Eau Claire Real Estate's Blog: All Categories

One of the great things about being a discount Realtor is that I deal with many clients who have had bad experiences with full-service agents. I've heard some pretty awful stories, as I'm sure both full-service and discount agents can attest. That is the nature of being in an industry with very low barriers to entry. But I digress. Here is another one, to be filed under "Ignorance, Unethicalness, or just plain Lying." 

At a recent listing appointment, the seller asked me whom he could use to have his home appraised. This made me curious, as it is usually the buyer...or more specifically the buyer's lender that requires the appraisal, not the seller. I asked why he wanted to have an appraisal done -- did he have an offer already?

My client replied that he…

All the sales stats for the first quarter of 2008 are in, and the differences in real estate trends between the various areas of Eau Claire continue to fascinate me. Many people in Eau Claire have found that there is a premium for homes in the South end of the city. Here are some highlights of an analysis I am working on to prove (or disprove) this theory:

Eau Claire's South Side -- Still Hot!

• 66 Residential homes sold in 1st quarter 2008
• 54 Residential homes below 200k sold in 1st quarter 2008
• 12 Residential homes above 200k sold in 1st quarter 2008
• Average Selling price of about 160k
• Average Days on Market: 148

Eau Claire's West Side: Sales Cool

• 35 Residential homes sold in 1st quarter 2008
• 29 Residential…

I've been working woth a young couple eager to buy a house on Eau Claire's South Side for the past month or so. Just in working with this one couple, I can cite numerous examples of the real estate market being very good on the South side of Eau Claire.

Early one week, the buyers emailed me a list of ten homes they wanted to see the following weekend. I checked the MLS and noted that four already had accepted offers. By the time the weekend rolled around, one more had an accepted offer. The buyers were not interested in getting into a bidding war because, hey, it's a buyer's market, right? So five were scratched from the list.

None of the remaining five seemed to match their needs, so they found 2 more for the next weekend. By the time the next…

In this market, only the most desirable homes priced correctly will get top dollar. If there are any aspects of your home that are viewed negatively by buyers, your home will rapidly move down their list of favorites. Recognizing that your home may be a tough sell is often half the battle.

A house I listed about a year and a half ago is a good example of this. It’s a nice home but needed a few upgrades inside. The kitchen had old vinyl flooring, there were 4 bedrooms but only one bathroom, and one of the bedrooms had flooring that looked suspiciously like asbestos tile.

It was also located adjacent to train tracks. Active train tracks. Upon which trains roll at all hours of the day and night.

Finally, the house had some issues with the city…

An interesting question came up from one of my listings a few days ago. There is a bedroom in the lower level of the home, which is below grade. There is an egress window in the room.

The owner of the home built a cubby approximately 10 feet wide by 5 feet deep in this bedroom with the intention of putting up doors and making that area the closet. However, the doors were never installed.

I listed the home as a three bedroom; I did not include the fourth bedroom downstairs because it did not have the closet doors. I assumed it was not an official bedroom.

The owner called me up and said he would prefer to have the home listed as a 4-bedroom. He also said he would install the closet doors if that was the only holdup to having his home listed as a 4…

Many of my clients ask questions about title insurance. Some common questions are:

Am I required to obtain title insurance? How much does it cost? Who should I buy it from?

The answer to the first question is yes, you pretty much need to buy title insurance to sell real estate in Wisconsin. Title insurance is the easiest and cheapest way to ensure that you are passing along a clean title to the buyer.

As for prices and whom to use, well, it varies. Most title policies are priced on a sliding scale based on the selling price of the home.

Since I am in the process of selling my own home, I thought it would be a good time to compare some local title insurance providers and help give you an idea of how much title insurance policies cost.

I…

FTC Charges Milwaukee Area MLS with Illegally Restraining Competition

 MetroMLS of Milwaukee, WI was recently charged with violating antitrust laws. Basically, the broker-owned MLS tried to push limited-service real estate companies out of business by not allowing those listings to be uploaded to Realtor.com and other web sites. Naturally, all listings from full-service realtors were allowed to be uploaded.

 The FTC viewed this practice to be blatantly anticompetitive. Exclusive Agency (limited service) listing contracts are perfectly legal in Wisconsin. The complaint alleged that MetroMLS acted anticompetitively by adopting rules and policies that limit the publication and marketing of certain sellers’ properties, but not others, based solely on the…

There were 24 residential homes sold in Strum in 2007.  That is still a substantial number of sales considering the population of the town is just over 1000! Real estate around Eau Claire did not experience a large price runup in the last few years, but that also means our market is more steady in slow times as well. Homes that were well priced sold in a reasonable amount of time for a decent (and still increasing) amount of money.

Here are the sales statistics for Strum 2007:

Number of residential homes sold in the Strum in 2007: 24

$  20,500     Lowest priced Strum home sold in 2007
$  270,000   Highest priced Strum home sold in 2007
$  103,934   Average price of Strum homes sold for in 2007
$  108,000   Median price of Strum home sold for in…