More About Choosing a Preferred Location For Your Madeline Island Home Over the past three-plus decades, I have owned a wide variety of properties on Madeline Island, ranging from vacant land and waterfront, to a condominium unit and our Madeline Island Realty office in downtown LaPointe, to
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01/22/2014
The Importance of the Final Walk-Through When Selling Your Second Home The buyer's final walk through of your home prior to closing may be more important than you think. Yet preparation for that final walk-through is often neglected by sellers. How should a seller prepare for the final walk-
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01/21/2014
Madeline Island Residents Cheer "The Best Ice Road in Maybe a Decade" Yesterday, I drove the "ice road" between Bayfield, Wisconsin and Madeline Island for the first time in just over a year. And it was one of the smoothest, most pleasant ice road passages I've ever experienced. We overheard
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01/21/2014
An excellent post by Gabe Sanders (in Stuart, Florida) about the questionable logic of pricing to create "negotiating room". I've encountered clients in both Minnesota and Wisconsin who fail to consider that this strategy can be a big mistake and one that can cost the seller some serious money.
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01/21/2014
Logistics of Setting up a January Property Showing on Madeline Island I'm writing this post on my bed at a motel in Ashland, Wisconsin. Tomorrrow, I've got two property showings on Madeline Island. One of the showings is a waterfront home on Lake Superior, and the other is an interior log h
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01/19/2014
"Yes, I'm Talking to YOU" - Blogging is a Way to Reach Out to Clients If you've ever dreaded having to phone a client to tell them, "look, your house is overpriced", you know that it's not a pleasant task. Even before you pick up the phone, you know what the reaction will probably be. The s
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01/18/2014
"Take Me Out, Coach" - Understanding and Meeting Seller Expectations I believe it's important for sellers to understand what they are asking us to do when they list their property for sale with a real estate broker or agent. After all, managing expectations starts with understanding what rea
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01/18/2014
"But if I Sell My Home Now, I'll Lose Money" In response to this frequently heard comment from would-be sellers, let me ask a question. When you bought your second home, did you purchase it as an investment or as a place to enjoy? A second home or vacation home may turn out to be a good inves
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01/18/2014
"I'm Waiting for Prices to Return to Where They Were When I Bought" We hear this pretty often from homeowners who think of themselves as real estate investors. Typically, they admit they purchased when the market on Madeline Island was at its peak, somewhere between maybe 2003 and 2007. The
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01/18/2014
Was the 2013 Real Estate Market a Fluke? We Don't Believe It A prospective seller contacted me last week, and he sounded pretty conflicted about putting his house on the market. This guy was concerned that the Madeline Island real estate market rebound in 2013 was a "flash in the pan" and he
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01/16/2014
