A Strange Year

After doing this real estate stuff for as long as I have, you tend to expect certain things at different times of the year. Generally, everyone gears up for a busy spring market, followed by a typically good summer market. Then when fall comes, the buyers become more choosy and mainly look for good deals. Winter is normally slow in Minnesota, so then we just get ready for spring again.

But the last few years - and certainly this year - it is hard to judge just what to expect in any given month. The economy has dealt nearly everyone a blow, so it is not surprising that people are a bit more cautious. But what is most surprising to me is the amount of interest we are seeing from potential buyers looking for properties online...yet not really making contact with agents or looking at homes in person.

The number of visitors on our website has increased tremendously, so I can only assume that most of those people have the financial ability to purchase a lake property of some sort. Perhaps, everyone is just trying to make sure that prices have bottomed before they jump in.

I don't know if we are at the bottom or not, but it sure feels like prices can't really go much lower. It seems like a lot of sellers are deciding to pull the plug, and just take their homes off the market until things change. Generally, that is a pretty strong indication that we have hit a bottom, so we'll see.

If you are a serious buyer and just waiting for the perfect time to get out and find that perfect lake place, I don't think you will ever see a better opportunity to pick up a great value on a waterfront home or cabin. But unless you get out there and see a few of them in person, you may never know for sure.

Price Dips aren't Permanent...and Neither are Dips in Cabin Floors

Much of the lake cabin stock of Minnesota and Wisconsin is getting up there in age, closing in on the 100 year mark. And the northern winters, with frost as deep as six feet, have a tendency to make a few adjustments in these structures - many of them built as seasonal abodes just a level or two higher in quality than the even more seasonal hunting shacks that adorn the northern woods.

Our forefathers - and foremothers - were resourceful when it came to constructing the family lake cabin, and generally used materials that were most readily available. Quite often, those were the trees that had grown up on the surrounding land. And since many of them needed to be removed to create roads and open spaces anyway, using that timber for joists and studs killed two birds with one stone.

Spruce logs and rough-cut dimension lumber (in many odd dimensions not available at your local lumber yard) were not quite as sturdy as the kiln-dried variety used today - and foundations were sometimes only as deep as the nearest rock or tree root to the surface. But who cared about a little bounce or shifting here and there? These places were meant to have fun, and late night drinking parties would cause the floors to seem uneven anyway. So as long as the inhabitants were a half a bubble off, the floors might as well be that way, too!

Back in the twenties and thirties there were still a lot of choices out there when it came to finding a good place to throw up a lake cabin. Even on the most high priced lakes of today, you could find perfect sandy beaches on large acreage plots nearly anywhere you wanted...and at prices even lower than they are this year.

As time progressed the lakes became more developed, and some of those historic cabins disappeared in favor of more modern - and much larger - "lake houses" that took their places. But one intriguing aspect of old cabins is their rustic and authentic charm that is very difficult to replicate, so many of those original cottages grew over time to become "lake houses" themselves through a process called "adding on," which helped retain a bit of the original character that gave the place its ambiance. Sometimes, though, the "adding on" only occurred on the sides and the top of the original structure...and not underneath. And when you increase the mass of any object, without beefing up its support mechanism, something will generally give.

There are two phrases that I've heard more than any other from prospective buyers over the years, as I have driven them from one house or cabin to the next, in search of the perfect combination of lake home; lakeshore type; lake size and quality; lot size; and likely lifestyle they may find in this location.

The first phrase is more often related to actual lake home buyers and goes like this: "If we could just move our house to this lot, it would be perfect." Since I know they are transferring in from Pittsburgh, I find it hard to believe they would pay the transportation costs of their entire home for that distance, so I just drive on to the next property on our list instead of getting off track checking on UPS charges for something like that.

The other common comment comes from lake cabin buyers, and it makes quite a bit more sense than the first one: "We already have a house; we want something that feels like a cabin." What they are really saying is, "Find me one of those places built 80 years ago filled with character. But, since I don't have the knowledge or the time to fix it up, find me one in good shape."

Because a lot of lake cabin buyers do like the true cabin feel, and because a lot of those early cabins also have some of the most prime sandy lots due to their original owners getting in at the head of the line, the older structures are attractive. But there can be a few issues that need to be taken care of, and one of them is dipped or sloping floors.

This is certainly a roundabout way of getting to the main subject matter of this article! But now I'll try to keep on track.

If the place has been there for a long time, it is probably done moving. It may still head up and down a bit over the freezing and thawing seasons, depending on if you leave it heated or not over the winter. But it should pretty much settle in again at the same level once the frost retreats.

There are a couple different methods you can use to bring sagging or sloped floors back to a more level state, and one may be better than the other depending on access to the floor joists and quality of flooring currently in place. Also, if those dipped floors are on the second story, it is quite difficult to adjust the entire house from the bottom up without affecting most of your doors and windows at the same time.

Whatever method of adjustment you decide is best, you should first make sure that everything is solid under the structure. Sometimes you will find cracked or rotten floor joists that need to be replaced or given extra support. Don't add any more weight onto an already faulty infrastructure.

Once you know everything is solid below, then you can begin to bring your floors back to level. If there are minor sags and soft spots on the main floor, and you can easily get under the structure, you can use jacks to slowly bring up those areas to the correct height, and then re-support each of those spots. You may have to do this over time, as wood doesn't not like to make any quick decisions in changing its shape (unlike people, who make quick decisions on changing their shapes for the better, but don't often follow through with it). But if you have the patience, you will typically be able to get your floors quite level again with this procedure.

Another method of leveling is to remove the underlayment and subfloor in the areas affected and either add new, straighter joists, or scab onto the ones that are there. You may or may not have to do this throughout the entire room, but it can be a lot of work if you have a large area to repair. And if it is an upstairs area of the house or cabin, you may run into insulation, plumbing and electrical wires between the floor and the ceiling below, so you have to use a lot of caution in this process.

Fortunately, there is one other method that is not as intrusive as the removal of the flooring system. Instead, you can find your highest spot in the floor and build your floor up to that level. Essentially, it creates a new subfloor over the old floor, and stiffens everything up along with making it level again. You will lose about a half inch of height in that particular room, but unless you are already nearly seven feet tall it should not affect you much.

You will first need to run a straight-edge from the high point to other areas of the room (a long straight board should suffice), and then run a level on top of that to see what thickness of shimming will be required to raise the floor. Then, figure out the surface area of the room for your new layer of flooring. If you are going to run carpet, floating floor, linoleum, or a similar finished flooring product, then a half inch layer of plywood works well for your new underlayment. So now you just have to figure out how much of it you need for the entire room, and what other materials will fit underneath it to support it all.

Once you've figured out the difference in height from the high point to the low point of your floor, you should use sheets of plywood, OSB, or another product in various thicknesses ranging from 1/4" to the total thickness needed, or be able to stack them to get to that thickness. So, if you have a 2 inch drop, you might want sheets of 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" and 3/4". Then use small pieces of each thickness to slide under your straight-edge to see what the actual total thickness is needed to support that 1/2" plywood sheet just perfectly, then measure the distance needed for each thickness before it begins to push the straight-edge up again. You should also have a couple bundles of 1/16" construction shims, which are 3 foot long strips of cardboard that can be stacked to fill any thinner gaps.

If you have a large drop in the floor, it is easier to build the floor back up throughout those regions with larger sheets of plywood, and then run two inch strips of your shim materials over that new surface to fill in the remaining gaps. Smaller dips can be remedied more easily with just using the correct thickness of shim strips off of the existing floor. You should run each strip no more that about 6-8 inches apart to give the best support to your new layer of flooring. If you go much wider than that, you will tend to get some bounce between those new shim supports.

When all the shims are in place and level, you can put down your new layer of flooring with subfloor screws no more than one foot apart throughout the surface. Make sure you run the screws directly into the shims, instead of the gaps between the shims, so you don't pull down on the unsupported areas of your new floor. Now you can add your new baseboard, and trim any doors that may be too tight with the higher level of flooring. You will find that your bounce in the floor will be gone, and it will feel like a new room.

I've shown lots of interesting cabins over the years that had similar issues to those we have talked about here. With the right materials, and a few days of focused determination, you can have that rustic and charming lake cabin...and level floors to boot!

Important Note to Lakeshore Sellers

In the old days it used to be easy to choose a real estate agent to sell your lake home or cabin. You just needed to call a few in to give you a price, and then pick the one you liked the best. Most everyone had the same marketing plan:

1. Put up a sign
2. Advertise in the newspaper
3. Advertise in local real estate guide
4. Put in MLS (if available)
5. Do open houses
6. Take calls
7. Get offer
8. Go to closing

And a lot of them wore cheap suits and drove Lincoln Continentals, so it was hard to opt for one over another based on appearance alone.

Once in awhile an agent would even promise to go knock on neighbors' doors to see if they knew of anyone interested in buying a place on your lake (not a bad idea). Some would promise to make fancy brochures that they would leave on your kitchen table, and even put up a brochure box at the end of your driveway (which many times would end up being empty). Or an arrow or two out on the road (which many times would end up missing). And when the seller called the office to complain about some of these promises not taking place, there was no voicemail to leave a nasty message on...only a receptionist with a little pink notepad.

Those were the good old days!

But now, life has become complicated. Most people who own lake homes and lake cabins have been there for awhile. They aren't as versed in a lot of the new technologies that seem to inundate us each day. And to think about Twittering to create a successful sale, or spend a good part of each day social networking with strangers - hoping to find one who is the perfect match for your waterfront real estate - might send shivers down your spine.

Truthfully, I don't know what works and what doesn't any longer. What I do know is that nearly every real estate agent boasts about having multiple websites they can display your property on in hopes of attracting an interested - and qualified - buyer. Some of them say your listing will be on nineteen sites, others promise it will show up on 29 of them, but most of them have no idea how they really get there...or if they ever do. There are all kinds of automated feeds that send listings to everywhere these days, but they may or may not be an effective means of marketing, since buyers still have to find them...and then also find your property on them.

I also know that if I spent my day trying to Twitter my listings away, I probably wouldn't sell too many. It might be like knocking on doors all day trying to find just the right buyer for each property. And that doesn't seem real efficient to me either.

When it comes right down to it, selling real estate really hasn't changed all that much. There are only a few things that are important in creating the sale, and here they are:

1. Price your property corectly (in this market it is more important than ever).
2. Clean up clutter and fix anything that needs fixing inside and out.
3. Think about where your ideal buyer might come from. If you have a lake property, most buyers will be from somewhere else, and they may not even know for sure where they want to end up. To find these types of buyers, widespread - and targeted - exposure is the name of the game.
4. Choose an agent who will be honest with you and get you the type of exposure that will put you in front of that ideal buyer.
5. Hope for the best!

In over 20 years of selling lake properties in many parts of Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, I have always tried to be as upfront and honest with potential sellers I possibly can be. I probably missed out on quite a few listings where I was too honest, whether it had to do with realistic pricing or just getting rid of the orange shag carpet. Not everyone wants to hear the truth, but you are not hiring me to be a liar. It won't do either one of us any good in the long run, and you will most likely still be in the lake home that you didn't want to be in any more - putting the dock in an out, raking the beach, fixing the plumbing...and maybe even replacing mechanicals that start to wear out along with your 732 day old listing on the MLS.

As much as possible, I have tried to get my agents to follow these same guidelines. As a company we don't get all the listings we interview for, but we generally still feel good that we gave the seller the best information possible to make a well-informed decision.

There are all kinds of reasons sellers choose to work with - or not to work with - certain agents, from personality conflicts to some of the other issues I have touched on here like pricing and condition. But when it comes right down to it, you still have to get that perfect buyer to your door one way or another, so your main focus in choosing how you will go about that should be on the best marketing plan for your particular property in this day and age.

Lakehomes.com is one of the most widely viewed waterfront real estate websites in the entire country because of its simple and highly targeted name, along with incredible search results. Not only that, but it has the information waterfront buyers are looking for, and it keeps bringing them back. And if your listing is in Minnesota or Western Wisconsin, you can't find a better place to expose your lake property to an incredible amount of likely buyers each day.

The graph at the top of this article represents our page views from visitors to our site each day since the beginning of 2009. As you can see, we have gone from about 1,000 views per day to over 20,000 views a few days ago, since our numbers started climbing in February. That's a 2,000% increase in traffic in just the last few months.

For the most part, those aren't buyers looking for in-town starter houses, horse farms, convenience stores, or condos for sale along the boulevard; they are lakeshore buyers looking for places like yours! While most other websites include the above property types along with their waterfront offerings, Lakehomes.com makes it easy for lakeshore buyers to find exactly what they want without having to filter through all the other things they don't. Because of that, we also make it easier for those buyers to find your lake home, cabin, lot or resort when it comes time to sell it.

The National Association of Realtors found that 87% of buyers were now using the Internet to find real estate information online in their November 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. If that many people are out there searching online overall, and if that many targeted ones are showing up on our site each day, isn't that where you might want to be, also?

Like I said earlier in this article, selling real estate has really not changed all that much over time. It's just a matter of using common sense to figure out how to get your property noticed by the most possible likely buyers for it once it is properly priced and well-presented. Whether that is on Twitter, through the local newspaper, or handing out flyers door to door, I don't don't know the answer. But some people are having pretty good luck with that on Lakehomes.com!

Giving Visitors What They Want

Over the last several months you have probably recognized some pretty drastic changes with this website. During the past thirteen years, we have brought the Lakehomes.com name from one of the first online niche real estate destinations to a regular stop for those who are thinking of buying or selling lake properties in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.

As a visitor, your main purpose of using this site - or any site for that manner - is to get the information you want. And...you want to be able to get it without a lot of work. Our goal has always been to fill that need to the best of our abilities.

In February, Lakehomes.com took on a new look. Instead of just being a website for Lakehomes.com Realty and its agents, we decided to blend the site with both agents from our own real estate company and local experts from other companies who could give you the best information and service possible. So, instead of just seeing agents from Lakehomes.com Realty on our site, you may find those from Edina Realty, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams, or any other company where we have teamed up with a local expert who we feel can give you the lakeshore expertise you need.

It is a great combination effort. And whether you are a buyer or a seller, you can be assured that you will be able to connect with a real estate agent who understands the local market - or markets - you are focused on.

From everything we are seeing, it is exactly what you are looking for. The number of visitors on the site has increased about 400% since mid February, and our page views have seen about a seven-fold boost. In these days of "way too much information," it seems we are providing the refined data that people are looking for...at least as far as waterfront real estate is concerned.

We will continue to grow into more markets - and provide more localized information and expertise - as we move ahead. But whether we remain a great informational lake property website for Minnesota and Wisconsin, or a national brand, we promise to continue to bring you the information that you are looking for as best we can.

As we continue on our quest to be the ultimate waterfront real estate portal, we intend to add business directories, rentals, and other services to help you find all the information you need in one online destination. So when it comes to lake properties, and information on the areas surrounding them, you shoudn't have to go anywhere else - other than Lakehomes.com - to find exactly what you need!

What's Up...Dock?

Back in my early days on Rainy Lake I had a construction company called The Dock Doctors, and to go along with that I acquired the nickname Dr. Dock because of my many years in the business. With the big 5-0 starring me in the face tomorrow, I guess I was reminiscing a little about those simpler times more than thirty years ago. Or it could be that the pain in my back is making me think about it.

During my real estate career, I have had plenty of opportunities to strike up conversations with clients about different types of docks, and the benefits or drawbacks each one might provide. Roll-in docks and sectional systems are the most common on the majority of Minnesota lakes, with a permanent dock on pilings evident here and there. And of course you see a lot of floating docks used for add-ons, swim rafts, and even for the entire platform now and then.

But to my surprise, most people south of the larger lakes up north have never heard of crib docks, which are what I spent most of my dock building days specializing in. And last weekend I got to experience the combination of increasing age and decreasing strength, as I spent two days dismantling decking and timbers that had become a bit skewed from shifting ice over the course of the winter - and then rebuilding the crib to its former level status.

To build a crib dock from scratch, you need an ample supply of larger rocks and boulders that you can find at the bottom of the lake and then dive underwater to pull them out. If they are too heavy, you will drown if you don't let go of the rock on your way up to the surface; if they are too light, they won't do much to hold the crib down. So, it is important to find the ones that you can just barely lift out of the lake and into the crib or an adjoining platform.

You should also be careful to not drop the rocks on you as you are struggling with them on their way to the surface. Many times there is a good supply of slime attached which makes them kind of slippery. But I've learned that the slime doesn't seem to matter as the rock heads back down to the bottom crushing your toe in the process; it always seems to land quite directly instead of slipping off your foot painlessly.

If your rock supply is intact, you can then decide where to place your cribs. A crib is simply a grouping of timbers of certain lengths criss-crossed back and forth with the boulders thrown inside it to hold it in place. It is kind of like a Lincoln Log fort, but there are spaces in between each of the timbers that run in the same direction. Once you get your crib level and at the proper height, you can then run your stringers to place the decking on top of.

The nice thing about crib docks is that they are much more sturdy than temporary dock systems. If built correctly there is very little bounce, and they make a great place to position tables and chairs out over the water. Because you don't have to remove them each year, you can create wider areas for entertaining that may be hard to do with other dock systems, as long as state, county and local governing codes allow it.

But crib docks also have a negative side to them. With wide expanses of water - such as the three miles across to Canada at our Rainy Lake cabin - ice flows sometimes take their toll on these creations. And high water levels can also be quite damaging when five or six foot waves are added to them.

So, back to this past weekend. Right after I had gotten all this bull work done, and got the rebuilt crib level and the stringers in place, I heard a crunching noise along the edge of the dock. Thirty mile per hour east winds were moving the entire ice flow, and piling up ice at a rapid rate. And my perfectly level crib was no match for its power.

To my dismay, the ice lifted up the crib - rocks and all - and slid it over about two feet to the west, lifting it up on top of a larger boulder protruding from the bottom of the lake. Needless to say, that crib is no longer level, and those two days of exercise may have been only an exercise in futility for the time being.

But, it is only a couple months until the water warms up enough to go diving for more boulders. So even with another year under my belt, I'm guessing it will be good as new by July!

A Tale of Two Cities

I was in the Twin Cities last week and I was a bit surprised to see that the ice was out on many of the lakes around there. Although I didn't see many boats out on the waters yet, that time is fast approaching.

On the other hand, Easter at our cabin on Rainy Lake didn't look much different than it did at Christmas. Much of the ground is still snow covered, and four wheelers and snowmobiles are still running - without too much concern - across the ice.

With our full-time residence set almost equidistant between these two locales, in Grand Rapids, it is sometimes easy to forget the variation in the length of each respective season. Wherever you live, you tend to become acclimated to that climate, and you don't always realize that just a couple hundred miles can make a huge difference in temperatures, and the progression of each season.

Growing up in International Falls, it seemed normal that there were only a couple months of good swimming weather each year. And although winters were obviously long, we didn't seem to mind them back then...and were even proud of our ability to survive the extreme weather patterns. I guess we didn't know any better - and we couldn't have done anything about it anyway!

If the Minneapolis and St. Paul Area is where you were raised, you are probably used to having only a few months of tough winter weather. And at first you might question the value of having a lake place where the summer months are that much shorter.

But it seems that most people who live in the Twin Cities - and own cabins in Northern Minnesota - are more than willing to trade a couple months of warmer weather for the solitude and extreme beauty of an up north lake. And sometimes they just like to be a bit further away from work and their everyday activities to help them relax. However, with the thousands of lakes to choose from just an hour or two from the metro area, there are plenty of people that decide to have their vacation home close to their residence for ease of use - and to maximize their time while the ice is off the lake.

When it comes to shopping for lake properties, the spring market definitely gets going much earlier in Southern Minnesota than it does on the northern border. It is a lot easier to see where the sand beaches are when they are fully exposed, and there is an emotional appeal to the sounds of waves lapping against the shore.

But if you can imagine those same scenes before they take place while you are viewing properties up north, you can beat the rush...and sometimes come across some pretty good deals before others show up to fight over them.

Just like the weather, people have their own cyclical patterns. Many of us are so tired of the long winter that we don't even want to go outside this time of year until we see some obvious change. And then like lemmings, we all go out together on our next adventure: such as cleaning up our yards, waxing the boat, or shopping for a new lake cabin. It's almost like we are programmed to come out of the house when when it hits a certain average temperature.

So if you can break the pattern and get a jump on the spring season, you might find yourself with a lot more options to choose from when it comes to lakeshore real estate. But even if you don't find the perfect lake home or cabin right away, you'll at least get some fresh air. And that's probably not such a bad thing after a long winter indoors.

Happy Easter,

Dan & Sandy

A Few Statistics for 2008

Even though our focus at Lakehomes.com is mainly lakefront, riverfront, and other recreational properties, I think it is always helpful for waterfront buyers and sellers to have a good understanding of what is happening in the real estate industry as a whole. Each year the National Association of Realtors performs many surveys to try and find out how various areas of the industry are trending, and I wanted to give you some of the statistics that came about from their Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers for 2008.

You can read the entire survey at the link above, but some of the most important items that I noticed were the fact that 87% of buyers now use the Internet to search for homes - up again from 84% in 2007 and 80% in 2006. However, 85% still use real estate professionals to help them in this process. So although the information for nearly all listings is available at the buyers fingertips, there is still a need to have agents give guidance during the process.

When buyers were asked about how they found the home that they purchased, 34% said it was through a Realtor, while 32% found it on the Internet. Only 3% of buyers found their new home in some type of print ad.

As a seller, these are the types of statistics should be of the utmost importance when you decide who to list your property with. And if your property is on water, remember that it is even more likely that a buyer will be doing their searching online...because they are more likely coming from a distance than buyers of off-water properties.

Many agents and brokers have been reluctant to minimize their presence in print publications because that is what sellers have been used to seeing throughout the years. By making sellers "feel good" about seeing their home in the newspaper or a magazine, the agent can prevent some of the potential criticism if there is no activity in the way of showings. But if all statistics are pointing to the importance of new forms of online marketing - such as videos and other creative measures - to give the potential buyers more information by way of their keyboards, then it seems that that is where the marketing focus should be!

2009 may or may not be a good year in real estate. I am optimistic that it will be better than last year, but there is still a lot of inventory - which means a lot of competition if you are going to be selling your lake property.

In your search for the best method to expose your lake home, cabin or land to the most possible prospects, evaluate your options in the way of local agents and their websites. A strong Internet presence may not be the only reason your place sells...but obviously, in this day and age it can't hurt!