Just heard a rumor that a steakhouse company may be looking at one of the properties for sale in Uptown Hamel.  Stay tuned for more information. It would be fantastic to see something like this come to Hamel. Uptown Hamel has a lot of potential, but it has struggled in the past couple of years.
I enjoy following California real estate since I lived in the Bay Area for 9 years. Goldman Sachs has published an excellent paper on the housing troubles in California and predict that prices should fall between 35-40% over the next several years.
During my time in California, it seemed like there were many predictions like this. Real estate prices out there have always seemed disconnected from how much people make. While I think to say that all of California will see this kind of a drop might be a stretch. Certainly areas such as the Inland Empire in Southern California may see this kind of crash. It’s difficult to imaging this happening in the Bay Area.
The wild card here is obviously the unprecedented slowdown with sale volume down 50% plus the massive exposure they have to the subprime debacle. California may very well be the epicenter in subprime mess.
Time will tell if Goldman Sachs is right.  The report has some fantastic charts and graphs for those who are in to this. The do try to extrapolate some information for a more national view.
The Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC) just released the latest version of their hot sheet. Items worth noting include:
Stan O’Neal, former CEO of Wall Street icon Merrill Lynch was fired yesterday by the board of directors for his inability to manage the risk associated with buying and selling notes tied to sub-prime mortgages. Last week, Merrill Lynch announced the largest lost in it’s company’s history with the write down of over $7 billion in financial instruments tied to the mortgage industry. They lost nearly $8 billion overall for the quarter.
According to this story in the Financial Times, O’Neal walks with $160 million. Not bad for overseeing the loss of $8 billion which is real money and likely affects thousand and thousands of bond holders throughout the country.
This is a great example of how you can win for losing.
Congress is working on the Trail Lawyers Protection act to go after the mortgage brokers in the wake of the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. Now a Wharton professor is saying Realtors also played a role in this.
I am not here to defend Realtors. The way I operate is I have a couple of loan officers that I use whom I trust to do right by my clients. One works for Edina Realty Mortgage and the other works for Prime Mortgage. I like to keep an arms length relationship with my client’s financials. It’s more comfortable that way. I work with a lot of friends and associates. I really don’t need to know what their salary is or what kind of debt load they are carrying.
In order to put a successful real estate transaction together, the real estate agent must act as the quarterback and must have key members on his team that he can trust in order for this to work.
I’d like to ask where were these geniuses were during 2005-2006 at the peak of the subprime mania? Perhaps folks like Shanna Smith, president of the not for profit, National Fair Housing Alliance, as well as Wharton Professor Georgette Chapman Phillips were sounding their clarion calls back then, but I doubt it.
Everyone’s looking for the villian in this mortgage market collapse. Certainly there are many culprits. What’s interesting is the lack of responsibility they place on the individuals who took out these mortgages.
If you want to get to the problem, go to the source of the money – Wall Street. That’s where the problems originated, but the attorneys and the housing advocates won’t have much success going after them. Instead, they look at the multitude of opportunity to exploit good loan officers, real estate agents and their respective companies.
Don’t get me wrong, there were and continue to be some bad loan officers and real estate agents operating. The law should go after them if they have harmed consumers. But what appears to be happening is they want to open up unlimited liability for loan officers, mortgage companies, real estate agents and their brokers. In the end, many loan officer and real estate agents will be hurt in the process, but the ones who will feel the most pain will be the American home buyer and seller.
There have been noticeably more stories in the media about the future water shortage that is going to doom America. I don’t care for the way they tie this in to Global Warming. It would be better if they played the story straight.
Water shortages will be an issue and it won’t only affect Florida and California. We will feel its impact in Minnesota as well despite the vast number of fresh water lakes we have.
This will be an important battle in the future and one that will have a major impact on future housing developments as well as existing homes.
I stopped in the City of Medina open house this morning in Hamel and was mildly surprised about the turnout. There must have been 50-60 residents there along with city staff. Chad Adams, City Administrator, told me they had about 60 people show up on Thursday night’s open house as well. The city was pleased with how many people showed up.
The City of Medina is to be congratulated on how they handled these open houses. There were 8-10 different stations, each one manned by a city staffer. Each station had one component of the comp plan including sewer, water, wetlands, park dedication, staging, land use and highway 55 and other transportation issues.
The comp plan will need to be approved by the Medina City Council which may occur in Q108. It will then be sent off to the Metropolitan Council for their review and approval. If all goes as planned, this new 2030 Comp Plan will be completed by September 2008.
It’s my understanding that even once that plan is finally approved in the fall of 2008, the City of Medina is likely to put a moratorium on building and new developments for 6-12 months after that in order that the city can digest the new plan before moving forward.
I drove through the Bridgewater development in Medina this morning. (Bridgewater is located just west of Foxberry Farms. You can get to it by driving west on Highway 55 and turning north on Arrowhead).
I was curious to get a sense as to how fast the development was coming along. Certainly since the Charles Cudd Company sold off more lots to TJB Homes and LeGran Homes, the development appears to be making more headway. In part it’s looking more full because there are now 5 builders there so the risk is spread a bit when it comes to building spec homes.
There are 100-105 home sites available overall in this development. So while by my count there were 35 homes that were either completed or in the process of being built, that leaves another 65-70 homes to be built over the next 3-5 years.
This will act as an overhang of supply in Medina for some time as each one of these lots will be a home priced between $800,000 – $1,200,000.
For more on Bridgewater at Lake Medina, see my earlier post here. Below is a plat map of the development.
St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Hamel, MN.   This is a beautiful little parish at the top of the hill in Hamel. Fr. Kevin Magner is doing a terrific job as the new pastor there. If you haven’t been in there, take some time to stop in. The church has been completely redone on the inside. It’s a wonderful, peaceful place.
I have children who attend Providence Academy and we joke that if we show up to the Sunday morning 10 AM Mass, it’s the Providence Mass as so many families in attendance are from Providence.
Welcome to this beautiful custom two-story walkout on Lake Medina located in a cul-de-sac in high demand Foxberry Farms. This home offers luxury, privacy, spacious rooms and incredible views of the natural surroundings.
From the moment you walk in to 4085 Shorewood Trail, you will notice the impressiveness and quality of this home. The two-story foyer offers a dramatic entrance in to this grand home with access to formal dining and living rooms as well as the magnificent main floor office with its 12’ ceilings, floor to ceiling cherry bookshelves and bay window overlooking an architecturally designed landscape waterfall!
The home has a wonderful open floor plan with an incredible gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and beautiful cherry cabinetry.
The main level has an open floor plan. Enjoy the natural flow of the spacious family room, kitchen, nook and four season porch. This space is great for entertaining large groups or enjoying family life. The home sits high above Lake Medina providing fabulous views of the lake from each of these rooms.
The four season porch is unique as it was built at the time of construction of the home and has fully integrated rafters with the rest of the home. This offers a very solid feel and is not a bolt on porch. This room provides the “up north†feeling as it is surrounded by nature.
The home has an incredible service side of the property with an oversized mud room and closet as well as laundry room and pantry. This home was designed for today’s active families. To see a complete list of all the wonderful custom features and upgrades see this pdf file: 4085 Shorewood Trail Medina – Home Features.
Here’s the video tour of 4085 Shorewood Trail. Click here for the MLS listing.
With 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, 5484 finished square feet, 5-car garage and an incredible lot on a cul-de-sac on Lake Medina in Foxberry Farms, this luxurious, custom home is perfect for today’s active family!
Offered at $1,150,000 by John Murphy, Edina Realty. Call me at 763-443-9821 if you’d like to see this beautiful home.
This home also has an incredible 5 car garage which includes 10.5′ high ceilings, oversized garage doors, hot and cold water, cable TV, a telephone and an epoxy floor. There is also a stairway in the garage that allows access to the basement storage room. Below are pictures of the garage as well as the landscape waterfall that is just outside of the office and the view of the backyard.
