Wigley house sold to Peter Seebach and Jesse Hajiceck

We closed on our house today. Peter Seebach and Jesse Hajicek are the buyers. Details and photos on Locally Grown.

Our bank and the tree

It was 17 years ago this week that the house plant/tree in the photo on the left arrived at our front door. (Click to enlarge.)

So this morning, my wife Robbie and I hauled it down to First National Bank Northfield and posed with bank president Dave Shumway.

Why?

The bank gave the tree to us as a house-warming gift in 1990 because we got our mortgage (our second) through them. We’d also gotten a business loan from them — and managed to pay it off, even though the business failed. I think they were relieved since we were on the edge financially at the time. Becky Behrens was the bank’s mortgage specialist back then and still is, so if you’re in need of a mortgage, visit her personal real estate loans page. Just don’t ask her to toss a tree into the deal or I’ll get into trouble.

It’s quite a cool thing to be living in Northfield for 33 years and doing our banking with one bank the whole time.

For sale by owner (FSBO): $299,900

We’ve decided to sell our home ourselves — big surprise. Since I’m a blog coach, I’ve been itching to find out if a homeowner’s house-for-sale blog be an effective way to sell a house — especially in a buyer’s market like we’re currently experiencing.

Our asking price: $299,900. How did we arrive at that?

• 2001 appraisal of $283,000; appreciation until late 2005 but then a buyer’s market in the past year
• $80,000 of hailstorm repairs (new roof, siding, gutters, screens, windows, ceilings)
• Comparison to other houses currently on the market in the 55057 Northfield zip code. According to Realtor.com, as of today, there are 312 single-family homes for sale in 55057, and 27 single-family homes in the $275,000 to $325,000 range.
• In that batch of 27, there appears to be only one older-style home similar to ours. It’s at 407 6th St E, MLS ID#: 3294142, listed for $309,900 by RE/MAX Results / The Kuyper Group, which has a more detailed listing of that house here.
• We think their house has some advantages over ours: new floors, central air, concrete driveway. We think our house has some advantages over theirs: Victorian-style exterior, full ‘new’ basement, much larger lot (86 x 165 vs theirs at 65 x 99).
• We could easily justify pricing our house the same, i.e., $10,000 more than we’re asking. But with 26 other houses on the market in this price range, it seems prudent to be a little more aggressive on price.

This week I’ll investigate getting a FSBO yard sign with a brochure dispenser, as well a directional sign for the end of our street where it intersects with Woodley. And once I get the brochure done, we’ll tack up a few on public bulletin boards around the Northfield area — various coffeehouses, grocery stores, etc. We’ve already notified the colleges, Carleton and St. Olaf.

In January, we’ll place the house on Mpls/Twin Cities Craigslist (where it’ll also end up on the map mashup HousingMaps.com) and then maybe pay an FSBO service the fee to get it listed on the MLS. In the meantime…

Call now!! Operators are standing by!! Not available in stores!!

Rice Country Assessor – General parcel info and property report card

Rice County was one of the first to have all its homes listed in the assessors’ online database. They have the general parcel info for our house.

Also available is the PDF of the Property Report Card report.

Appraisals

We purchased the house in 1989 for $99,000 have had it appraised four times over the years when we took out second mortgages to make improvements to the house. We have print copies of the appraisals, but here are the values for the given years:

1993: $129,000
1995: $150,000
1999: $209,000
2001: $283,000

Here are two PDFs of the 2001 appraisal. They’re scans of the same sheet — Pt 1 is top half, Pt 2 is bottom half — since my scanner can only handle up to 8.5X11 sheets.