|
|
|
Newsletter from Montana - Minnesota
December 2008
Our five minute infomercial is ready to broadcast early in the year on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News in New York City, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago and Minneapolis.
Please take a look, it is on our Listings Pages in the right column:
Montana Here I Come
Minnesota Here I Come
This particular media company, who did the commercial for me, was actually contracted by the Discovery Channel to do a short documentary about the new trend of people moving back into the countryside. TV-Media then called me, since I specialize in country real estate. To do the photos, our pilot flew a photographer around for some areal photos, and I sent him out again to shoot some photos around our lakes up in Minnesota. For the Interview I flew out to Florida to sit in their studio for a while. I was asked questions and they taped the answers. This infomercial will also be shown at random in other channels. In case you are wondering why my phone number is not very prominent in this piece, there is a also a two minute condensed version which will run as advertisement only. All in all I got a good deal on about $150,000 worth of publicity. Now let's hope the phone will ring off the hook starting in February!
Looks like the year is off to a good start with 30 year mortgage rates as low as 4.87%, which amounts to a measly $530 a month payment for each $100,000 you borrow. The banks are so busy refinancing homes; it can take up to 90 days now for a closing.
If you like to build your own home, I walked around a bit on those forested 20 acres between Columbus and Park City here in Montana and took a bunch of fresh photos, which I
posted on the website.
It really is a spectacular and one of a kind piece. You not only have the Yellowstone River nearby, but you have a full view of the Crazies up by Livingston, which is a stunningly jagged mountain range and to the south you can see the whole north front of the Beartooth Mountains, which are the largest in Montana with 13 peaks over 12,000ft high. You can even see the Red Lodge Mountain ski runs, which the grooming machines light up at night. Only $77,500 and owner will carry with a decent amount of money down. Make an offer!
I will also take an offer for my little house in Red Lodge and pay $1,000 a month rent until summer, which will take care of the payments and make the house pay for itself for a while. I have $200,000 in it. I paid $162,000 for it two years ago and put $40,000 into it. I posted the
Google street view on the website,
which is really neat. Grab the "N" on the compass with your mouse and move it around to get a 360 degree view. You can also follow the arrows which appear when you run your mouse over the photo to explore the street. This photo was taken in October 2007, you can see the ghosts in the window. During that winter our deer nibbled all those freshly planted trees bare and we replaced them in spring of 2008 with some sturdier deer proof pines. At any rate, if you click on "See it on Google" it will open a new browser tab and a street map appears in the right hand corner of the picture with a person on it. You can grab that icon with your mouse and wander down the streets! I also posted a photo of downtown Red Lodge and you can do the same there. I chose a photo of 11th Street and Broadway since that is the breaking point between "S" and "N" in our street names. Google hasn't figured the South/North part out yet, so addresses typed in for Red Lodge always show it at the North part of town, which is misleading.
Would you like to have a large home with rock arches and several fireplaces on 20 forested acres overlooking Livingston, the Yellowstone River and the Crazies from the hill top? There is also a web cam,
showing you the Yellowstone River just a couple miles below the property:
Minnesota real estate is a whole lot cheaper than Montana and of course there is more water! Need any liquid assets? ;-)
I have a
possible "short-sale" on a lake home.
There is a farm house and a guest house, both built in the 1950's in a stunning setting with big old trees, including spruce and walnut trees. They could possibly be bought separately (survey is done but not recorded) on 1.5 or 1.9 acres for $99,000 each or together for $175,000 or on 27 acres for $299,000 (appraised a year ago for over $500,000).
There are 113 acres in all, but only the waterfront on Lake Rossman - which is more like a private cove and very secluded, with thousands of acres of lake hiding behind the corner - has a mortgage on it and can be had for a song, pending on the approval of the bank and that they release a portion of it, if you don't want to buy all 27 acres. Let me know if you are interested in this piece in the heart of one of the prime recreational areas in Minnesota, where the weather always stays a tad milder then in the surrounding area. I know, because we have our farm just down the road from there and regardless what the weatherman has to say, it is always nicer right there.
If you want to come up for a quick look,
Allegiant Air
offers discount flights from Nevada, Florida and Arizona to Fargo for $79 round trip and from there it is only a 45 minute drive to the property!
Then, while you are in west central Minnesota, we could also look at Mike Olson's new listings, such as his "Fly-In Hunting Land"
80 acres for just $184,000
which is located adjacent to a 2,500ft grass airstrip. All you need to do is taxi to this parcel located just off the runway and you are in your own private hunting camp. Many trails have been cut through the woods to allow you access to all the land. Deer, ducks, geese and even possibly grouse or turkey's await your arrival. The testimony of my maiden voyage to the property resulted in a near heart attack as a grouse tried to fly up my pant leg! Whatever you quarry, you will find that nature's creatures are abounding in these 80 acres.
This property even adjoins a 40 acres pond with excellent deer cover and outstanding waterfowl habitat. Multiple semi-enclosed deer stands are located in strategic spots throughout the woods. The property also hosts platform deer stands and a rustic hunting shack, which includes a wood-burning stove and sleeping quarters similar to a small camper.
These hunting acres are located near the quaint town of
New York Mills,
where the first Lund boats where assembled in the 1950's by G. Howard Lund, and over the past decades Lund has grown into the premier Fishing Boat Company in America. In 1948 Howard Lund built his first aluminum duck boat, which took about a week to build. The boat was on top of the family car along highway 10, and this unintentional advertising brought a boat buyer from Inland Marine Corporation to his doorstep. He inquired where he could get a boat like that. Howard explained that he had built it himself, and that he was willing to build more. The buyer put in an order for 50 boats, and with that Lund America was created. The business started with three employees in Lund's garage, but a year later he had moved to a new building, and hired 15 employees. Since then the company has expanded to take up 29 acres, and employ over 500 people.
The following video was taken by a hidden camera - I am not sure exactly where, but since it looked like Northern Minnesota to me, I put it on my website. So, for all of you who have never seen a bear with an itch, here is your chance: Wild Life Video
The two lots with lakefront on Big Toad Lake have the price reduced to $99,000 for two acres and $89,000 for 1.4 acres with big mature trees:
Big Toad
If you want to put the down payment of your next piece of property on a credit card, here are some websites where you can compare credit card companies:
Bank Rate
Card Ratings
Compare Cards
Credit Card Guide
Index Credit Cards
My daughter Tuula came back from India, where she was working in an internship preserving heirloom seeds to help biodiversity and to teach Indians how to do farming in the forest with native plants as their ancestors did. India used to be self-sustaining not too very long ago and the goal is to reach that state again. In the United States biodiversity is also being gradually eliminated by a handful of big seed companies who have their seeds and genes patented and even go to court with farmers who wound up with certain genes in their crop due to natural pollination! Why do we need bio-diversity? Well, for example our beloved Chiquita Banana, which is the Cavendish variety of the fruit and grown in South America, is being attacked by a root fungus and so far nobody came up with a cure for that. The Banana as we know it will be wiped from the face of the earth. Luckily somebody somewhere saved some seeds of a different kind of banana, which might be resistant to this latest banana plague and can possibly be cultivated instead, so we are not being left without bananas. Actually in the 1900's all the bananas in the markets were not the Cavendish, but the Gros Michel, which were much tastier. But they got wiped out by a disease and the inferior Cavendish replaced it, since it was immune to that particular infestation. Now the Cavendish is threatened….. That is just one example. Once a pest gets hold of one of our staple crops, its curtains; unless somebody saved some seeds somewhere to replace that particular crop with a more resistant variety. The big seed companies are in for the money of course and are trying to push any other seed companies to the brink of extinction. So next time you buy some seeds for your garden, type "heirloom seeds" into Google and buy those instead, this way somebody will stay motivated to preserve a different variety of seeds and you help insure that our grandkids have something to eat.
Talking about seeds, we still have the little
farm for sale
with the artesian well, five acres of forest, outbuildings and a freshly renovated 5-bedroom farmhouse on 12 acres for only $125,000 (the county had it on the books for over $300,000), which is close to the charming town of
Fergus Falls.
Also the farm ground in NW Minnesota is waiting for an owner - 160 acres of prime alfalfa hay - rented for $50 per acre, which amounts to an income of $8,000 a year.
Alfalfa hay sells for
around $150 per ton. Last year the harvest was 5tons per acre, so that came to a gross of $120,000 for the farmer. I checked the recent sales in the area and they run from $1,200 to $2,500 per acre. This one is priced at $1,200 per acre. I drove out there in November and took some frosty photos, which I posted to the
website.
If you have mixed feelings about the mixed breed you got for Christmas or rescued from the pound, you can do an
easy DNA test and send it in. They can tell you all about the different strains that made up your multi-pooch, which gives you a better idea of the hidden talents your dog might have.
For the New Year you might want to
fire up Pandora,
which will play your favorite music all day long, just type in the artist you like best, and it will play similar music just for you.
I wish you a prosperous and happy New Year!
:-)
Best Regards,
Dorothea Lowe, Broker
More Newsletters
|
Equal Housing Opportunity
