The Saint Paul Condo Blog

It's time to "stimulate the economy"

Until the end of June, if you use your stimulus check towards your closing costs when you purchase a new home using us as your realtor, we will match it!*

So let your check go farther, and find a GREAT deal here in downtown!

*We will match a total of $1200 to be used towards your closing costs.  The Kleppe Group must represent you in the purchase of your condo or loft.  The property must close by June 30th, 2008.

Thursday's bond market has opened in positive territory despite the release of stronger than expected economic data. The stock markets are reacting positively with the Dow up 50 points and the Nasdaq up 40 points. The bond market is currently up 8/32, which with yesterday's late gains should improve mortgage rates by approximately .375 - .500 of a discount point over yesterday's morning rates.

There were two pieces of monthly data posted this morning. The first was March's Personal Income & Outlays report that showed personal income fell short of forecasts with a 0.3% rise but that spending rose 0.4% when it was expected to rise only 0.2%. That means that consumers spent more than expected and that is considered bad news for bonds.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released their manufacturing index for April late this morning. It showed a reading of 48.6, meaning that manufacturer sentiment remained unchanged from March to April. Anal ysts were expecting to see a small decline, so this report could also be taken as a negative towards bonds. However, the market seems to not be too concerned with it. Trader are probably waiting for tomorrow's data before making any moves.

The almighty Employment report will be released early tomorrow morning, giving us April's employment statistics. This is where we may see a huge rally or major sell-off in the bond market and large changes in mortgage rates. The ideal situation for the bond and mortgage markets would be an increase in the unemployment rate and fewer than expected new payrolls. Just how much of an improvement or worsening depends on how much variance there is between forecasts and actual readings. This could turn out to be a wonderful day in the mortgage market, but it also carries risks of seeing mortgage rates move higher if the Labor Department posts stronger than expected readings. Current forecasts are calling for a 5.2% unemployment rate and approximately 75,000 jobs lost during the month.

Tomorrow's second report and the last of the week is March's Factory Orders data at 10:00AM. This is a fairly important release because it measures manufacturing sector strength. It is similar to last week's Durable Goods Orders, except this report includes non-durable goods such as food and clothing. Generally, the market is more concerned with the durable goods orders like refrigerators and electronics than items such as cigarettes and toothpaste. This is why the Durable Goods report usually has more of an impact on the financial markets than the Factory Orders report does. Still, a smaller increase than the 0.2% that is expected could push mortgage rates slightly lower, while a larger increase will likely lead to higher rates. But, the employment numbers are of much more importance to the markets than this data is.

If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Float if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Float if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days... Float if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.

I know, it's not the ideal weather for "crawling" for art, but it helps support all of the local artists in town.

Check out www.StPaulArtCrawl.org for details

There's a good chance that I am at my computer while you are browsing the site.  To see if I am available, look over to the left,  if it says I am online, feel free to ask a question!

Starting in July, there will actually be uniform hours for the skyway grid!  Starting in just a few months, the skyway will be open until 2am.  This doesn't mean you will be able to get into the system that late, but if you were in a building that was connected, you can actually travel home from the bars without getting locked in a building.

There used to be uniform hours when the skyways first opened 20 some years ago, but like a lot of things in Downtown, the City neglected it.  Buildings started to just randomly shutting their place off and nothing was done about it.

The district council which represents downtown, starting to get complaints from residents that they were getting trapped in the grid, and it was impossible to know when a building would be locking the doors for the night.  It was nice to see the city actually take the issue up.

The bonding bill that included many projects for Saint Paul found the Axe yesterday, as our governor used his line-item veto power to cut just about all of the St Paul projects from the bill.

The biggest loser in my opinion is the proposed Central Corridor Light Rail Line that would have connected Minneapolis to Downtown Saint Paul. This connection would have greatly helped property values along the route, but especially here in downtown.  There are a lot of people who work in the "other" downtown and live here in St Paul.  It was slated for operation as soon as 2014, but that is likely out the window now.  Just about all of the major public transportation items were cut from the bonding bill.  It kind of makes me wonder "What did we do wrong"?

From TwinCities.com

A 20-year-old man is in critical condition after falling nine stories from downtown St. Paul's Galtier Plaza in an attempted suicide.

The St. Paul Police Department was called to the residential, office and retail building at 4:36 p.m. Sunday on reports that someone jumped from the tower on Jackson and Sixth Streets. The man, who is being treated at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, jumped from a 10th floor patio and landed on scaffolding from construction located one story above the sidewalk.

The man is believed to be a resident at Galtier Plaza, according to police.

Galtier is home to both the Airye Condominiums and On The Park condos, this incident took place below Airye, in the rental apartments.  I believe the scaffolding the young man landed on was set up for the buildings large glass repair.  The scaffolding likely saved his life.

Hopefully, he can get the help he needs!

OK, it's April 1st and after hearing on the radio that Ely, MN was being sold to the Canadians, I figured I had to at least attempt an April's Fools Day joke.

Now... Back to normal...

March was another banner month for us here at YourStPaulHome.com.  Over 22,000 page views, another record for site traffic.  I hope the traffic keeps up, because I've been very busy.  It's a good feeling to be busy when the market is supposedly down.

In the next few weeks (time permitting) I will be posting some price per square foot comparisons from years past.  I'll try to go a few years back to give some history on pricing for downtown.  I thought I would do the comparison by building again, since each building is almost a completely unique neighborhood.

Happy April Fools Day!

Looking through listings here in downtown and one thing becomes very clear.  There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for how taxes are assessed!

Here's an example. 

467 Sibley at the Dakota (one of the two level townhomes) just sold for $302,621 and the taxes for 2007 are at $4,142.  Giving you a tax rate of 1.37%

78 East 10th Street #508 (The Pointe) just sold for $92,000 and the taxes for 2007 are at $872 Giving you a tax rate of 0.94%

These are just a few of the examples that I have been finding in downtown.  I have been approached by homeowners and attorney alike trying to make sense of the tax methodology.  I have a feeling it's done like the childhood game of "pin the tale on the donkey" - blindfolded and full of... cake.