Lifestyle and real estate in Minneapolis. Twin Cities Living.

  Have you noticed?  Toothbrush holders are out.  In fact, in new construction you won't even find them being built into the wall above the sink.  Say goodbye to one more thing of the past.  Houses up until the 1990's always had built-in toothbrush holders.  One side held the cup and holes for th...

I have been blessed to work recently with a young couple who just bought their first home.  They met here in Minnesota but both are originally from Ethiopia.  They have for 10 years been saving to buy this house.  Elsa described to me exactly what she wanted.  She wanted a two story and the "all...

  Realtors have to watch the spread of the H1N1.  We are around so many people and touch so many things, that we can spread illness quickly.  My husband, who is a Realtor with me, started coming down with something, and I put him right to bed and isolated myself from him.  I got him bottles of th...

  In difficult times we all look to a leader.  It is the leader who will walk us out of our dark days and into the sunshine of the future.  We can list the names of leader who have lead us out of darkness.  In many cases these leaders state comments that we quote today to inspire us.  We look to ...

The world likes to complain about our weather in Minnesota.  We are portrayed as a frozen ice cube.  The world outside our state wonders how we can live here.  The month of September is an example of why we live here.  The temps have been wonderful, the days dry and warm and evenings cool, and t...

The Bears are coming.  This reminds me of when we were kids and we begged our parents to take us to the dump out by our lake home, so we could see the bears.  We would be all tough and drive up with headlines shinning, windows down, and we  would wait for those big creatures.  Out of the darknes...

  It is common after a Realtor has shown a home to get a request for feedback on how the showing went.  These used to be in the form of phone calls which were pretty annoying.  You would be out showing houses and your cell phone would ring.  It would be a listing agent wanting to know how your sh...

As a Realtor there is a catch 22 to being honest.  If you are totally honest with a buyer or seller, you run the risk of them getting mad at you.  If you tell them what they want to hear, you might not be successful with a closing.  This weekend I was called out to visit with two sellers who hav...

We all want to hear good news.  The media is looking for it so they give it to us in small  bites.  One of the bites is that the housing market has hit the bottom and signs of an improving market are there.  I am not sure how you can make that statement.  We don't know the bottom has been reache...

I am surprised how many people who live in the Twin Cities have not been to the North Shore.  I believe  it is the best escape and such a healing factor in our world of lists and got to go.   My husband I are fortunate we have a job and an  empty nester home where we can take off to escape at unc...