3306 James Ave. N. (Cute Starter Home With A Colorful History, PART ONE)

Photos By John Hoff

Knowing my obsession with the T.J. Waconia mortgage fraudsters--who will apparently be sentenced to prison next month--Keller Williams real estate agent Jeanie Hoholik gave me a private tour of 3306 James Ave. N., which is nearly renovated and will be listed any minute, now...

I blogged about this home before, because it's the first of the houses sold under special court- mandated supervision, and now it's probably the first one to be re-sold or, well, "flipped."

And some people say the era of "flipping" is over. Not in North Minneapolis, baby! I hear lovely Jennifer The Flipper just made offers on two more houses, one in the Jordan neighborhood and one in Folwell. You go, girl!

Though flipping has a bad name, (only lately) I'll defend what Jennifer is doing: she's turning vacant houses into owner-occupied properties. In this case, the house at 3306 James Ave. N. used to be a rental...and kind of a sad one, though luckily set amidst nicer homes and right across from a training facility for the Minneapolis Fire Department. But now "3306" is cute as a button on a baby's belly.

The Real Estate Equivalent Of A Politician's Dark Blue Necktie

A contractor named "Tom" has been working on the place, and he's not partial to having his picture taken. Above, you can see Tom pulling out his hammer to express how he feels about portrait photography. Tom prefers to have his work speak for him. I had seen the "before" pictures, which I hesitate to even link to because THE CHANGE IS SO DRAMATIC. Everything is light, new, airy, polished, painted.

Jeanie taught me a few things about flipping as we toured the house. For starters, flipping a house is kind of like dressing a politician: you don't go with a quirky tie. You need something everybody can agree looks good. So there's a certain popular shade of floor tile, and counter top. Young buyers are apparently partial to polished steel fridges. Who knew? From walls, to carpet, to trim, everything caters to a moderate aesthetic.

Two bathrooms. That's the rule. That's what buyers want. So give it to them.

I noticed Jennifer's contractors were using plastic water pipe, blue for cold and red for hot. Gone are the days of copper pipes, sigh. It's sad, really. But the new pipe looked good.

Out in the yard, I noticed the shingles on the garage looked new. I turned around and realized...same shingles on the house. Also new. Black, of course. Nothing quirky with the shingles, like green "Timberline" brand. Nothing that looks like a patchwork quilt, to be creative and use old, multi-colored shingles; like a certain relative of mine has been known to inflict on farm buildings.

Clues To The "Past Life" Of 3306 James Ave. N.

If you know where to look, clues can be found about what the house was before...a rental, possibly with other rentals within it, people piled in thickly, shoved into corners.

The basement had been full of partitions, which had to be ripped out. Jeannie had seen what was there before and was thankful it was gone now, except for a few old marks on the floor which I suspected would get painted over. A big, run-down doghouse in the back yard was gone, too, except for a place where sod was missing.

I could blame T.J. Waconia, but I suspect they acquired the house like that, and had little opportunity to renovate and rent before the pyramid scheme came crashing down. But Jeanie thought it was just fine to blame T.J. Waconia, and good clean fun, too. When I pointed out the birdhouse in the back yard was wrecked, Jeanie said to blame T.J. Waconia.

"Seriously," I said. "That birdhouse is missing walls. It needs to be fixed."

"Let the birds fix it," Jeanie said. "Let them patch it with mud."

Well, I decided, maybe it was kind of cool to leave the old birdhouse as it was. After such a dramatic renovation of the house, few clues would be left of the past for the next owners to enjoy and contemplate. But the run-down birdhouse was an exception. Yes, I realized, let it be. Leave it for the next owner to lovingly renovate, as a kind of quirky personal project, or tear it down to assert domination and ownership of the back yard while the wife (of course) has control over all interior aspects.

Johnny Birdhouse

If it were up to me, I'd put birdhouses everywhere in North Minneapolis. I'd spend all day sneaking into the back yards of vacant, boarded-up homes, sneaking bird houses into the trees. I'd be "Johnny Birdhouse." Where would I get the birdhouses? Salvation Army. Or I'd build them myself, from old antique basement doors chewed on the bottom by vicious, neglected pit bulls, from odds and ends of wood, or from gallon-sized cans with kicky painted-on product motifs like Folgers Coffee.

Too bad I have other things to do, like blog. Oh, well. I can make sure any property which falls under my control has adequate birdhouses. I can advocate for the renovation of birdhouses, and appreciation for barn swallows, the official bird of North Minneapolis. (According to my blog)

Something Like 139 T.J. Waconia Houses Left To Go!

So that's one T.J. Waconia house down and...well, there are more. There are more houses to be bought, flipped, turned into lovely starter homes. GET 'EM WHILE THE GETTIN' IS GOOD, I SAY!

North Minneapolis is TURNING AROUND. I hear (secondhand, through Jeannie Hoholik) it's actually becoming difficult for Jenny The Flipper to find flipping bargains, because the properties are being snapped up.

This is both good news and bad news. Clearly, the current era won't last forever, and not for anybody: flippers, home buyers, home sellers, barn swallows that currently have endless expanses of vacant buildings in which to breed. History marches forward faster than I can write about its footsteps.