-6 regular season record. We beat them twice last year, but I am not sure if they have upgraded their team or not. It should be a good game and we will need to hit much better to have a chance of winning. Maple Ridge beat River of Life 7-6 to advance to face us.

All games on Saturday and Sunday will be at the Cambridge Softball Complex. The lowest seed team to win tonight was New Hope #2 (the 22nd seed) beating Grace Gospel the #11 seed.

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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 Life/Development 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 (available this fall).

Elk River Area Toastmasters

We all want to be first to the finish line in our business! We are all winners! Some of us simply need to work on our skills a little more to realize the results that we truly want and deserve.

The Elk River Area Toastmasters group is looking for more members! This has been a great way for me to increase my speaking skills and confidence.

How can you recognize a person who can benefit from toastmaster? Let me count the ways:

Lackluster Leaders Procrastinating Presenter

Enthusiastic Entrepreneur Managerially challenged Manager

Stumbling Speaker Boring Business meetings

Tactless Trainers/Teachers Potential/Promising Poets

Stoic Storytellers Tall Tale talkers

Crackpot Comedians Unprepared Utterances

...and so on

We meet Thursday's at 12:00 noon at the Elk River Community Center located at 413 Proctor Ave. Elk River, MN 55330. You are welcomed to visit. Call Chuck Carstensen at 612-290-3809 with questions.

One of the counties hit the hardest by the market downturn is Isanti County. I live in Cambridge, MN which is the largest city in the county. I actually do a large portion of my business in surrounding counties. Now because of the drop in the prices there are currently some great deals out there.

I was checking to see how many townhomes and condos are currently available in Isanti county and there are 115 active listings. To put that in perspective there are only 12 pending sales and 7 total sales closed on these type of homes in the last 2 months.

I drive by these homes all the time. Most of these are new construction homes and a good share of some other ones are bank owned.

Right now there are many very nice homes for close to or below $100,000. At the top of the market the same home was around $150,000. That means most people can get into a nice townhome for what it would cost to rent. Also, with all the properties on the market they can't help but come down some more. I figure they will drop about $20K more and then that will be the market bottom on these homes. Some of these homes are at bottom prices. So buyers and investors its time to get out the check book or make a call to get pre-approved for these low priced nice homes!

Here is what is happening in the Rogers, MN (55374) Real Estate Market in the last month:

Currently there are 150 total homes listed for sale. Overall there are 12 sales pending with 9 sales in the last month. Those are very surprising numbers because if you look at some of the surrounding cities I have updated recently there has been more activity. For townhouse listings there are 48 active listings with only 2 pending and 3 sales in the last 30 days. The under $200,000 price has 34 listings, 1 pending sale and 2 sold listings in 30 days.

These once again opens a great opportunity for buyers since sales are down. There are many good deals out there!

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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 in Isanti, Anoka, Sherburne and Wright County. He is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (available soon). Carstensen is also a personal development mentor with Success University...where he helps people discover how to be more successful in business, life and health.

Here is what has been happening in Monticello, MN Real Estate market.

Currently there are 180 active listings with 43 of those townhouses and 98 of the total are listed under $200,000. Right now there are 29 pending sales, with 6 of those being townhomes and 24 of the 29 sales pending are on homes under $200,000. The last 30 days there have been 15 closed transactions, 3 have been townhomes and 13 have been under $200,000.

There was a story on the Sunday paper about how bad the market is in Wright County including Monticello. It is true the market is down, but that means there are great opportunities for first time buyers, move up buyers and investors! Take advantage of the interest rates, inventory and low prices!

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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 in Isanti, Anoka, Sherburne and Wright County. He is a speaker and co-author in the best selling book series Wake Up...Live the Life You Love: Your Wake Up Moments (available soon). Carstensen is also a personal development mentor with Success University...where he helps people discover how to be more successful in business, life and health.