- Current Conditions : 28.6F / -1.9C, Overcast - 11:00 PM CST Feb. 3Temperature: 28.6°F / -1.9°C | Humidity: 96% | Pressure: 30.57in / 1035.1hPa (Steady) | Conditions: Overcast | Wind Direction: NW | Wind Speed: 5.0mph / 8.0km/h […]
- Saturday as of Feb. 3 5:41 PM CSTSaturday - Mostly cloudy in the morning then becoming partly cloudy. Areas of fog in the morning. Highs around 40. North winds 5 to 10 mph. […]
Interest Rates Fall Again
Published October 6, 2011 | 
Today the average interest rates for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage fell below 4%! For anyone who is on the fence about purchasing a home, this should be a huge incentive to get off that fence and buy!
As everyone knows the prices of homes have fallen. In many cases the prices are back to levels that we had in about 2000!
Both of these factors are definetly in a buyer’s favor and coupled with it being fall, (and winter around the corner), the buyer’s certainly have good reason to buy.
Fortunately for sellers the inventory of homes for sale in Hutchinson, MN continue to decrease which has helped to stabilized prices.
Goodbye to the MN Homestead Credit
Published September 21, 2011 | Late this past summer, Minnesota residents were relieved when our legislators finally got a budget bill passed and allowed our state government to get back to work. Now the surprises are surfacing about that very budget bill. One of the things contained in the final budget bill that was signed, is the elimination of the homestead credit for homeowners in Minnesota. Now, the legislators justify this action by saying that even though they eliminated the homestead credit, they put into the bill, language which will have county governments reduce the market value that our homes are taxed on.
It seems to me that our property values have been reduced on their own by market conditions. We didn’t need the legislators to attempt to make it look like they were going to help homeowners by reducing their taxable values in exchange for the elimination of the homestead credit. The other piece is, that it really doesn’t matter what the taxable value on our homes are, because our cities and county still need a certain amount of money to operate. So, if the taxable values are less, the county and cities will be forced to raise the mill rate, thus collecting the same amount of money needed to function.
There is talk among some legislators that when the session begins again they are going to try to repeal this part of the budget bill, so time will tell.
Real Estate Market Update
Published August 30, 2011 | | For the week ending August 20, Twin Cities home sellers continued to list fewer properties than last year at this time, as new listings were down 11.8 percent to 1,342. That makes for 11 consecutive weeks of (still welcome) declines. Meanwhile, buyer activity was up 53.3 percent over last year, the largest increase in 12 weeks and the 15th consecutive week of double-digit gains. Inventory has been a winner all summer, and we haven’t broken the positive pattern yet. A flurry of housing and employment reports due out this week could set the stage Although these numbers represent all of the metro area, Hutchinson’s real estate market reflects all these same trends. |
Life Estates
Published July 27, 2011 | Recently I have worked with a number of families who put their parent’s home in the children’s names with the parent retaining a live estate. This was done to protect the asset should the parent have to live in a care facility. Most of these families did this a number of years ago, and have forgotten that they even did this.
I just want to talk about some of the pitfalls to this strategy. The first one that comes to mind is that now when the home is sold, the children will be paying capital gains tax on the amount of money that they realize from the sale of the parent’s home.
Another pitfall is that if there has been a falling out with one of the children, it may be interesting for the family to get that family member to sign out of the property. Or maybe one of the children refuses to sign out of the property because they don’t want the money since they have to pay tax on it, or maybe they don’t think that the parent should be selling the house and moving. There are many reasons that conflicts arise in these situations.
My advice to all families is to consult with their attorney and accountant to make sure that the parent’s home is being held in title to the best advantage of everyone involved.
We’re Growing
Published July 13, 2011 | 
We are proud to announce that Diane Sorensen, Ryan Lickfelt, and Traci Atkinson have recently joined us as sales agents. As you might remembert, Diane and Ryan worked for us previously and we are pleased to welcome them back.
All of these agents have been in the real estate business for many years and bring with them extensive knowledge and experience.
The addition of these three agents helps us in achieving our goals as well as helping us to continue to give the best possible customer service to the buyers and sellers that we serve in the Hutchinson and surrounding area.
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