Take a look.

http://www.buyorsellminneapolis.com/p

The Armatage Neighborhood of Minneapolis is named in honor of Maude Armatage. Very involved in her community, she was the first leader of the camp fire girls in her area, involved in vounteering in community activities and one year after women received the right to vote, she stood for election on the park board and won. She later was elected commissioner of the park board. Armatage was the first woman to serve in an elected position in Minneapolis government. She was known for always dressing formally, in a hat and gloves. She was described as a tom boy and un-lady-like, a label she resented, she voiced her confusion and tightly fitting gender roles for women. She was criticized for playing sports, during a time when women did not play sports rougher than croquet. She died at age 94 in 1964. She was influential in the development of what is now the Armatage Neighborhood of Minneapolis, and also the Kenny Neighborhood of Minneapolis. Armatage Park is also named after her.
Search Homes for Sale in the Armatage Neighborhood of Minneapolis.

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Foreclosed home are a big chunk of today’s home market— a sad state that has affected many millions of home owners in the United States.
A survey unearthed great information about where the positive aspects might be fore buyers, how large they might be, and how quick and able buyers are seizing today’s market.
First time home owners compose nearly one half of all bank owned, als known as foreclosures homes and nearly forclosed homes, also known as short sales. Foreclosures also provide an oppritunity for investors and people looking to move up in their home ownership.

Buyers need to be be financially qualified and ready to buy. The best homes go fast. Buyers must be pre-qualified and have everything squared away with their bank to offer quickly, when they see their home come on the market.
Buyers must be motivated to compete successfully. Keller I urge buyers in this this home market to be clear about motivation on why they want to be a home owner and their wants and musts (size, location, condition, floor plan, etc.)

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Turn on any popular home network on cable TV and you’ll find a program on staging.
Re-arrange your furniture, pick a soothing color palette, clear out the family photos, and your home will sell faster, and for more money. Sound too frou-frou to be true?

It’s not! The soft and decorative side of staging is backed by hard facts.
Real estate agents like great-looking homes because they are easier to sell. Why is that important?

An agent’s job is to please their clients, and they will direct their buyers to the homes they think they will buy.
Agents talk to other agents who are also directing their buyers to the best homes on the market. An attractive listing will be shown more often, meaning more market exposure—critical for a quick and profitable house sale.
Staging is non-negotiable in many parts of the country. Staging a listing for sale in an area where the concept hasn’t caught on can give you an advantage, particularly if there are many unsold listings similar to yours on the market. Buyers gravitate to listings that look good and are in move-in condition.
Buyers are looking for value. When prices are flat or on the decline, buyers need to perceive that the house is worth the price.
Bottom line: staging is more than an exercise in tasteful interior design. It is a business decision that can have a huge impact on your financial return and timeline.

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Getting ready to get into the real-estate market?
Most sellers today are nervous and unsure. They wonder: is taking a loss on our house inevitable?
The answer is no! A strategic sales plan, coupled with a smart buy in your new location will ensure that you recoup the maximum value for your home.
Your Strategic Sales Plan
Consult with an expert, local real estate agent to ensure your house is priced competitively and well-staged. Why? Because while there are always three factors to getting a home sold—location, price, and condition—only two are under your control: price and condition. Of the two, which is more significant? Price. Remember that price will correct bad condition, but condition will never overcome a bad price.
Act fast. You’re in a race against time—the best price you’ll get in today’s market is the one you get now. If you wait, it will be lower. And every month the price on your home decreases, your costs remain the same. For example, Keller Williams research shows that sellers who listed their home at the price the agent originally recommended, sold the home 38 days faster. This is over a month of mortgage and tax payments! For a home that cost $200,000 at time of purchase, with 20 percent down and an interest rate of 6.5 percent, selling a month sooner results in a savings of $1101.31 for the mortgage alone, not including the taxes and insurance that the homeowner would be paying during this time.
Don’t worry about where the market has been, keep your focus on where it is going. The price your neighbor down the street got six months ago is not relevant in a market where your house is competing with others from all across town. Again, a local real estate agent will have the kind of long-term, wide-ranging data that will help you decide how to pinpoint your price with precision.

Your Smart Buy
Move up. Whether you are moving to an area where prices are in a downturn, or dreaming of nicer, bigger, home in your own town, selling your house now can get you into the home of your dreams. Falling home prices are a great opportunity for a savvy homeowner looking to move up. Even though your house price may be lower, the smaller loss at sale can be made up by greater savings at purchase. For example, let’s take that same $200,000 home, and imagine that it has decreased in value by 5 percent, reducing the sales price to $190,000. At the same time, let’s imagine that you would like to move up and the $400,000 home you have been eyeing has also decreased by 5 percent. That’s a savings of $20,000, and it is a home that is likely to be better positioned for appreciation when the market rebounds.
Bottom line: don’t pit yourself against the market, work with the market to get the most out of your house sale.

Your lender decides what you can borrow but you decide what you can afford.

Lenders are careful, but they make qualification decisions based on averages and formulas. They won’t understand the nuances of your lifestyle and spending patterns quite as well as you do. So, leave a little room for the unexpected – for all the new opportunities your home will give you to spend money, from furnishings, to landscaping, to repairs.

Historically, banks use a ratio called 28/36 to decide how much borrowers could borrow. An approved housing payment couldn’t be more than 28 percent of the buyer’s gross monthly income, and his or her total debt load, including car payments, student loans, and credit card payments, couldn’t be more than 36 percent. (In Canada lenders apply similar formulas to determine how much a buyer can afford. The Gross Debt Service ratio, or GDS, is not to exceed 32 percent of the buyer’s gross monthly income, and the Total Debt Service ratio, or TDS, is not to exceed 40 percent of the buyer’s total debt load.) As home prices have risen, some lenders have responded by stretching these ratios to as high as 50 percent. No matter how expensive your market though, we urge you to think carefully before stretching your budget quite so much.

Deciding how much you can afford should involve some careful attention to how your financial profile will change in the upcoming years. In the long run, your own peace of mind and security will matter most.

A new NAR research report
demonstrates a correlation
between homeownership and
social benefits for both families
and the community at large.
According to the research
detailed in the report, The Social
Benefits of Homeownership and
Stable Housing, homeownership
boosts the educational
performance of children,
encourages higher participation
in civic and volunteering activity,
improves health care outcomes,
lowers crime rates and reduces
welfare dependency.
The research also revealed that
most American households still
aspire to homeownership, which
helps families to accumulate
wealth as well as social status.
To read the full report, visit
www.realtor.org/research/
research/homeownershipbenefits.

One of the benefits many
homeowners enjoy is the
mortgage interest deduction
(MID). This tax deductibility of
interest paid on mortgages has
been an incentive for
homeownership since 1913.
Individuals can deduct interest
paid on mortgage debt of up to
$1million.
The deduction is available for
interest on mortgages for a
principal residence and one
additional residence. Sixty-three
percent of families who claim
the MID earn between $50,000
and $200,000 per year.
While the MID is a great
benefit, people usually don’t
buy homes only because of the
deduction. They buy homes to
satisfy social, family and
personal goals. However, an
NAR survey of home buyers
found that both first-time buyers
and repeat buyers ranked the
desire for tax incentives as an
important reason to buy.