AMAZING 4th of July Desserts

It is almost here! Only 4 days of work and a beautiful weekend ahead. So it is time to get in the red, white and blue spirit. And what is better than some patriot desserts?! We picked out or favorite 4 desserts (one for every day of your long weekend). So check ‘em out and get baking!

1    1. Bite-sized white and blue layer cakes

2.  Star-Spangled Pie 

3. Patriotic Cake Pops 

4. Crackling Patriotic Bark 

      Make any or all of these desserts this 4^th of July and you will EASILY be the most popular person at your weekend get-togethers. 

4th of July Events in Minneapolis

Looking for something patriotic to do this 4^th of July? Well, lots of cities around the Minneapolis area get REALLY into the red, white and blue spirit EVERY 4^th of July. So here are a few events you should check out:

Apple Valley: Freedom Days
              5 Mile Run, Parade, Amusement Carnival, Music, Dancing and of course fireworks!

Chanhassen: 4^th of July Celebration

So much to do in Chanhassen – Fishing contests, car show, carnival rides, live music, parade, baseball game, fireworks and much more!

Eagan: July 4^th Funfest

Talk about a creative way to celebrate the 4^th - Parade, car show, brain freeze contest, bingo, blood drive, Texas Hold’em tournament, fireworks and more!

Eden Prairie: 4^th of July Hometown Celebration

          Get busy on the 4^th with a 5K run, face painting,             canoeing, BMX demo and fireworks!

Edina: Independence Day Parade & Fireworks

           Edina hosts a spectacular parade and firework
           show every year!             

Excelsior: Lake Minnetonka 4th of JulyCelebration

Start your day off with a 1 mile, 5K or 10K run. Also, there is a sand sculpture contest, a Popsicle social, fishing contest, lots of live music, fireworks AND an Air Show!

Fort Snelling: Independence Day Celebration

Celebrate like people did in the early 1800s – cannon salutes, speeches, military dress, drum music and historic games.

Did we miss any?! Let us know so we can check them out this 4^th of July! 

What to Do Now That My Offer Has Been Accepted?

CONGRATS! Your offer has been accepted! You are almost at the finish line, but there a few crucial steps that stand between you and the closing.

1. Hire a home inspector
   Your Realtor is a great source to find the best home inspector. They have done a ton of inspections and will have a strong opinion on who and who not to use. So listen to their advice. Just make sure it is based on merit and a job well done and not on referrals. Ask friends and family who have recently purchased a house how their home inspection experience was. Then, once you got a few names of inspectors contact them to get their credentials. If they belong to a professional organization like the “American Society of Home Inspectors” it's a good sign that they are skilled and experienced.
   
2. Get the home appraisedUsually your mortgage lender will hire the appraiser. But on occasion, during negotiation, the sellers will agree to pay for it. Appraisals tend to run between $300 and $400.
   
3. Make purchase funds availableYou will need funds for closing. So make sure you have them available and ready to go when you finally get to the closing table.
   
4.  Final walk-through You are allowed to do a final walk-through of your new house 48 hours before closing. This allows you to make sure that the currently homeowners have been keeping the property in good shape, and kept their end of the agreement to fix or do any improvements around the property. This is NOT the time to back out of the deal or negotiate with the seller. It is just what you do before you sign your name.
   

After all of that… it is closing time! At the closing, be prepared to sign lots and lots of documents. But it’s totally worth it! Because you now are the official owner of your dream home! Just make sure you bring your ID and cashier’s check to pay for the closing costs. You will be notified about how much you owe before you get there.

Now go out and treat yourself! The road to home ownership is a long one – so enjoy being done with the process and enjoy your new home!

How to Make and Offer on Your Dream House

You are SO CLOSE to being finished with the "road to home ownership." Now it is time to make an offer on the house. This is the time where you are so happy you hired an agent to help you with this process. Work with your agent to create a competitive offer on your dream home. They have experience on making offers, they know what will work and what won't work and will help you with all that yucky paperwork. 

If the house you want to purchase is located in a competitive market there are some things you might want to consider including in your offer - to make sure you get the house. 

• Cover letter: You can call this either a cover letter or a “love letter”. You want to attach a letter, to the sellers, explaining why you are so in love with their house, why you want to live there and how much you would appreciate the opportunity to live in such a fabulous neighborhood, city, house, etc. This is a very emotional time for sellers, and they want to sell their house to people they like and to people who truly appreciate the house they have loved for many years. And a cover letter will definitely help!
• Proof of funds: This is helpful to show how serious your offer is and that you will actually be able to buy the house. Sellers don’t want to take an offer that might fall through at the very end, and wind up at the beginning again. So by showing that you are financially able to buy the house will help your offer.

Another tip: if you want your offer to stand out even more, ask your agent to hand delivery it. The practice of hand delivering an offer is a lost art and will impress the agent and sellers. 

If you do all of this - create an offer with an agent, include a cover letter, proof of funds, and then hand deliver the offer, there is no reason to be nervous, because you are presenting a competitive offer. All you can do is hope for the best!

Check back next week. We will be talking about what happens after the offer has been accepted. 

Good luck!

Before Making an Offer on Your Dream House

Finding your dream home is a HUGE success, especially in today's market. Houses are flying off the marketing within hours and people are losing their dream homes left and right. BUT before you get too excited about this accomplishment there are still a few others things you are going to want to do before making an official offer. 

1. Check for unpaid property taxes, liens
2. Determine offer price
3. Determine contingencies 

1. Check for unpaid property taxes. Since you hired the best real estate agent out there, they should have already done this for you. But if you agent doesn't mention this step, make sure you ask and check!

2. Determining the offer price is a key component in actually getting the house you want. And this is where you need to lean on your real estate agent's expertise to lead to the offer price that will win you the house. Not only will your Realtor help you make a competitive offer but their knowledge of the local market will help you save a lot of money by not overpaying for your home. During this step your Realtor will present to you a competitive market analysis (CMA) to help give you more insight on what you should offer. 

3. Contingencies are provisions in the contract that allows the contract to be dissolved if a specific occurrence happens, but they are not required. Again, this is where the professional expertise of your Realtor will be key. Consult with them if you want to add any to your offer. The most common contingencies for home buyers include an appraisal contingency and a financing contingency. BUT if you have a contingency, it makes your offer much less desirable to the seller. So make sure you are certain that you want to include a contingency and it is something your agent advises. 

Check back next week to learn more about making an actual offer on your dream home! This is a very important step to have down so that you can get your dream home without overpaying and without losing it to another offer. 

RED Day 2014

     RED Day (Renew, Energize, & Donate) is an annual event celebrated by all Keller Williams associates around the globe that represents the Keller William’s year-round commitment to improving local communities. RED Day occurs on the second Thursday in May each year. On that day each Keller Williams Market Center participates in a different project based on a need they see within their community.  Projects include rebuilding homes, cleaning up local parks, assisting food shelters, hosting blood drives, and much, much more.

The Keller Williams Premier Realty Lake Minnetonka office celebrated RED Day by helping the Big Woods in Wayzata. The Big Woods is 14 acres and is the last metro remnant of a forest that once covered all of central Minnesota.

The Wayzata office was roaring and ready to help out on RED DAY, May 8^th 2014, but unfortunately the weather was not in their favor. It rained in the morning and left the woods a giant mud puddle, so the Wayzata office was not able to get out and help that day. But to show their commitment to RED Day and to the community they rescheduled it for the following week and helped then instead. This goes to show that RED Day isn't just a one day event, but can be celebrated any and every day of the year!

So once they got out to the woods the office helped by pulling out Garlic Mustard weeds. Garlic mustard is an invasive species that is infecting the Big Woods. The Big Woods was once filled with trillium bloodroot, Jack-in-the-pulpits, ferns and other wildflowers, but these are disappearing as Garlic Mustard crowds them out and releases a natural herbicide into the soil. This is a problem not only because it is taking away the beautiful flowers and plants, but also because birds, butterflies and other wildlife depend on such native plants to survive.

So KW agents, dressed in red, got out there and pulled up as much of the weed as they possibly could. They worked all morning, only to stop for a group picture and a snack. Then they got back to work until lunch time. Marketplace Home Mortgage, Keller Williams Premier Realty's preferred mortgage vendor, brought in a delicious lunch from D’Amico & Sons for the troops. Even after full stomachs the team got back to pulling more Garlic Mustard.

In the end, the day was a huge success, the Big Woods was extremely grateful, the KW agents had fun bonding and team building, and the weather held up… the second time around. 

This was the 2^nd year that the KW office helped the Big Woods and we hope to be back there next RED Day to keep the tradition going and keep the woods clean! 

“RED Day isn't about cleaning up a park. It is a one-day expression of what happens 24/7 in the Keller Williams culture. It is seeing a need, discovering who can meet that need and then getting it done."

The Taste of Chaska

The Taste of Chaska is an annual event held in the City Square Park of Downtown Chaska and is hosted by the Southwest Metro Chamber of Commerce. It is a highly publicized community event that attracts almost 1,000 residents each year - fun for all ages! This year the sun was shining, the "Decades Band" performed and there was a Beer & Wine Tasting Tent (for the first time ever!) Restaurants like Buffalo Wild Wings, Culvers, Domino's, Qdoba and many more fed the hungry crowds. There were lots of business vendors as well - Allstate Insurance, i9 Sports, Mosquito Joe, SouthWest Transit, just to name a few. 

Our very own Tammy Shade, Realtor at Keller Williams Premier Realty - Lake Minnetonka, hosted a booth this year! She got help from her trusty Mortgage Lender friends Jeff Chrast & Eric Schmoll, from Marketplace Home Mortgage, who helped host an extremely successful Taste of Chaska booth! Their booth was always crazy busy with kids and adults alike. For the kids, they had a giant wheel to spin where contestants could win squirt guns, glow sticks, squishy balls, bubbles, play-dough and lots of other fun prizes! For the adults, the trio passed around Twins Baseball schedules and Chaska & Chanhassen market updates. They also had a drawing to win a pair of Twins Tickets for a game at the end of June (hopefully it will be warmer then!) 

It was a huge success and I know Tammy, Jeff & Eric can't wait to do it again next year!