Now if it was summer, we’d be thinking already of the weekend recreation.  Golfing (for some), the lake…for most of us.  It’s great living here, in what I refer to as “God’s Country”.  A bad traffic day in Alexandria, MN is on “Walleye Opener” when you have to wait for the signal light TWICE!  Talk about road rage, that’s about as bad as it gets.  Today we got snow.  No complaints here, I ain’t sandbagging my home.  Douglas County has 4 major watersheds that get rid of the water that falls here.  Flooding is almost unheard of here as being a problem.  We did have an Act of God here once, about 12″ of rain in 2 days.  Other than some wet basements, not too many problems.  No hurricanes, a very rare tornado, no mud slides and plenty of country.  I like my job, within 5 minutes of my office, I’m driving around the lakes or the farm fields, or standing in someone’s woods looking at real estate.  It’s a great job, just not having to put up with traffic aannnddd  getting to see all the countryside on a daily basis…I wouldn’t live anywhere else.  Been there, done that.  East Coast, West Coast, South Pacific;  seen a lot of this planet flying for the Marine Corps.  This is the best place I’ve ever found.  If you don’t live here…try visiting Alexandria sometime.

dctyzoningofcannreprt2008 Douglas County Land and Resource Management Annual Report.  Lots of info in here:  Feedlot info, Permits Issued, Structures Built.  All in a township by township breakdown.

douglas-county-assessor-report2008 Douglas County Assessor Report 2008.  This is a Seasonal & Residential Sales Report for 2000 through 2008.  Pretty interesting, look at the lower left corner.   Sales prices for Alexandria and it’s neighbors have consistently risen.  Average Sale price in 1995 was $74,923.  Average sale price in 2008 was $211,113.  This stuff is so cool if you get a kick out of real estate.  You know what they say…”Don’t wait to Buy Real Estate, Buy Real Estate and Wait!”

One other thing, been meaning to blog this.  National Association of Realtors press release of 2.25.09 (sorry, it’s a little old):  “NAR estimates the impact of the stimulus package and lower interest rates on the housing market to be about 900,000 additional home sales in 2009 compared to conditions before the stimulus package.  Inventory is expected to fall below an 8-month supply by the year end, which would be consistent with home price stabilization.  Total housing inventory at the end of january fell 2.7 percent to 3.60 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.60 month supply at the current sales pace.  Because sales were down, the January supply is up from a 9.4 month supply in December.  The drop in total inventory is an encouraging sign because the number of homes on the market has declined steadily since peaking in July 2008, and inventory is at the lowest level in two years, Lawrence Yun said.   In January 2007 there were 3.54 million homes for sale.”

This report is consistent with our current inventory statistics in Alexandria, MN.  Our inventory has finally started to subside.  It sure has been a wild and crazy 27 years here for me…fun though:)

Have a great weekend Alexandria, MN!