Evermoor continues to be one of Rosemount’s premier development’s so it’s time to do a 2011 home sales update in the place I call home.  This former 500+ acre sheep farm is finally about to be completely filled with homes as Lennar is expected to finish the final open lots in the Glendalough neighborhood by the summer of 2012.  You can read my 2010 home sales recap here.

Evermoor Development

Using my “fancy map” above you can see that Evermoor stretches from Diamond Path along the Apple Valley border on the west side almost to Highway 3 on the east end.  The development is broken up into 13 sub developments which I outlined in my initial Evermoor blog story.

You can also find a drive through video I did showcasing the different neighborhoods on YouTube.

2011 Home Sales Recap

This year I decided to include both the 2010 and 2011 sales figures so it’s easier to spot trends.  I have columns for total sales, traditional sellers, new homes, bank owned and short sales.  Some of the major themes that emerge include -

• There were a total of 64 homes sold in Evermoor in 2011 which was an increase from the 58 sold in 2010.
• Lennar continues to sell new homes like crazy as they sold 28 new homes in the Glendalough development.  This number was better than the total number of previously owned homes in the entire Evermoor Development for 2011
• There was a marked increase in the number of bank owned properties, although the bulk of them are in the lower end townhouse sub-development at Roundstone
• When you take out the new homes and lender mediated homes there were actually fewer homes sold by traditional sellers in 2011 than in the previous year

Prices Continued Downward

Overall, the Minneapolis Association of Realtors says that the Average Sales Price of homes sold in Rosemount have declined by 9.7% in the past 12 months.   We can see that show up by looking at homes in the Cross Croft neighborhood.  These are detached townhomes that are very similar to each other in style and size so it makes it easy to watch pricing trends.

Example 1:

13621 Crosscroft and 13570 Crossmoor are almost identical homes.  The home on Crosscroft sold on 11/29/2010 for $260,000.  The home on Crossmoor sold on 12/14/2011 for $229,000 which is actually almost a 12% decline.

Example 2:

3694 Crosscliffe & 13603 Crossglen are larger homes but very similar 2 level models with 3 bedrooms & 3 baths.  The home on Crosscliffe sold on 2/19/2010 for $335,000 while the Crossglen home sold about 18 months later on 9/21/2011 for $295,000.  That’s another 12% decline.

Active Listings

There are currently only 13 active listings available in the Evermoor development of Rosemount.  5 of those listings are new homes by Lennar and 4 of them are condo’s in the Bard’s Crossing sub-development.  You can see them by using my Home Finder tool.

The number of listings in the Twin Cities is down all over and while it is expected this will increase rapidly once we approach spring the lack of listings is actually stabilizing prices right now.

Summary of Evermoor Development

Rosemount’s Evermoor Development continues to be one of the premier places to live in the south metro.  One has to only look at how many new houses are still selling here to see it’s a place that people want to call home.

If you are looking to buy or sell in Evermoor choose a Realtor who lives here and knows it extremely well. Just contact me and we can get started.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul. He is licensed to practice real estate in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

It’s been a while since I wrote an expired listing success story so as we enter the new year it’s a good chance to go back and get caught up on some of the 8 listings that I helped sell in 2011 that had failed with a  previous Realtor.  I have written up a number of other expired listing success stories which can be found here.

Steve & Susan’s Story

I got a call from Steve February 2011 to come and meet to discuss their home in South St. Paul.  Steve and Susan had recently gotten married and she moved into his townhouse in Woodbury so they were selling her South St. Paul home.  They had the home listed with another Realtor for over a year with little interest.  The home was now sitting empty, except for Steve’s vintage car in the garage.  They wanted the house sold quickly.

The Interview Process

I met Steve at the home and after my normal walkthrough I scheduled to come back and meet to go through my pricing analysis.  I was a little nervous as my comparable pricing analysis said the fair market value was $106k and they had previously been on the market at $137k.

What was interesting is that Steve & Susan knew that the price was too high as they could see a lot of the same sold data on the internet themselves.  Their previous Realtor just hadn’t had the boldness to tell them what they needed to price the home at to get it sold.  This lead to a wasted year on the market and an expired listing.

Steve & Susan’s Results

We listed the home at $109,900 and the home sold in 11 days at $106,532 – pretty much right on what I had told them.  They were extremely happy as they met their goal of getting the home sold quickly and at full price!

Steve’s testimonial was short and sweet – “Hire Bill Wallace. He will get your house sold!”

Avoiding Your Own Expired Listing Story

Each of these clients could have saved themselves a lot of headaches by hiring the right Realtor in the first place. Things like asking the right questions and getting references can go a long way in helping make sure you don’t have your own expired listing or cancelled listing story when trying to sell.

To find out more about these stories or begin your own interview process with a specialist in Dakota County and the rest of the Twin Cities please fill out my Contact Me form so we can get started.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul. He is licensed to practice real estate in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We are entering 2012 but I thought it would be good to do a home sales recap to show how I did in 2011 in helping clients in Dakota County to buy & sell homes.  I did a similar home sales recap for 2010 sales so I thought this would be a good annual update.

Overall Recap

If you’ve read my profile you’ll know that 2011 was only my 2nd full year as a Realtor.  That said, it was another successful year as I once again qualified for RE/MAX’s Executive Club which is their designation for the top 25% of their Realtors nationwide.  This is something that most new Realtors never accomplish so I’m proud to have hit that mark again.  Overall, I had 18 transactions for the year with all but 2 of them happening in Dakota County.

You can read from a number of my 2011 clients in the testimonial & customer reviews area of my website.

2011 Home Sales Recap – Sellers

For the year I helped 9 clients get their home sold in Dakota County during 2011.  These homes were located in the following cities -

• Apple Valley – 3
• Farmington – 3
• Mendota Heights – 1
• South St. Paul – 1
• Burnsville – 1

One of the things I’ve focused a lot of effort on is helping people sell their home after they failed selling with a previous Realtor.  These expired listings have become a good source of business as 8 of the 9 seller’s homes you see below had failed in a previous attempt to sell.  I’ve done write ups on some of these transactions and plan to write more in the coming weeks.

2011 Home Sales Recap – Buyers

In 2011 I also had the privilege of helping in 9 buy side transactions.  These included:

• 3 first time buyers (Bloomington, Lakeville & Farmington)
• 2 previous buyers who were moving to new homes (Apple Valley & Inver Grove Heights)
• 4 investor buyers (Apple Valley, Rosemount & Minneapolis)

2011 Dakota County Recap Final Comments

2011 continued to be a difficult year for Dakota County home sellers but there are some good signs for 2012.  Currently, the biggest helping trends are the huge reduction in the number of listings on the market.  Currently there are 22% fewer listings on the market in the Twin Cities than we had at this time last year.  That’s helping stabilize prices as home sellers have fewer competitors to have to discount against.  Continued low interest rates are also a big incentive for buyers.  If we can just reduce the number of lender mediated homes we might actually see prices rise.

To help you achieve your house buying or selling needs in 2012 the first step to success is to contact me.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul. He is licensed to practice real estate in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Providing updated real estate market statistics for Dakota County has always been a focus for my website.  My most recent blog article went into some detail showing what is happening with home sales in Dakota County for the months of September and October.  You can find links to other recent market statistics from the category links to the right on the main page.

Real Time Market Statistics

I’ve long relied on the excellent market statistics that are provided by the Minneapolis Association of Realtors.  They put out weekly, monthly and annual reports that help both Realtors and consumers to have a better feel for what’s happening on today’s Twin Cities real estate market.

To make this data more readily available I now have a link at the top of my website that will pull this data and make it available without having to go find it somewhere else.  The reports available include (click on the picture to try them out) -

This Report gives the most current stats on weekly Twin Cities sales

Market Updates for 200 different communities on a monthly basis

Monthly Indicators gives details for the entire market on many key stats

Monthly data on the availability of homes by inventory measures

Gives an annual review of the prior years sales in the Twin Cities

This report gives data on distressed property sales on a monthly basis

Conclusion

Providing updated real estate market statistics for Dakota County will continue to be a focus and by adding this data right within my website should be a nice added value to have all of it in one location.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul. He is licensed to practice real estate in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

A couple weeks ago I had a new client that was looking to buy a home in Hastings which is the county seat of Dakota County and a place I’ve spent considerable time in.  In addition to looking at Hastings they were looking at possible acreage properties within a 5-6 mile radius of Hastings which led them to the possibility of looking at homes near Prescott, Wisconsin.  This was just the opportunity I was waiting for as I’ve had a couple other clients inquire about the possibility of moving to the Wisconsin side of the border.  Therefore, I went ahead and completed the requirements to get my Wisconsin Real Estate License and passed the test with flying colors.

Getting A Wisconsin Real Estate License

If you already have a Minnesota Real Estate License you don’t even have to leave Minnesota in order to get your Wisconsin Real Estate License.  The Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services administers their Out of State Reciprocity program and has a 13 hour online course to obtain the necessary knowledge needed to pass the license exam.  All of the requirements and training are available through the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

After completing the online course you then go to Pearson VUE to take the 4 hour, 140 question test.  You still don’t have to go to Wisconsin to take this since it’s available from their Edina, Minnesota testing center.

Successfully Completed

The whole process took me just 1 week to complete.  I started the online classes on a Monday, finished them on Thursday and took my test on Friday.  After submitting my license through RE/MAX Results I now have my Wisconsin Real Estate License firmly in hand.

While my intent is certainly to continue to focus the vast majority of efforts on assisting buyers and sellers in Dakota County it’s certainly nice to have the flexibility to work with buyers and sellers in Western Wisconsin.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.  He is licensed to practice real estate in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

My newest listing is this cute & totally renovated 3 bedroom, 2 bath home at 302 Bernard Street E in West St. Paul.  This home has access and views of Lily Lake and is priced at a level that will be cheaper than rent for most buyers.  It has easy access to Highway 52 for access to St. Paul & Minneapolis or South Robert Street for shopping and entertainment.

Other features of this home include –

• 3 Bedrooms (1 on each level) and 2 bathrooms
• Renovated & updated through all 3 levels
• Kitchen has been totally redone with stainless steel appliances (including gas range) and ceramic counter
• Newly refinished hardwood floor on main level with original wood trim
• Brand new 15 x 10 covered deck overlooks fenced backyard and provides views to Lily Lake which is big enough for paddleboats or canoes
• 1 car garage with extra storage area attached to the back which provides storage or would be a great workshop
• Steel siding for low maintenance

Schools:

• Grades 9-12: Henry Sibley High School
• Grades 6-8: Heritage Middle School
• Grades K-5: Moreland Elementary School

You can find additional details about the property including more pictures and a map here – 302 Bernard Street E, West St. Paul, MN 55118

For more information about this property please contact me

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.

Today I listed this beautiful, 1 story starter home in Apple Valley.  This 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom house has a ton of updates and is totally move-in ready which is a far cry from other similarly priced bank owned and short sale homes.  The home is close to the prime shopping area of Apple Valley as well as transit along Cedar Avenue. 

In addition, the home has a nicely landscaped and large, flat backyard with a deck, fire pit, shed and is completely fenced.

Other features of this home include –

• Sits on a quiet street with easy access to shopping, dining and Cedar Avenue
• 2006 Kitchen remodel features new ceramic floors, stainless steel appliances (including gas range), maple cabinets & new lighting
• Main floor living room with gas fireplace and new pergo floors
• 2 bedrooms on main level with newer carpet
• Large Master BR with walk-in closet
• Finished basement features large family room and 3rd bedroom that can be made conforming by adding egress window. 3/4 bathroom with ceramic floor
• Large deck overlooks fenced and nicely landscaped yard with lots of space to play. Also includes fire pit and 12×12 shed.
• Newer windows, siding & garage door
• 2 car garage with opener
• New water softener and storage in laundry room

Schools:

• Grades 9-12:  Apple Valley High School
• Grades 6-8:  Falcon Ridge Middle School
• Grades K-5:  Greenleaf Elementary

You can find additional details about the property including more pictures and a map here – 7392 146th Way W, Apple Valley, MN 55124

For more information about this property please contact me

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.

This past weekend I was doing open houses at a couple of my listings.  I got to talking to one of the couples that attended and realized I have a new service to offer.  In this difficult market there are many people that would like to move to a different house but are saddled with a townhouse, condo or singly family home that is underwater.  One solution is to rent their current house which will allow them to buy a new home.  Many people have never done a rental before and since I have done them it would be valuable to offer home rental assistance and guidance for their current home.  The couple I talked to was very interested in the help I could offer since I am already doing real estate investment rentals for myself.

My Rental Property Background

With the glut of bank owned properties on the market I decided late last year that the opportunity for rental real estate was too good to pass up and between December 2010 and February 2011 my wife and I purchased 3 townhouses in Rosemount and Apple Valley.  I knew how to find good value in available homes and how to go about fixing homes but had to immerse myself in the other processes needed to be a good investor like protecting yourself legally and all of the steps to find, screen and get tenants under contract.

To date that process has gone great as I quickly found 3 great sets of tenants in my places and am currently in the process of trying to buy a 4th.

The Rental Process

The home rental assistance I would help with would include the following processes that I’ve become very familiar with:

• Property Management – What are the benefits & costs involved with managing properties yourself vs. hiring a company to do it for you?  This is really the first question because if you do hire a property management company a lot of the other processes will be done for you.  Of course, you pay 8-10% of your income to them but for some homeowners this may be a better option.
• Legal Structures & Professionals – The different options for protecting your assets and the importance of having relationships with a lawyer, insurance agent & accountant
• Paperwork & Process – There are lots of documents I can help direct new landlords to use which include:
  • Rental Policies – critical to setting groundwork for getting good tenants
  • Application – getting needed information on paper
  • Lease – the legal document guiding the landlord/tenant contract
  • Background Screening – the systems I use to verify criminal and credit history of all applicants
  • Move-in & Move-out paperwork
  • Posting requirements
• Pricing & Marketing – Once you have all the processes in place it’s important to understand the free tools you can use to correctly price and market your home.  These include resources like Postlets, HotPads & Craigslist

The Disclaimer

I am not an attorney and don’t provide legal or tax advice.  My goal is to avoid situations that would require hiring an attorney and fortunately, I haven’t had to do so yet for something like an eviction.  I use pre-approved things like the MN Bar Association lease which have a better chance of surviving a challenge but would advise any potential landlord to think about developing a relationship with an attorney ahead of time.

The End Goal – Buy A New Home

My end goal is to provide my home rental assistance as a free service in order to help a homeowner buy a new home with me.  I would benefit by getting a sale when they buy a new home and developing a long-term relationship with another real estate client.

Clients benefit greatly since they don’t have to try and learn this whole process on their own and when buying a home the majority of the cost of hiring me is paid for by the seller.

If you have any questions about this home rental assistance feel free to contact me for a no obligation discussion.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.

In the past I’ve done significant research to evaluate 2 different methods of finding a home price in Dakota County using easily available metrics.  For a long time I’ve been doing analysis to compare the final sale price of homes against the Dakota County tax assessed value.   For more recently sold homes, another good rule of thumb has been to look at when a home was last sold and make a determination of value based on the average decline in the market since the home was last sold.

What Homes Am I Looking At?

Today I pulled home sales data out of MLS that matched the following -

• Previously owned, Single Family Homes sold in Dakota County in the past 30 days.   I can’t use new homes as they don’t have an established tax value
• Only traditional sellers (exclude all bank owned and short sales)
• Weed out a few homes that clearly have incorrect tax values.  Unfortunately, there are still many homes in Dakota County that have an artificially low tax value because the tax assessor doesn’t know about a finished basement

Using this data I was able to find 99 homes that match which gives a pretty good number of homes to look at.

Tax Assessed Value Home Price Method

To do this analysis I take the Dakota County 2009 tax assessed value (payable in 2010) and compare it against the net sales price.  The net sales price is the final sale price minus any seller paid closing costs.  This is a true picture of what the seller received at closing for their home and is a difficult number for non-Realtors to get since seller paid closing costs are reported on consumer facing websites.

I use the 2009 tax assessed value because that’s still the one being used in MLS.  I look forward to seeing the change once the updates for 2010 are entered into MLS.

The last time I did this analysis was in February 2011.  At that time the average single family home in Dakota County was selling for 89.2% of 2009 tax value.  This was a decline from September, 2010 when the average had been 92.8%.

For the last 30 days, which spanned April 24, 2011 through May 24, 2011 that has actually declined even further. Currently the average home is selling at 87.1% of 2009 Dakota County tax assessed value.

That seems to coincide with recent news in the Twin Cities marketplace.  Home prices continue to be under pressure according to reports in the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal and Fox 9 News.

Home Price Based On Previous Sale Date

Another way to roughly evaluate a home’s price is to look at when it sold last and then apply a discount to the price based on what’s happened to the average home prices in the past few years.  This process works best for homes sold since 2000 as these homes have more recent comparisons.

It would be better to have a broader set of data than I have using these 99 sales but here are the averages -

As you can see, homes sold between 2005-2007 in Dakota County have seen a 22-28% price decline.  Homes sold in 2003 are down about 10% and it’s not until you get all the way back to 2001 where you see homes selling for about what they are selling for now.

Using these numbers you can then get a rough idea of what a home’s value is if you know it was sold in the last 10 years.  Of course, this doesn’t take into account for major changes to a home so if there have been large additions or upgrades to a house you would need to take that into account.

Using the 2 Dakota County Home Price Metrics

These 2 home price metrics allow both buyers and sellers in Dakota County to get a rough estimate of what a home is worth.  Of course, there are variances and exceptions which is why these are just a quick way to see if a home price is in the ballpark.  The best way to find a home’s value is to do a thorough comparison against similar and recently sold homes.  This is something I do for both buyers and sellers.

If you have any questions about home prices in Dakota County feel free to contact me for a no obligation discussion.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.

Dakota County Home Search is Live

Starting today, Dakota County home search is available on this website! This will help buyers find homes, townhouses or condo’s in Dakota County using map based tools that pull real time data out of MLS.

One of the great things about working for RE/MAX is that they match my enthusiasm for delivering high quality technology experiences for clients.  Starting today I am able to integrate the RE/MAX map based property search and home search engine into my own Dakota County Properties website.

From my home page you may have noticed the big new button  which allows users to access the big map of the Twin Cities and Dakota County that you see listed above.  From there, users can take advantage of familiar map based search tools along with traditional home search options to search based on things like price, bedrooms, bathrooms or many other advanced search criteria.

Dakota County Home Search Results

Once you have narrowed your search you will see a map of possible home matches as well as a list below the map showing you details about the homes that match the search results.  From there you can drill down on any home for more pictures or information about each property.

Selecting A Home

Once you select a particular house you can get all kinds of additional information on it which is above and beyond what you’ll find on many home search or property search websites (pictures, virtual tours and property information).  These features include -

• Go see the home in a Balloon View – this feature is part of the Microsoft Bing map search tool where you can see the home from 4 different angles from a low flying plane.  It’s almost like you are in the RE/MAX balloon hovering over the home.
• See the home using Google Street View – For many addresses, Google took specially equipped cars down streets with cameras in all directions to allow you to see the house from the street as well as the surrounding neighborhood.
• The ability to print a photo flyer
• Information about the surrounding community
• A mortgage calculator to give you an immediate idea of the monthly payment which is calibrated to current interest rates and the list price of the home you are looking at
• Price history of the home

I know I constantly use the Microsoft Bing map tool to evaluate what homes look like from above so having that integrated into the home search is a huge value add for people looking for properties.  Here’s what that looks like -

Dakota County Home Search – Property Finder Tool

Another key feature is the Property Finder Tool that is integrated into the map based home search engine.  You can use all of the features of the property search without registering but if you want to use the Property Finder Tool it does require registration.  Yes, that means I get to see your name & e-mail along with any other information you provide.  Here’s what the Property Finder Tool offers that may make this worthwhile -

• You can save your searches – this allows you to highlight the homes you like best or custom searches for types of properties so you can come back to them later
• You can get e-mail alerts for new listings that match your criteria or price changes of homes you are tracking
• Set up multiple folders so you can track different properties in different ways.  That may include favorites, investments or just homes you are interested in seeing when they sell and for how much
• Keep notes on different properties

While some people may not want to have me get their legitimate e-mail address there is also some benefit.  The Property Finder Tool is designed to be a collaborative solution.  I can see what you are looking at which allows me to better understand what you like and do my own searches to help find the perfect home.

From a privacy standpoint, anyone that registers is only sharing their information with me and it will never be shared or sold with any other entity.  Even RE/MAX will not be allowed to share it with anyone else should I leave a relationship with them.

Try The Map Based Dakota County Home Search Yourself

I will be interested in getting feedback from users about what they think about the new map based, Dakota County home search tools that are a part of RE/MAX and now available at my Dakota County Properties website.  Providing cutting edge technology to aid my buying and selling clients is a big way that I try to differentiate the level of service that I’m able to provide clients.

If you have any questions about the new property search or Property Finder feel free to contact me.

Bill Wallace is a Realtor at RE/MAX Results in Apple Valley, MN with a focus on Dakota County and the Southern Twin Cities including – Apple Valley, Bloomington, Burnsville, Eagan, Farmington, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Mendota Heights, Prior Lake, Richfield, Rosemount, Savage, Shakopee, South St. Paul and West St. Paul.