You might have caught this article today in the Star Tribune. It’s about the private north suburb community of North Oaks requesting that Google Maps remove photos of their properties from its Street View function. By the way, it’s a really cool feature that allows you to see photos from various street addresses. If you haven’t played with it, I encourage you to give it a try. If you’re house hunting, it’s yet another way to burn innumerbal hours on-line searching for your next real estate quest.

The gist of the article is that North Oaks contends no one can enter to take photos of homes without trespassing on their private property - thus making any posted pictures ill-gotten goods. Google complied with their request and took down North Oak maps. But if you read the electronic comments left by readers on the Star Tribune website, it seems the general public are not with the good people of North Oaks. Comments range from calling residents paranoid to accusing them of class warfare.

This surprises me. I mean, it’s private property and the folks in North Oaks pay for all the roads and infrastructure themselves. It seems well within their rights.

When I wrote the Neighborhood Spotlight column for the Star Tribune a few years back, I had to stand on the street and take pictures of homes as examples of real estate in a given place. I hated doing it.

I used to tell my editor, Jim, that he’d have to bail me out or visit me in the hospital should I end up in an altercation over the practice. Luckily, I never did, but I know I ruffled some feathers and got some stare downs from residents. But I knew I had the law on my side with public road under my feet.

In the case of North Oaks, there is no public space from which to photograph from. And if North Oakians want to exercise their right to privacy, I see no reason why they shouldn’t. In a world with paparazzi stalking celebrities at every turn and nothing is too sacred to throw onto the World Wide Web, I find it refreshing for a group to decide to opt out of it all.

If you want to opt out as well, the Star Tribune kindly provided these instructions:

HOW TO TAKE YOUR HOME OFF STREET VIEW

• Go to maps.google.com.

• Enter any address and click on “street view.”

• Click on “street view help” in the image window.

• Click on “report inappropriate image.”

What’s your take?

We took our home off the market this weekend. It may seem like we’re raising the white flag, but I’m not looking at it that way. After nearly 40 showings and no offers - not even an obnoxious low ball one - it just doesn’t seem to be happening at or around this price point. So we’re going to Plan B - renting.
As we had the house on the market to relocate for my husband’s job in Duluth, we plan to rent our house here and rent something up there. To be completely honest, this plan gives me a nice safety net. This way we could easily return to the Twin Cities should I not fall in love with Duluth as planned. I’d like to think I will and I’m going with a willing spirit, but if I don’t I’d like to fall back into this happy place I presently call home.

And if Cupid’s arrow strikes my heart, we hope to sell our house in an easier market next year or keep it as an income property for a while. Either way, it feels like the right thing at the moment.

So today I’m going to enjoy “staging back in” my bedside table with reading lamp, pictures on my refrigerator and taking a day off from primping my bed pillows.

But the best was telling the kids. The four-year-old first thought was that “the children can eat all the real estate candy.” True enough.

Hanging in our mudroom entryway

I never did get to met the previous owners of my house. They were living in assisted living at the time of the sale and have since passed on. All I knew was that they bought the house shortly after it was built in 1950 and when Mr. Peterson died, Mrs. Peterson remarried Dr. Peterson. There were no Peterson children and all I can tell you for sure is that that Mrs. Peterson loved the wall color purple nd light green for woodwork.

Now that my house is on the market, I’m getting used to people slowing down to give it a gander. When I see folks do this I always give a friendly wave, but the other day the ganderers actually drove into my driveway.

An older gentleman got out of the car and said, “My aunt and uncle used to live here…”

“Doug Peterson?” I said remembering his name from the real estate transaction paperwork. He and his wife had just attended a funeral for a family friend - a musician who had frequented the house and played many a jam session in the downstairs family room entertaining friends around the bar. Doug had driven by out of sentimentality.

Of course, I invited them in.

Turns out Doug had spent a lot of time at the house and even lived here for a while. He had planted many trees, participated in the kitchen renovation in the 80’s and showed me where there was once a second doorway in the first floor laundry. He told me how his aunt loved the sunporch and the extensive gardens she kept -all evidence of which were long covered with crushed rocks when we bought the place.

Doug inquired with interest about all the upgrades and repairs, admired the hardwood floors and concrete patio we laid and was most impressed that we used the front door. “I’ve been coming to this house for 60 years and never saw anyone use that front entryway,” he said.

As Doug was leaving, he turned and unexpectedly grabbed my hand covering it with his other, “You done good,” he said. “I’m proud of you.” And I know he meant it.

After receiving much critical feedback from Realtors touring clients through the house, I can’t tell you how good it felt to get Doug’s blessing. Nobody can declare you’re a good steward with the same authority as the former steward.

Lucie is a housing writer and reluctant home seller in the Twin Cities.

Chew toy treat dispenser

Now you’re probably wondering how this dog toy fits into selling my house. You may remember that we’ve had some problem staging out our Rottweiller, Scottie-dog. Of course, there’s not doubt that for showings he’s got to go.

When you’re buying a house you don’t want to see a dog, hear a dog or in anyway think that a dog resides in this house. There’s a universal truth at work here - your own dog is lovely, wonderful, a Lassie reincarnate, but the other guy’s dog - well, that’s plain disgusting.

I accept this. Consequently spending hours on end in the mini-van was bringing out uncharacteristic behavior in our dog - like eating our seat belts. So I went to my local big box pet store and left with a solution. It’s one of those indestructible Kong chew toys, but with the twist of specially shaped dog cookies you shove in there. As your dog chews on the toy, he’s rewarded for his efforts with a treat. It gives him a hobby to distract him from our tasty restraining devices - we all need a hobby.

What’s in the can? Well, that’s a pressurized meat product you can squirt in along with the treats for added interest - and you don’t even have to refrigerate it. (I know - Ewww, but do you know how expensive it is to replace seat belts?)

So now before a showing, no matter HOW busy I am, I sprint Scottie around the block and then load up his Kong with pressurized meat  & liver cookies before I stick him in the van. I wouldn’t say he’s delighted or anything, but he’s been better.

Don’t tell him, but I got the “senior” version of this toy (Note: the dog on the can is wearing glasses). This particular chewer is made of a slightly softer material giving him a better chance of getting at the cookies (which are lower fat for the old guys).

Scottie’s been sentenced to the van 4 times this week for showings. Honestly, It’s getting hard on all of us. After a month on the market and 30+ showings, I’m starting to really resent the process. It’s a real time suck. I’ve fallen off the staging wagon a bit, so my last showings took me a good three hours to pull the house together for. At that rate, I could have had a part-time job.

There are some reasons to be hopeful. I was reading a report put out this week by RealTrends.com which is listed on the site’s front page. Chew on this - it states that while home prices for April 08 are down 4.5% and sales are off 16.3% over 2007, it’s way better than last month. March’s prices were 7% down and sales were off 28% from the previous year.

While I’d hardly call that GREAT - it’s more like this sucks, but it sucks so much less than it did. Kinda suck-lite. Still I’m choosing to take this as a good news and root for suck-lite to turn into a full-blown recovery.

There is about a week or so in the spring where throwing crabgrass preventer (also called crabgrass pre-emergence herbicide) on your lawn will make any difference - AND THAT TIME IS NOW.

The product works by creating a chemical barrier over the ground. As the seeds germinate they take up the herbicide and die. Now this sounds easy enough - just throw some grains of herbicide in your lawn spreader and you’re good, right? Well, no. Even though the big box stores carry sacks of this stuff all season, if you put it too early it won’t be potent enough when the crabgrass actually germinates. Put it on too late and you’ve missed the early stage of germination when the preventer works.

So the magic hour is right around the third mowing of the season when the soil temp is about 52 degrees. It’s a little later this year given the cold spring so that’s why its better to remember the rule of between the second and third mowing than any date on the calender.

At first crabgrass doesn’t look all that bad - kinda like a thick bladed grass - but come August it will be a large ugly clump that lays down on your lawn and reseeds itself to spread the following seasons. In not too many summers, you’re grass can look pretty terrible.

So if your lawn has suffered from crabgrass in the past and you’re thinking about putting your house on the market later this summer, it’s worth the effort to take care of that crabgrass now. It loves the warms of pavement so you pay special attention to around walkways and driveways when you’re applying the preventer.

And if you don’t like using chemicals on your lawn, just pick it out early. It’s quite effective when you don’t have all that much crabgrass to begin with. You want to get it before it has developed those pitchfork-like seed heads though. If you grab it after it has developed seeds you’re likely to spread hundreds of them all over that nice big hole you’ve just made. George Dege, aka “Mr. Lawn” of Dege Garden Centers, said “You might as well be trying to cultivate ‘em!” He’s a colorful guy and his Garden Center in St. Paul is a venerable institution.

Source: I wrote a story about this subject in excruciating detail for the March 2007 issue of The Family Handyman magazine. The photo is from the University of Minnesota Cooperative Extenstion website. There’s lots of good information there about lawn and garden care.

When real estate news is reported on television or in the papers, it’s usually told as a national story.  Unfortunately, stories like these aren’t helpful for everyday Americans because real estate is not a national market. 

Real estate is local.

The graph above was used by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in a speech to Columbia Business School earlier this week.  Using data from conforming mortgage fundings, it shows the change in home prices from year-to-year on a county level.

Any county not in red increased in value. 

In other words, contrary to what reporters tell us, real estate is retaining its value just fine nationwide.  Aside from a few counties and states, most areas appreciated.

Graphics like this put important real estate issues in perspective.  Home values may falling precipitously in some areas, but those neighborhoods represent just a fraction of the country overall.

In most regions, home values are up.  Furthermore, even in areas where an entire county is highlighted in RED…that still means you need to do more localized research.  Housing values have dropped significantly in certain areas of Hennepin County, such as North Minneapolis or Brooklyn Center.  But, in certain zip codes of South Minneapolis (55410 & 55419) the average price of a home went up 7% from 2006 to 2007.  Eden Prairie had a 12% gain on Single Family Residences from 2006 to 2007, yet the whole county is highlighted in Red.

It is not all doom and gloom…I assure you.

So, be sure to know YOUR area, and be informed.  There are external factors that have an impact on what you can get for your home…but don’t let someone show you general market stats that don’t pertain to your home if you are trying to sell in this market.  And, do your own research.  Make sure that you know what is going on.  That way you can evaluate whether or not the Real Estate Agent sitting across from you at your dining room table knows what he or she is talking about.

According to the FBI’s 2007 Mortgage Fraud Report, more than 46,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud were reported last year.  This led to bank losses exceeding $813 million.

If you’re looking for reasons why mortgage underwriting is measurably more difficult in 2008 — add “mortgage fraud” to the list.  Lenders now perform extra scrutiny on each home loan application to protect against additional losses on all levels.

Mortgage fraud is a federal crime and exists in two basic varieties:

1. Fraud for Housing — Misrepresentation by a mortgage applicant for purposes of buying a home, usually related to income, assets, or debts.  The applicant intends to repay the loan as agreed.
2. Fraud for Profit — Coordinated misrepresentations by a group of people related to applicants, appraisals, loan documents and relationships between buyer and seller.  The applicant does not intend to repay the loan as agreed.

Although both are illegal, Fraud for Profit is most concerning to law enforcement officials and mortgage lenders.  That’s because Fraud for Profit tends to incorporate multiple loans for multiple homes in a single neighborhood. 

In other words, the bank’s potential loss is larger with Fraud for Profit schemes.

The photo above (from the FBI report) is from a Fraud for Profit home appraisal.  It indicated that the “recently renovated condominium” included Brazilian hardwood, granite countertops, and a value of $275,000. 

Clearly, this is untrue.

Despite increasing 31 percent, mortgage fraud growth slowed in 2007 as law enforcement agencies and mortgage lenders increased their efforts to identify and arrest perpetrators.

(Image courtesy: Federal Bureau of Investigation)

I’m starting to hear the rumble of real estate on the move. And it’s not just some abstract, “I heard from a friend…”. No, my agent, Tom has some real live clients who have been interested in a number of properties that have snapped up.

And get this — they got into multiple offer situation for a house in Richfield. The clients bid $12K over asking — and lost! The listing agent said they had 5 offers and that the $12K over offer was 3rd. 3rd!!

I wonder if the listing agent priced the house low as a catalyst for a bidding war. Bill Effros writes about this in his book, How to Sell Your Home in 5 days. The gist is to advertise your home for far less than market rate starting on Wednesday, offer tours all week and close bidding on Saturday. Jason and I talked about doing this strategy, but just seeing my house on the market for so much less than its worth made my stomach turn.

At any rate, that bidding wars are happening - heck, that BIDDING in itself is happening is encouraging for a seller like me. While I don’t expect to ride the crest of 7 years ago, I’m delighted that the playing field seems to be evening out a bit.

Seller’s Diary - taking staging outside

And as far as keeping you informed with our sale, we have a second showing tonight which means I have several hours of tidying and staging ahead of me. And we spent a good 15 hours on yardwork this weekend and it’s looking pretty spiffy. We planted shrubbery and annuals on our berm. ( I can’t even say shrubbery without thinking about Monty Pytho, can you?)

Our berm with young plantings. In a few years the plants will take over and make the berm blend seemlessly into the landscape.

What’s a berm? It’s just a mound of earth that’s covered with landscaping fabric, mulch and plants. It’s been a popular topic in recent years on shows like HGTV. It’s a way to get a little height variance in a yard and if you grow tall plants, it can provide some privacy around a patio. That’s partially what we were after, but mostly I didn’t want to pay someone to haul dirt away when we had our stamped-concrete patio poured. For the price of the clean-up, I could purchase the materials to create the berm.

Another thing we did this weekend was visit Mulch Mountain. That’s the mulch set out by communities created from their tree maintenance programs. While it’s not the beautiful clear cyprus mulch that we used on the berm, it has a lovely variegated look to it that works well in garden beds.

Tulips with free mulch and I see I need to weed more.

The kids love playing on Mulch Mountain and did I mention it’s free? Compared to the $2 bucks plus a bag I pay for the stuff at the home center, that’s worth digging little sticks out of my kids’ sneakers.

The one we went to was at the north side of Columbia Park at the playground parking lot in northeast Minneapolis. Call your city office to find out where free mulch lives in your area.

Lucie Amundsen is a contributor to the magazine, BackYard Living and others. She hopes to sell her home in enough time to start a garden at a new one.

Caution: This box EATS fliers.

“Buyers are NOT the Enemy, Buyers are NOT the Enemy…,” this is my new mantra.

My home has been on the market a few weeks now and I’m getting to that disenchanted point that sellers get to. It’s where staging the house for the 30th showing lacks the appeal that it did for the 3rd. You start out baking cookies for each one, then stuffing cinnamon bread into a toaster ’til around the 22nd showing when you leave your deodorant open on the counter and call it good.

While I wouldn’t classify it as seller’s fatigue just yet, the bloom is off the rose.

My first few days on the market I happily stuffed my brochure box with spendy color fliers. At the rate they flew out, I might as well been shoving Andrew Jacksons in there. 140 fliers later, I let it go empty for a few days - you know, to punish the brochure box. Right before my husband left for his out of town job this week, he printed out some black and white versions. He sensed I had stopped playing Stepford Seller Wife.

Honestly, I would have thought I was above taking the liquidation of my largest asset so personally - I mean, at the end of the day this is a business transaction, right? Well, turns out I’m no better than the rest of ‘em.

That a parade of people have come through my house and not SEEN the love and effort we’ve poured into it - well, kinda hurts. Their anonymous comments have been taramount to “Ya missed a spot!” and it makes you just want to grab them by the shoulders and shake. Note: Never never shake a buyer.

A friend whose house is also on the market read the blog and said he cheered out loud when I denied a Realtor entry to my house due to a scheduling mix-up. And after talking for a while, we figured it’s the feeling of powerless in this real estate game and loss of control over our lives that’s driving us to the edge.

The friend even talked about putting his home up for rent just so he could deny potential renters and make himself feel better, “Sorry, you’re credit rating didn’t quite work out..NEXT!” (Of course, he would never really do that, we were just commiserating. But selling and apparently buying does not bring out the best in people - myself included.)

Thankfully though word is starting to seep out that the housing market isn’t nearly as bad as the media says. I just read a report co-authored by Jeff Allen and Aaron Dickinson called, “Foreclosures and Short Sales in the Twin Cities Housing Market.” I think a more fun title would be, “The Sky isn’t Falling,” but you know…

The gist of this 5-page report is that if you were to take all the foreclosure and short-sale properties out of the equation, then plain vanilla sellers like me aren’t facing the 10% price thrashing that is being crowed out there. Instead it’s closer to 4% - a much more stomachable deal. I encourage you to read the whole report available HERE.

Lastly, I want to do a shout out of THANKS to blog readers. We got the Google stats for last month and it seems that actual humans are checking in - if only to witness my mental collapse during this relocation process. That’s okay, I totally get I’m a train wreck.

But I’m asking that you let me know what you like, what we could lose and generally not to be shy about leaving comments. I get lots of comments, but mainly from folks who are concerned about my sexual health. I check the comment area several times a day and promise to put up your comments even they tell me to get over myself.

Lucie Amundsen is a writer selling her home and feels her yard sign brochure box should have come with a flask inside.

It’s springtime. And now that the snow has receded and the lawn is growing in that’s when “dog spots” are most apparent.

What are dog spots? That’s your puppy’s favorite area to go do her business - and it shows. The acids and salts in the urine cause the area to die out in the middle and be encircled by a darker green grass. It’s more lush around the spot because the urine has been diluted by rain and has a lot of nitrogen it in.

If you see your dog favoring an area you can prevent full on dog spots by soaking it throughly. That will push the salts out of the grass’s root zone before it kills the grass.

But if you have spots now the only remedy is to replant that area. Don’t worry, it’s easy. Soak the patch to push down those harmful acids, then using a little hand rake, scrape up the dead grass and loosen the soil. Then sprinkle on a 1/2in.- thick layer of topsoil and pepper with grass seeds. Sprinkle on a little more topsoil and press it in a bit. Now your task is to keep the area moist - but not too wet - until the grass has grown to the height of 3 inches.
. . .

Credits: The photo is from here at drsfostersmith.com which sells a nutritional supplement they claim helps with dog spots; I have no idea if this works. If it does, let me know. I also want to tip my hat to The Family Handyman magazine where I first wrote about lawn care in their April 2006 issue.

Family Handyman freelance photograher Bill Zuehlke took this great picture at my house. You may recognize my dog, Scottie the Rottie. His thought bubble reads, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Poor guy, he didn’t even make that dog spot. I poured pee on my lawn for two weeks to get that look - yeah, I know. What I won’t do for a writing gig.

Lucie Amundsen is a housing writer, contributing editor to The Family Handyman magazine and happy Webdig’s client.