Izatys sells for $2.8M

April 3rd, 2008

Izatys Resort

I just got back from the Sportsman Show at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I bumped into a friend who has been selling resorts for 20 years. Word on the street is that Izaty’s Resort was sold for $2.8 million (free and clear) at auction today. A steal. It had been listed for sale at $11M and I believe the debt on the property was in the $5M – $6M range…this final sale price number knocked my socks off.

Izaty's Resort on Lake Mille Lacs

Izatys Resort features two (2) 18 hole championship golf courses, hundreds of acres of land, a huge marina on Mille Lacs and the list goes on and on. Visit their website here.
For all of you out there sitting on $2.9M – you missed out today!

Update: More info here & here.

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment »

Minnesota Tourism – Bold Shakeup

April 1st, 2008

CANADA TO PURCHASE ELY, MINNESOTA
Deal Could be Final by Early 2009

Ely MN

Official press conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

ELY, MINN. — April 1, 2008 — Today it was announced that Canada has made an unprecedented offer, as a boost to tourism, to purchase the famous Boundary Waters town of Ely, Minn., and relocate it north of the U.S./Canadian border.

In a prepared statement, the Premier of Ontario pledged Ely will retain its worldwide reputation as the entryway to the Boundary Waters, though now from the other side, as well as its legendary lakes, resorts, restaurants, gift shops and museums, including the world-famous International Wolf Center.

Reportedly, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has entered into negotiations with the Minnesota DNR and the Governor’s office to arrive at a satisfactory price. Sources close to the deal say that Ely will become Ely, Ontario as early as 2009.

Minnesota residents are left wondering if this might be the last summer to enjoy the one million acres of unspoiled wilderness Ely is known for worldwide.

“It’ll certainly be the last summer we can spell neighbor without a ‘u,’” says Ely mayor Charles Novak. “And all the schools will have to start using zed instead of ‘z’ when they teach the alphabet, and we’ll all have to learn the value of a loonie, I guess.”

Outraged Minnesotans have launched a counterattack and are petitioning the state and considering a protest at the capitol. Interested citizens can visit ely.org or call 1-800-777-7281 to sign the petition or to volunteer for the protest, or just to book one last summer fling in Ely.

[note: please notice the date. tks to Voyageur North Canoe Outfitters for the email]

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment »

Inman News redesign

March 19th, 2008

Inman News

For a few years now, I have been an avid reader of Inman News. It has been one of the very few websites I visit several times a day (along with techcrunch, valleywag (I know I shouldn’t), gigaom and of course lakeplace.com & landbin.com).

A couple of weeks ago, Inman news launched a redesigned version of their site. I like the effort, I like the direction – but overall I have found the new design to be a deterent. I am writing about this because I just realized that I have not been visiting Inman News as frequently…actually, today was the first time I visited the site in a while.

I read some initial feedback from Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate when the new site first launched – he talked about a washed out look – and Inman News took his comments to heart and fixed the color of their text (went to black). Since ui design is one of the hats I have been wearing for quite a few years – I would offer this advice to Inman News – simplify your homepage layout.

The new header is great (especially the updated logo) – but I would highly recommend using tabs in your main navigation area (News, Inman Blog, Community, etc..) As it is right now, your main navigation area – the most important links on your website – remains “washed out.”

I like the main headline/teaser on the homepage – but you should expand the text all the way across the page, move your “Top News, Most Comments, Most Emailed” headlines below your main headline and increase the font size. In otherwords – reduce your content area to one column. I would also change the hyper-link color back to default blue (its OK to use more than two colors on a website).

I would recommend following this one column layout (and font size/color changes) down the page to include the Inman TV section and Inman Blog Section. Below that, you could go back to a two column layout (but make it 50/50) to include your blog network, member spotlight, reader comments, etc..

I believe its all about usability – the path of least resistance – and I would be willing to bet that I am not the only one who keeps forgetting to visit the new Inman News since the new design was pushed to the public.

Here is a fun exercise – below is a screen shot from my firefox browser. I clean the URL’s out of this every couple of months – but by scrolling down – you can see what the most important websites are to me (as they are the first ones I visited after cleaning my cache).  What websites made your cut?

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Land Contracts

March 9th, 2008

We have been watching a ton of buyer question emails going through LandBin.com. One of the interesting things we noticed is the frequency of questions about a contract for deed – so we posted a great article covering the topic. A contract for deed is also known as a land contract – and it is basically a seller financing option that is sometimes available to buyers. If you are interested in learning more about land contracts – check out the article we posted today – http://www.landbin.com/about/contract-for-deed.

Posted in Rants | 1 Comment »

Milwaukee Lakeshore Market

March 5th, 2008

Oconomowoc home on Ashippun Lake

Finally…

We added a couple of thousand listings to LakePlace.com this week. These listings cover the entire Milwaukee lake property market. The new listings include Chenequa lake homes, Oconomowoc lake homes, Lac la Belle lake homes, Mequon lake homes and more – including Lake Geneva homes.

It has been a long time coming – this is MLS #19 to be integrated on LakePlace.com. If you are seriously searching for lake homes in Minnesota or Wisconsin – we hope you will use our site and our services. We represent buyers and sellers in all areas of Minnesota & Wisconsin. We have tried to make it easy for buyers to locate the lake property of their dreams by making them all available on a single website – and if you are thinking about selling – ask us about our 25 point marketing plan which is unmatched in the real estate industry.

We know lakeshore and we know marketing. Contact us today!

Posted in Home & Garden, Rants | Comments Off

How’s LandBin Doing?

February 27th, 2008

Well, it has been about 30 days since we announced the launch of LandBin.com and she’s holding pretty steady in terms of visitors and page views. LandBin.com features the Internet’s largest selection of Minnesota land for sale & Wisconsin land for sale – with more than 45,000 land, acreage, and lots for sale. I am going to go ahead and insert our daily numbers directly from the LandBin.com server below. I would not normally do something like this, especially when they are not all that impressive (yet), but we think they are looking pretty good for a 30 day old website.

LandBin.com is currently in what is called “the sandbox.” It takes a while for the major engines to recognize a new website as an authority on a specific subject – this is one of the downfalls of launching a new website with a newly registered domain name. However, LandBin.com runs on a highly tuned engine – which will eventually drive it to the top of all the major searches…it is really just a waiting game. If you are looking to buy or sell land – you will want to use LandBin.com…eventually!

Below are the stats for February 2008 – the 1st through the 26th – as reported by Webalizer.

Daily Statistics for
February 2008
Day Hits Files Pages Visits Sites KBytes
1 9268 2.88% 8211 2.88% 6134 2.80% 398 4.35% 301 6.54% 177092 2.96%
2 6267 1.95% 4960 1.74% 3531 1.61% 356 3.89% 262 5.69% 101073 1.69%
3 9472 2.95% 7613 2.67% 6120 2.79% 330 3.60% 242 5.26% 161214 2.70%
4 10744 3.34% 9773 3.42% 7272 3.32% 370 4.04% 283 6.15% 207967 3.48%
5 9507 2.96% 8546 2.99% 6809 3.11% 528 5.77% 421 9.14% 187359 3.14%
6 6940 2.16% 5398 1.89% 4029 1.84% 371 4.05% 257 5.58% 106943 1.79%
7 10094 3.14% 9076 3.18% 6873 3.14% 445 4.86% 364 7.90% 194453 3.25%
8 10691 3.32% 9882 3.46% 7335 3.35% 293 3.20% 236 5.12% 204973 3.43%
9 8847 2.75% 8373 2.93% 6541 2.98% 278 3.04% 228 4.95% 168311 2.82%
10 13957 4.34% 12619 4.42% 10063 4.59% 347 3.79% 288 6.25% 255840 4.28%
11 11832 3.68% 10017 3.51% 7015 3.20% 367 4.01% 282 6.12% 198843 3.33%
12 16431 5.11% 13309 4.66% 11246 5.13% 309 3.37% 254 5.52% 279066 4.67%
13 12378 3.85% 11641 4.08% 9950 4.54% 276 3.01% 246 5.34% 244114 4.09%
14 8344 2.59% 7529 2.64% 5903 2.69% 227 2.48% 185 4.02% 155286 2.60%
15 21195 6.59% 20366 7.13% 17651 8.05% 346 3.78% 300 6.51% 425097 7.12%
16 14287 4.44% 13519 4.74% 11901 5.43% 307 3.35% 254 5.52% 332535 5.57%
17 12085 3.76% 11273 3.95% 9016 4.11% 309 3.37% 291 6.32% 228244 3.82%
18 12899 4.01% 11484 4.02% 8503 3.88% 372 4.06% 326 7.08% 236326 3.96%
19 10078 3.13% 9103 3.19% 7080 3.23% 294 3.21% 253 5.49% 187686 3.14%
20 11249 3.50% 10860 3.80% 9147 4.17% 219 2.39% 171 3.71% 226620 3.79%
21 13212 4.11% 12056 4.22% 9399 4.29% 301 3.29% 284 6.17% 249543 4.18%
22 14503 4.51% 12916 4.52% 9695 4.42% 348 3.80% 334 7.25% 272751 4.57%
23 11743 3.65% 10150 3.56% 7595 3.46% 315 3.44% 283 6.15% 198654 3.33%
24 13659 4.25% 11698 4.10% 8450 3.85% 377 4.12% 351 7.62% 244385 4.09%
25 23208 7.22% 19368 6.78% 11102 5.06% 651 7.11% 605 13.14% 388801 6.51%
26 18347 5.70% 15366 5.38% 10558 4.82% 459 5.01% 415 9.01% 332596 5.57%

To put it into perspective…LakePlace.com does about 10-15x these numbers…so we are pretty excited to see this since we are still in the sandbox and it has only been 30 days since launch.

Also, don’t forget to checkout the great articles we have recently posted on LandBin.com. If you are thinking about purchasing a hobby farm, hunting land or farm land – these are great reads and very informative!

See us here, too.

Posted in Hunting | 2 Comments »

Congratulations Alexandria & Eden Prairie!

February 27th, 2008

hockey

This is a little belated, but LakePlace.com would like to congratulate the Alexandria Cardinals (class A) & Eden Prairie Eagles (class AA) Girls Hockey Teams – the 2008 Minnesota State Champions.

LakePlace.com is a proud sponsor of the Minnesota State High School League tournaments on KSTC45.  We are sponsoring the Girls & Boys Hockey Tournaments & Basketball Tournaments this year – our 3rd year as a major sponsor – and again, something we are really proud of.

Again, congrats to Alex & EP on a great season!

Posted in Rants | Comments Off

Sunny Point Estates

February 26th, 2008

All of the Fun – None of the Work!

We just listed some great properties in Nevis Minnesota. These are all part of an association – meaning most of the work is taken care of for you ($75 monthly association fee). This is a new and popular trend that we have been watching for the past few years.

Sunny Point Estates

These properties are part of the Sunny Point Resort on Second Crow Wing. Cameron and I were interviewed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune a week or two ago on this subject – so watch for the interview in the upcoming Waters Edge section – Sunday edition.

Two of the new listings are priced at $219,900. They are newer lake homes with full knotty pine interiors, trapezoid windows and lofts. The first one is titled Nevis MN lake home for sale and was completed in 2005. The second is also part of Sunny Point Estates and was built in 1999.

The other two new Prime Properties are priced at $169,900 and are what we think of as quintessential Minnesota Cabins. The exteriors, the interiors – right out of the movies. Very cozy.

The first Northern Minnesota cabin for sale features 3 bedrooms and a .75 bath. It has a stone foundation (as you will see in the pictures) and sits on the waters edge. The 2nd cozy cabin on Second Crow Wing lake features a knotty pine interior (aged to perfection), the perfect little cabin kitchen, and memories just waiting to happen.

Sunny Point Estates - Beach

Take a look at these properties – if you have questions on any of them – or any other Nevis MN lake properties – please contact us!

As always, happy lake home hunting!

Posted in Home & Garden | Comments Off

Brainerd fishing

February 21st, 2008

I just ran across this great post at the Brainerd real estate blog…Marv takes a little walk down memory lane – and shares a huge stringer of walleyes with us. Marv is getting pretty good at this blogging thing – be sure to bookmark his blog and check back often.

Posted in Destinations, Family, Fishing | 1 Comment »

Da Range

February 20th, 2008

My wife found this (somehow) and sent it over to me. Im not a big fan of country music (I like some of the older stuff – Johnny, Willie, etc..) but I sure do like this tune. Give it a play.

Posted in Rants | 2 Comments »

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