Lawn Advice

In Minnesota we have precious little time to enjoy our yards – so we want to make the most of it. We want it to be as green and lush as possible – but we don’t want crazy water bills or to have serious impact on the environment.

Well Angie (from Angie’s List) just published an article with tips to help keep your garden, your money and the environment. The good news is that lawns don’t need much water. About an inch a week is enough – dousing them at once with a sprinkler in the morning is best.

Read the full article for more good advice.

Submitted by Ron Jensrud

History of the Countertop

Did anyone buy a house with linoleum countertops trimmed with chrome? Remember those sticky things? I’m pretty sure I had at least 2 houses early in my marriage with linoleum countertops. The beauty? The countertop matched the floor. Wasn’t there asbestos in that stuff? Hey, we didn’t know what asbestos was back then, and what you don’t know can’t hurt you – huh? Maybe ignorance is bliss.

Well, countertops have evolved, like most everything else in the kitchen. Ever since the beginning of Formica we’ve had many designs on our counters. Little boxes, circles, polka dots. Remember the George Jetson look of countertop with space age type designs? Today many buyers like a retro 50’s look but, a decade earlier those Jetson countertops would have killed a deal. There was the butcher block look of the 1970’s. The possibility of cutting on a simulated piece of butcher block was tantalizing. In the 1980’s, a contractor told me if you can’t have the real things then don’t try to simulate them with something fake. It doesn’t work. Everyone knew fake. Only a few people had real butcher block, and that was usually a small sectional piece reserved for a special area of the countertop. Then, we had the lava look of the textured countertop that never looked clean but didn’t show scratches. Those 80’s counters flowed out of the 70’s. Showing scratches is a major household concern.

How about ceramic counters? They were shiny but, kind of lumpy looking and only the gods knew what was lurking in the grout. We didn’t think much about germs back then. When I visit friends in the Vegas area, builders there are still installing ceramic kitchen countertops. Ceramic is big in SW America. Maybe they get sick less.

Then, we all coasted along, as my Grandma would say, with our Formica. Suddenly, there were other brands of Formica – other laminates! More colors, more depths of laminate to consider. At the height of laminate popularity the color white became popular. My theory - the consumer simply gave up. Have you ever looked at 434 colors of laminate? White becomes IT. White encompassed all the colors and made the choice easy. Kitchens across America became white sometime in the late 80’s and early 90’s. But, wait a twist developed. Some white laminate countertops had wood trim molding.

In the early 1990’s, I lived in an area of the country which was heavily marketed by Corian. Corian was the high-end countertop that did it all. Up to Corian, the major countertop concern was scratches. Heaven forbid any of us look like we actually use our kitchens. The dreaded scratch was a major kitchen dilemma. Don’t cut on the counter, my mother would scream from another room. We kids thought we’d go to countertop hell if we dared scratch the counter. The counter was sacred. Corian didn’t scratch, and if it did, the scratch could be sanded out! At least that’s how I remember the advertising. I think Corian had enough people sanding their countertop to China just to get a scratch out, that now Corian discourages sanding their countertops.

Along came the late 1990’s and prosperity for America’s middle class. Americans had disposable income like the country has never seen before. Suddenly whatever was only for the rich became popular for the middle. And, we went wild. We all wanted what “they” have. But, we had to take baby steps. We had to make sure, so we invented a few lookalike products to Granite just to make sure we could handle the real thing.

Quartz countertops like Silestone and Cambria can look like Granite. They look so much like Granite, they cost about the same too! This only fueled our desire for Granite. Why pay for the look of Granite when it’s not Granite. Soapstone is another alternative. Soapstone has an earthy look but, isn’t recommended for the cook who really uses her kitchen. Quartz counters do have a few advantages over Granite like durability, nonporous, resistant to scratches and long warranties.

Some wanted the pasty chef look of Marble but, it can chip and is more porous than Granite so we still go back to Granite. We couldn’t resist Granite. We don’t care if it needs an occasional sealing or if it’s porous and can scratch.

Imagine that? We’ve come full circle back to not caring about scratches on our kitchen countertops. As long as it’s Granite it can scratch ‘cuz Granite scratches with style and grace. Isn’t that what Grandma would say?

Submitted by Exclusive Buyer Agent, Cindy Bhimani

Join Your Community

There is plenty we can do to minimize the heartache felt in our community and elsewhere when disaster strikes. I hope you will consider what you might do and find a match to your interests in the following list of websites. Consider involving your children with you.

Mentoring a child
http://www.kidsnkinship.org/

Clean, repair and build
http://www.hfhmn.org/

Volunteering in a Nursing Home Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly
http://www.littlebrothers.org/

Support the troops
http://www.operationminnesotanice.com/

Send weekly greetings to a senior
http://www.chemoangels.com/

Make activity boxes/bags
http://www.cheerfulgivers.org/

Crafts Create story books for kids in Uganda
www.thememoryproject.org/

Donate, make, deliver or serve food
http://www.2harvest.org/
http://www.handsontwincities.org/
http://www.salarmy.com/

Work with single mothers
http://www.emmanorton.org/

Give Blood
http://www.stpaulredcross.org/


Have a fun summer! Cindy Bhimani

Foreclosures at 1% - that's all?

I'd like to start out with a big HUH?????? I don't get it. Why is there so much doomsday talk about the mortgage foreclosure rates? The first quarter rate of foreclosures for 2008 was at a 30 year high. Know what that 30 year high rate was? Hang on to your hat****** .99% of new foreclosures. (beat) That's right, a whopping less than 1%! So, why the cause for such alarm? Don't we have enough real things to be scared of? World hunger? Terrorism? Global warming? Those are all things I'm afraid are going to have an impact on the lives of children, mine or the world's at large. But, less than 1% of mortgages going in to foreclosure? Hmmm

So, I did little research. These numbers are generated from the Mortgage Bankers Association who reports somewhere between 2%-5% of mortgages overall being in foreclosure. These numbers being widely disseminated in the Washington Post, Reuters and our own Star-Tribune.
That means somewhere around 95% of mortgages are NOT in foreclosure. Isn't that the good news?

Let's look at the trends in the real estate and mortgage industry from 1999-2005. In 1999 the real estate market started warming up considerably, which generated a boom with multiple offers on many properties. Those multiple offers resulted in substantial increments of price increases over those 6 years. Couple that with the decline of mortgage interest rates and real estate was not just win/win for owner occupants but investors as well. Thus, 2000-2002-record sales/record mortgages, 2003-record sales/record mortgages AND the refinance boom that had folks waiting in lines around the corner to get their new mortgages, 2004-record sales/record mortgages, 2005-first half still climbing, second half level off. So, we've got record real estate sales and record numbers of mortgages for the better part of 5.5 years.

Think about it, record amounts of loans, record amounts of foreclosures. See a pattern here? Some of those foreclosures are because of buyers getting in over their heads (i.e. trying to buy too much house without sufficient financial wherewithal, relying on being able to refinance, etc.). But, much of the reason for the foreclosures is also because of fraudulent activities on the part of many real estate investors. A very prominent scam was illuminated here in the Twin Cities this year. That fraud caused foreclosures for some 130 or more houses in one Minneapolis neighborhood alone!

Long story short, we have record NUMBERS of foreclosures because of the record NUMBERS of loans created in the period between 1999-2005. But, overall, even though the percentages are being reported as high, they are less than 5%! I just get really honked off when the media has the ability to panic people instead of illuminating. With the drop in real estate prices and the ability to bargain on prices, it's the best market we've had in a long time. Where is that good news being reported? I've often told my clients, by the time the media reports a turn around in the market, it's already happening. The time to get in there is NOW. The water's really fine, but it's going to get a lot warmer soon, so get in while the gettin's good!

Submitted by Susan Hofflander

Foreclosures bring house bargains

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, foreclosures rose to .99 percent during the first quarter of 2008, beating the previous high of .83 percent. In the same period, delinquency rate jumped to 6.35 percent, compared with 5.82 percent for the three months earlier.

While this hasn’t been good news for many homeowners, the resulting drop in house prices has been good for homebuyers.

To traverse the tricky world of home buying, we encourage you to contact an experienced home buyer agent.