Just listed: This wonderful, 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 3-stall (heated) garage is listed in Farmington. This home is priced competitively at $219,900. It is a corner lot, with very nice views of the community pond and fir-trees from the back deck. 19298 Evening star way has a nice open floor-plan, vaulted ceilings on the main floor, a 3-point (optimal design) kitchen with a center island, a walkout deck and a nice contemporary,  exterior design with low-maintenance siding. To view the full property description, see additional photos and take the video tour, click here.

This home is turn-key and ready to go.

Pre-lists (homes coming on the market): 2 in Edina, priced between $400K, and $600K, and 3 in Southwest Minneapolis – Linden Hills and Fulton neighborhoods, priced between $300K and $800K. Most of these sellers are open to pre-list showings, so if you’d like to see any of these homes before they go on the market, please call or email.

Now that the super bowl is cleared, February is here, and all we need are a couple of 40-degree days. Those are the factors that traditionally bring about the ’spring housing market’ in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

It appears that with the continual decline in the Miami condo market (perhaps one of the if not the worst hit real estate markets in the country), investors have been watching and waiting for the opportunity to get back into this market. Like when gold drops to below $300, or oil below $55 per barrel, when condos in good locations drop to very low numbers, the investors re-enter the market. I suspect this time though, their reasoning is much more sound. Eventually commodities get so low in acquisition price, that savvy investors seem to simultaneously think, ‘opportunity’!

One complex alone has sold more than 120 units in 6 weeks time.

I have been seeing something on a much smaller scale, but yet somewhat similar in the Southwest Minneapolis, downtown Minneapolis and Uptown Minneapolis condo markets: Very low pricing (primarily due to short sales and foreclosures…due to a condo glut thanks to overbuilding and apartment conversions), and now somewhat of a buying frenzy for condos in good locations, under $150K. Howver, most of these buyers are not investors, but smart first-time homebuyers.

Either way, it is good to see them being bought, which to me is one more indicator of an at or near bottom for the lower-end, or ‘chaff’ markets.

Whereas I can see the  possibility of this in certainly markets, this would not be a universal, across the board mortgage crisis. Some metro areas are in much better shape than others. For example: the Detroit and Las Vegas areas will be offsetting the curve a great deal (in the negative), while other areas such as the Minneapolis area housing market, or the Dallas and Salt Lake City Housing markets are in much better shape.

It will be quite interetsting to see how this plays out, and I certainly hope Deutsche Bank is wrong in their prognostication for early 2011.

My advice if you are buying a home in the Minneapolis area housing market: if you can (depending on your price-point), buy your next home in Southwest Minneapolis, Edina and sometimes West Bloomington areas.

Key areas of stabilzation are: fewer listings, higher closed-sales activity, less days on the market for active listings, better affordabiltiy (indexes), and still low lending rates.  Of course the upper-bracket listings in the entire Minneap0lis-area is a different story, especially at $1 million dollars-plus, but stabilization does not start at the top. At this point, stabilization will have to start at the lower-levels through the middle, and eventually work its way upward, as more sellers are freed up from their homes, and can then make their next move to upsize.

We still need the banks to work on a better jumbo-mortgage product, in order to help stabilize the upper-bracket.

Overall though, we are seeing legitimate, good news. Let’s hope we do not see any further shoes drop in the economic sector. For this to happen, we need less government spending, lower taxes, and stabilization in employment sectors. Of course this is not happening, and this is the current forseeable trouble on the horizon.

This means that if you should be targeting and seeing homes with your realtor now, as the final target date (best-case, last-minute scenario) is only about 70 days from now, if you would like the free, $8000.00 from the fed, just for buying a home. This would be a sad tax credit (actual cash in pocket, not a deduction) to miss out on, if you have been seriously thinking of purchasing a home.

How would you like 8 of these $1,000.00 notes?