Safely Weed & Feed Your Lawn!

Corn Gluten is the only non-synthetic weed & feed available. It should be applied to your lawn in the next week to kill germinating seeds. The weed effect will last for 5-6 weeks, it will then sink into the ground, provide nitrogen and act as a fertilizer. Some folks re-apply corn gluten when more dandelions emerge. Children and pets can safely be around this product at any time. Thanks to Mother Earth Gardens for this tip!! This is a patented product and is not currently widely available. It is available at Mother Earth Gardens

Market Activity Report

From the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors:

For two years, home buyers in the Twin Cities housing market have behaved like medieval kings—looking down upon their vast and glistening kingdom of available homes for sale with a calm and dismissive eye, slowly selecting their properties without hurry or haste. While their reign is not yet over, there are some noticeable cracks in the walls of their castle.

Sellers are not putting homes on the market with anywhere close to the frequency with which they did the last four years. For the week ending April 19, there were only 2,152 new listings, down 19.6 percent from the same week last year. This marks the sixth week in the last seven with a double-digit percentage drop from 2007. The slowdown in buyer activity has also shown signs of abating, as the number of new purchase agreements signed for the week ending April 19 was 893, only 3 units behind the total of 896 seen this week last year. This is the second straight week of relatively flat year-over-year pending sales activity.

However, it's important to bear in mind that:

1) foreclosure and short-sale activity is taking up a larger portion of our overall market activity than it did previously, which has the effect of propping these numbers up a bit, and

2) we're still 39.8 percent behind our 2005 sales pace from the end of the boom cycle.

But flattening overall supply (only up 0.4 percent from this time last year) and encouraging trends in sales figures should serve as welcome signs that the market corrections we've experienced in the last two years are taking a turn. Some semblance of order may very well be restored to the "kingdom" in the next year.

Click here for the details

Rates are Exactly the Same as Last Time!!

Really - just check out the rates that I posted on April 19th those are the same rates for today. Have a great week-end.

Impoved Rates!

There was favorable re-pricing of rates for the week-end.

Fixed Conventional

30 Year - 6%
20 Year - 6%
15 Year 5.5%

FHA/VA Fixed

30 Year FHA - 5.875%
30 Year VA - 5.875%

Interest Rates Creep up....

Here are today's rates from Burnet Home Loans

Fixed Conventional

30 Year - 6.125%
20 Year - 6.00%
15 Year - 5.625%

Fixed FHA/VA

FHA 3o Year - 5.875%
VA 30 Year - 5.875%

April Contest

Market Activity Report

From the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors:

Spring inventory growth remains staid in the Twin Cities housing market as the annual influx of new properties for sale has not been as rambunctious as the levels seen over the last few springs. The total number of homes for sale in the metro area currently sits at 31,615 up only 3.0 percent from the same time last year—the lowest such year-over-year increase for some years. Home sales remain relatively slow as well, with newly signed purchase agreements (pending sales) from the last three months trailing the same period last year by 16.6 percent.

This week's edition of the MAAR Weekly Market Activity Report features an updated Housing Affordability Index (HAI) for April. The HAI fell slightly to 155 due to a seasonal increase in home prices in March but remains a healthy 16.6 percent above where it was two years ago. Softening prices, motivated sellers and a continuation of historically low interest rates have dramatically improved the affordability picture in recent months.

Interest Rate Watch

Rates are generally hanging around 5.5% to 6%. Here are the rates for today.

Conventional Fixed

5.75% 30 Year
5.5% 20 Year
5.15% 15 Year

FHA/VA Fixed

5.5% 30 Year FHA
5.5% 30 Year VA

City begins land sale cancellation for Phillips biomass facility

This story is from council member Gary Schiff's 9th Ward E-News.

The proposed biomass facility at 22nd Ave South near 28th Street East. The East Phillips neighborhood is home to an arsenic contamination EPA Superfund site.
The Minneapolis Public Works director has determined that a March 30th deadline needed to maintain a land sale option for a proposed biomass facility in Phillips has not been met.

Specifically, Public Works Director Steve Kotke says the development lacks a power purchase agreement with Xcel Energy.

In a statement, Kotke wrote "Even though (the developer) has supplied Xcel with considerable materials in their application for a power purchase agreement, they are still in the process of negotiating the terms of a power purchase agreement and no tentative agreement has been reached."

Kotke states that his department will begin the process required to cancel the land sale. Under Minnesota law, the city must notify the purchaser of the intent to cancel the agreement, and also provide an additional 60 days for the buyer to fulfill the contract. According to city Attorney Susan Segal, "Minnesota statute 559.21 requires the seller to provide notice of the cancellation to the potential purchaser and allows the purchaser a period of, in this case, up to 60 days to cure the default. The statutory cancellation process provides a method to insure clear title and to terminate any rights of the potential purchaser under the contract."

Jullonne Glad, an organizer with Minneapolis Residents for Clean Air cautioned that the issue is not over yet. “This is really good news. But we’re still concerned that there is an additional 60 days for the developer to comply with the terms. It is still important for us to communicate with Xcel and the City Council the dangers that this facility poses in our community. We also need to educate the community as to the economic and health affects that this may cause.”

In other developments, south Minneapolis State Senators Linda Berglin and Patricia Torres Ray added language to a bill that directs the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to “analyze and consider the cumulative levels of past and current pollution from all sources” before issuing a permit to the plant. A final vote on the bill has not been scheduled.

The proposal to convert a former municipal incinerator into a 21-megawatt biomass energy and district heating facility garnered opposition after public hearings held by the MPCA last fall. Opponents site a technical specification document released by the MPCA that states the burner could emit up to 1 million pounds of pollutants annually, including nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, arsenic and lead.