Help me find a house in Hopkins schools or SW High School in Minneapolis (Minnetonka: real estate)

[kimmpls]

Hello everyone,

I posted a while ago about where I should move with my family in SW Minneapolis and the western suburbs and got a lot of good feedback. Well, we listed and sold our house this weekend, so my home search is being kicked into high gear. The market is tight right now, so I'm looking for creative ideas about how to find a house before it goes on the market.

Here's what we're looking for:
- Hopkins schools (in Hopkins, Golden Valley, Minnetonka, or St Louis Park) or Southwest High School district in Minneapolis (Kenny, Armatage, Fulton, Linden Hills)
- 3+ BR and 2+ BA (ideally w/ a master bath)
- 3 bedrooms on one level
- 1,700+ sq ft
- 2 car garage
- walking distance to at least a park
- big back yard
- ideally, a fireplace
- it's okay if it needs some work/updating

If you know of anything that might be listed soon, or have creative ideas about how to find a house that meets our criteria, I'd love to hear about it!

[MnMomma]

Price range?

[StilltheSame]

Depending on your price range, a house just came on the market on Kipling and 40th.

[DrFabulous]

Price range would certainly help, but I do love the area near downtown Hopkins. Plenty to do around there, pedestrian friendly, and the LRT is planned to stop a couple times on Excelsior Blvd.

[Kayekaye]

Here's a few near SW high, to get a feel for the prices in the neighborhood. You can see homes on this site, and you can zoom out to find Hopkins:
TheMLSonline.com - Home Search - Call 763-576-8286

$315,000.
MLS# 4346467
4720 Drew Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN
BR: 2 BA: 2
YB: 1919 Fin SF: 1,280

$429,000.
MLS# 4341330
4641 Ewing Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN
BR: 3 BA: 3
YB: 1925 Fin SF: 2,226

$429,000.
MLS# 4341330
4641 Ewing Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN
BR: 3 BA: 3
YB: 1925 Fin SF: 2,226

[MichaelItman]

Kayekaye, those are cool homes. The first one, 4346467, is only a 2 bedroom for $315K - wow! And not enough bedrooms for this family. The second one, 4341330, has 3 bedrooms, 3 baths but only 1 car garage - also a #fail for this family.

Kim, have no fear - I'm sure there's a place for you out there. You could look at MLSOnline or any other real estate searching website (I have the search function on my website too) but the best way to find your home is to find a great realtor who will design the perfect search for you & weed out any homes that don't fit your criteria - either by looking at them online, or checking them out in person once you two are on the same page of what you're looking for. House hunting and buying is a time-consuming enough process when you're looking at all the houses that come close to what you need.

Also, to address your question of how to find a home BEFORE it goes on the market, a lot of that comes down to realtors working together and sharing resources. I've shown my clients pre-list homes and heard about them just by putting the word out to my colleagues about what my clients were looking for, to see if anyone was selling a property that could fit their needs.

Even if you can't catch something great before it goes on the market, if you act fast enough you can score your dream home after it goes on the market, so long as you view it quickly and put in a smart offer. A good realtor will help you with all that as well.

Hope that's helpful!

Michael

[Captain21]

I won't expand too much on using your realtor to buy a house because I am assuming you just are going to use the one that listed the home for you. The majority of all real estate is sold on the MLS and that is just the facts. It is a matter of receiving accurate listings fast and efficiently through a proper search, and then being able to act quickly with a showing and writing offers. You have to be realistic on the market and understand buyers don't have much leverage anymore at most price points.

You think your area is nuts try the south metro suburbs. The best homes are off in a matter of days, so I am checking the MLS 5-8 times a day just to make sure I am on top of new listings.

You want to know the best way to find homes before they hit the market? Go door knock neighborhoods you want to live in. Any chance of you doing that? Nope. It is not like there is a secret forum where people go to tell the world when their home is going to be listed (did you do that for your own home?). Craigslist is still a great source for all FSBO sellers. This is something I will do if we are stuck finding a home. I think Zillow also allows FSBO listings.

3) If it is not FSBO, seller financing like contract for deed, then it will get listed on the MLS and you will be just fine. I had the same conversation with my buyers a couple days ago about just not panicking on the market. This does not need to be a volume game where you need 100 active listings. I am fine with only 1 listing matching your needs if that is the perfect house for you. It is just a question of will the market allow everything you want or not. I still think 3 beds on 1 level needs to be seriously looked at as hopefully not a deal killer, because that would be a very easy thing to change so you increase the inventory exponentially.

Hard for me to tell buyers sometimes that their dream home just ain't going to happen. Most of the time you have to come to that conclusion yourself, but that is why a Realtor helps with goal setting. I don't like setting people up to fail when buying a home. It just is not very fun. You have to prioritize wants from needs, and decide what are deal killers. If it dramatically effects inventory you know that what you "want" may not fit with the "market".

That is not my area so I have no idea for sure what you can get considering we don't even know your price range. I would just say that if you work with an agent based in the neighborhood they will have contacts with other realtors. We are master net workers in this business and talk to each other all the time about real estate. That is the #1 way I know about homes coming on the market.

For example, I am taking my dad's house off the market to remodel on a 4 week project. Just about every agent in my small area knows this for their upcoming clients, because Vadnais Heights is not exactly a huge city. We will see if anything pops up before I list the house again in a month, but once we have it to 100% move-in ready I doubt it will last more than a week. Mounds View school district, Awesome neighborhood with an exceptional lot backing up to a preserve, and a great 2-story home that unfortunately just needed a lot of work done to it.