New Contingency Field Added to Northstar MLS

The Minnesota MLS has taken another step forward to make it easier to find out if there is any offers in on short sale homes by adding a new field.  Read the press release below.
Last year, BookAShowing added a Contingency field so that you could indicate when any of your Active listings had an [...]

Rent Collection Tips & Tricks

So you bought that rental property?  You had done a lot of work on your own house and figured it couldn’t be that hard.  Then you realized that being a landlord is more than just managing and repairing the property.  It takes work to manage the tenants!
One of the biggest areas of problems for any [...]

Twin Cities Real Estate Market Update

This information is courtesy of the Minneapolis Association of Realtors for the week ending 5/1/2010.  Much of this information is compiled from the MLS MN.

As the weather warms and the end of the federal government tax credit winds down everyone is waiting with baited breath to see what the real estate market will bring us.  [...]

How does US Government help underwater and unemployed homeowners?

The US Government has announced a new plan on March 26, 2010 as an expansion of its home loan modification initiatives. This new plan will help unemployed homeowners reduce their mortgage payments to affordable levels for 3 to 6 months while they search for work. The plan will also help “underwater” homeowners cut their [...]

On-Time Monthly Payments on Mortgage Help You Avoid Foreclosure

If you are unable to make your monthly payments on mortgage, you may lose your house to foreclosure. Foreclosure is a legal process by which creditors can repossess the collateral when the mortgage is in default. There are certain alternatives available that can help you prevent a foreclosure.
How can you save your home from going [...]

Minneapolis Homes for Sale Took Biggest Drop in US for April

Unfortunately, this is not a static that sellers like to hear, but according to Trulia, 40% of the Minneapolis real estate listings had to take a price cut during the month of April.  This was despite much anticipation of a strong market going into the end of the federal tax rebate program.  With 2 out [...]

Minnesota MLS Changes Away From Security Tokens

Less than one year after the Northstar MLS implemented security tokens for authentication into their MLS system, they have returned to simple passwords.  As it turns out, the somewhat temporary change did it’s job.  According to NorthstarMLS management the tighter security revealed the following issues:

Almost 150 licensed agents were accessing the MN MLS without paying [...]

Maximizing Your MLS Search

As you are probably seeing, there are so many different sites to use to search the MN MLS.  Not only does just about every Minnesota Realtor have an MLS search function on their site, but you can also use national sites such as Trulia, Yahoo and Zillow just to name a few.  So how do [...]

Tax Software Delaying MLS MN Tax Updates

As reported in Sunday’s Star Tribune, 28 Minnesota Counties continue to struggle with a new computer and software system installed to handle annual property tax billings.  Some have already dropped it and are making other arrangements.  Of the 28 counties, at least 10 provide us with annual tax updates:  Aitkin, Carver, [...]

Northstar MLS Outage on Tuesday Morning

From the Minnesota MLS System:
NorthstarMLS Matrix was unavailable to users Tuesday morning until approximately 10:30 a.m.  According to Tarasoft (the Matrix vendor), several things happened at the same time to cause the outage.  Most was hardware-related, but there was also a 20-fold increase in network traffic that exacerbated the problem.  As [...]