I recently got into a discussion about this topic with a number of real estate agents on another blog.  I've noticed an increase in the number of buyer prospects who contact me via text messaging, particularly over the past six months or so.

How many real estate agents out there are inviting prospects to text message them?  For example,

• Do you offer an SMS Text number on your real estate sign riders?
• Do you put your Text Messaging number on property flyers or brochures?
• Do your blogs and social networking profiles offer a Text Messaging number to contact?
• Is there a text messaging number on your business card?

If you do happen to encourage contact with clients and prospects via text messaging, what kind of statistics are you encountering?  

Are prospects messaging you?  If so, are they mostly in a particular age group?

Govenor Tim Pawlenty's latest budget-balancing idea is sure to appeal to folks who are bad at math.

The Governor has proposed phasing out funding of the Minnesota State Arts Board by 2011 to zero.  The ten million reduction under his proposal won't do a thing to balance Minnesota's five billion dollar deficit, but the Governor wants to dismantle the State Arts Board anyway, turning it into a "privatized" nonprofit organization.

Not only artists suffer from the plan (yes, artists pay income taxes too).  Here's a partial list of who gets hurt by Governor Pawlenty's not-too-bright idea:

The State and Orpheum theaters, the Guthrie Theatre, the Minneapolis Children's Theater, Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts (plus over a hundred other for profit and nonprofit arts organizations).

Downtown Minneapolis & Saint Paul restaurants, parking ramp and lot owners, operators and employees, waitstaff, cooks, buspeople, ticket office staffers, ushers, hospitality industry personnel and arts audiences get shafted as well.

Municipalities lose significant revenue from ticket tax, not to mention tax on monies earned by restaurants, bars, parking facilities, transportation providers, the Metropolitan Transit Commission, limo drivers and restaurateurs.

Taxpayers get the short end of the stick if this proposal becomes law.

Crippling the Arts in Minnesota won't help balance the State budget.

The Arts accounted for over $1 Billion in economic activity in Minnesota alone last year.   

In Minnesota, every dollar government invests in the arts returns $11.

Take away the performing arts, museums, art galleries, dance companies, theater and concerts, and you'll turn the Twin Cities area into Omaha with pro sports.

The public is tired of hearing that "real estate is local".

Okay, real estate sales conditions are local.  That is pretty obvious.  But, at the same time, NAR uses this cliche phrase over and over in television and radio commercials, in an attempt to reassure the public. 

It almost sounds as if NAR is trying to persuade consumers that there are particular areas where the impact of the national economy goes completely unnoticed, like a sort of Shangri-La, where it never rains and the streets are paved with gold.

The phrase "real estate is local" happens to be one of Lawrence Yun's favorite slogans (Yun is, after all, NAR's chief economist). 

The public isn't buying it.

Here's another NAR cliche.  "All markets are different".  Duh.  Yes, all markets are different, and this one certainly is no exception.  Things are different allright.  They're different enough that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are, at the urging of Congress and the Executive Branch, frantically pouring money into bailout programs for banks, lenders, securities firms and Fortune 500 companies.

And here's another one from NAR's "Economist's Commentary" online: "For many, this is a golden opportunity to buy"

No one is saying there aren't opportunities out there.  But the general public sees pronouncements like this one as self-serving real estate industry cheerleading.

NAR is fond of talking about declining mortgage rates.  Ask the consumer on the street how easy it is for the average person to get one of these wonderful cut-rate mortgages.  Yes, it may be relatively "easy" if you have a top FICO score and lots of cash for a downpayment. 

My point is this.  Let's take advantage of the New Year to level with the public. 2009 gives us all the golden opportunity to start with a clean slate, to consistently provide consumers with a true picture of the real estate marketplace, whether national or local. 

I discovered Pho Quan Restaurant in Minneapolis, located at 1815 Nicollet Avenue, some years ago.  It's still there, still homely, and still one of the best places to grab lunch in the Twin Cities.

Don't look for charming ambiance, clean tables or cute southeast Asian decor.  You won't find it at Pho Quan.  But the Vietnamese noodle soup is the best anywhere.

The place is frequented by some of my musician friends from the Minnesota Orchestra, including colleagues Robert Anderson (bass) and Taichi Chen (violin).  Pho Quan was recently rated among the "25 Great Places to Eat" in the Twin Cities by TwinCities.com and other food sites have followed suit.

Choose from vegetable, beef, chicken or shrimp bowls, available in three sizes.  The price is astonishing and the Pho is unquestionably tasty!  

Don't you just love Fox News and their local affiliates?

Fox Nine News in the Twin Cities just ran a segment this evening about the CERN Large Hadron Collider project, located near Geneva, Switzerland.  The Fox Nine News spot dealt with the current delay in the widely-publicized LHC beam collision experiment, now scheduled to take place in early 2009.

Fox Nine News devoted nearly half of the segment to an interview with a Twin Cities clergyman, who spoke on camera to reassure all the little people that the world probably won't come to an end when the LHC is finally operable and that they shouldn't worry about those nasty Europeans meddling with God's universe.

You know, when you have a concern about quantum physics or the function of the world's largest particle accelerator, it's always reassuring to hear an opinion from someone with a Theology degree. 

Now I'll be able to get a good night's sleep.

The Twin Cities Catholic Chorale has recently published its 2008-09 season schedule of Masses with full orchestral accompaniment, to take place at the Church of Saint Agnes, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  The Chorale is joined by a professional chamber orchestra which includes former and present members of the Minnesota Orchestra and area freelance musicians [all instrumentalists are members of The Twin Cities Musicians Union, Local 30-73, American Federation of Musicians].

This fall, the Chorale begins its thirty-fifth season of presenting glorious sacred music in the Twin Cities. 

Here's the schedule (through December 31, 2008) of Latin Masses with orchestral accompaniment.  Mass performance times are at 10:00 A.M. Sundays, unless indicated otherwise below:

• October 19, 2008: Schubert Mass in C
• October 26, 2008: Herzogenberg Messe, Op. 87
• November 2, 2008: Faure Requiem in D minor
• November 9, 2008: Haydn Theresienmesse
• November 16, 2008: Haydn Little Organ Solo Mass
• November 23, 2008: Schubert Mass in A flat
• December 24, 2008: Mozart Coronation Mass, K317 (Midnight Mass, with Christmas music beginning at 11 p.m.)
• December 31, 2008: Mozart Piccolomini Mass, K258

The Church of Saint Agnes is located at 548 LaFond Avenue, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, about one mile west of the Minnesota State Capitol building.

Well, that only took a couple weeks..

Saint Paul Mayor Coleman and city attorney John Choi announced today that the city has graciously decided not to prosecute journalists arrested while covering the Republican National Convention at the beginning of September.

Those arrested included a KARE-11 photographer whose shoulder-mounted video camera was perhaps mistaken for a lethal weapon.  I suppose those network television cameras with the rather conspicuous multicolored NBC peacock emblazoned on the side look a lot like FIM-92 "Stinger" missile launchers to some police officers.

The Society of Professional Journalists has applauded Mayor Coleman's decision to drop those misdemeanor charges against journalists.  They and others, including the citizens of Saint Paul, should be asking why it took the Mayor nearly three weeks to make the right move on such an obvious First Amendment issue.

Today and tomorrow, August 9-10, the annual Long Lake "Corn Days" celebration will take place in Long Lake, Minnesota.

"Corn Days" is a two-day festival of food, arts, crafts and family activities in Long Lake, just a few minutes west of Wayzata, Minnesota.  This year's Corn Days festival takes place at the Church of Saint George, at 133 North Brown Road. 

Events at this year's celebration will include entertainment by local bands, including "The Teddy Bear Band & Panda", "Absolute Gruv", "Stray Voltage", "Locklin Road" and "Fire Ants".  Saturday events include a silent auction, Bingo, pony rides and a spaghetti dinner.  There'll be a Sunday pancake breakfast at Saint George's, followed by a parade sponsored by the Long Lake Chamber of Commerce.  There will also be a four-mile "fun run" (sponsored by Gear West) and a 4:45 p.m. Super Raffle.

This weekend the weather promises to be superb, so take the family and head out to Long Lake for an old-fashioned town celebration!

The Willard Munger State Trail is a network of multiple-use trails that connects Hinckley, Minnesota with Duluth, Minnesota.  Depending upon the season, the interconnected trails offer hiking, bicycling, inline skating and snowmobiling.

The 63 mile Hinckley to Duluth trail is the longest paved trail of its kind in the world.  It passes through the towns of Finlayson, Rutledge, Willow River, Sturgeon Lake, Moose Lake, Barnum, Mahtowa and Carlton.

The network of trails also connects the town of Carlton with Minnesota Highway 23, just south of Jay Cooke State Park, via the Alex Laveau Memorial Trail.  And the eighty mile Boundary segment begins at Saint Croix State Park and runs northward to the town of Holyoke, just north of the Nemadji State Forest.

The impressive fifty miles of scenic bicycling trails include a fifteen-mile segment (downhill the entire way) into Duluth.  And you can bicycle along twenty miles of remote Saint Louis River trails as well.

My favorite portion of the trail is where the Laveau Trail touches the southwest corner of Jay Cooke State Park, near Wrenshall, Minnesota.  Jay Cooke Park is one of the most unspoiled and dramatically beautiful wilderness areas in the State of Minnesota!

Bicycle rentals can be arranged through the Willard Munger Inn, in Duluth, Minnesota, by calling 218-624-4814 or 1-800-982-BIKE.

Over the past three decades, worker productivity in the United States has increased by a whopping seventy-six per cent.  But during the same period, real hourly wages, adjusted for inflation, have increased by less than two per cent.

Meanwhile, we have a housing crisis, aggravated by a sluggish economy and the fact that a growing number of Americans can't qualify for a mortgage. 

The diminishing number of real estate agents have turned to looking for those remaining folks who can afford to buy.  The problem is, there just aren't enough of them to go around.  In a market where you see seven or nine or eleven months (or more) worth of inventory on the market and sluggish sales, there almost seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Add to the mix the complicated problem of rising gasoline prices, rising electricity, heating and cooling costs, and rising transportation costs for everything we consume, including the food we eat and the clothes we wear.

What will happen if $7 a gallon or $8 a gallon gas causes workers to say "I can't afford to commute to work anymore"?  Do we pay them to drive to and from work?  What happens to the economy when some in the labor force just can't make it on what they earn?

We gave big tax breaks to large corporations and individual earners in the last decade, under the assumption that those grateful beneficiaries would turn around and reinvest the money in our economy.  Instead, much of the money went overseas to build plants and factories and to hire foreign labor.

What's the answer?  Do we shove some more money at the top five per cent of earners, again hoping somehow that it will come back to us? 

If you keep throwing a boomerang and it won't come back to you, do you keep throwing it? 

Or do you buy a new boomerang?