Richard McDonough - Lakes Sotheby’s International Realty

09/23/2026

When Will it be Peak ?

This is always a guessing game as to when. Some areas sooner some areas later. My best experience has been to check and check back.

If you would like some local and sometimes not as well know drives or biking routes to see some of the best colors the area has to offer reach out, I will give them to you! I know you will see some awe-inspiring leaves and colors along your way.

Tomorrow night I'll be talking data — charts, indexes, the full fall picture. But nights like tonight are the real asset under every number I'll show: you can't chart what it does to a person to live inside this season, on this river. The market prices it anyway. It always has.

Go see the bluffs this week. That's the whole post. It May not be peak yet , but I have seen some change.

09/22/2026

Have you ever woken up first in someone else’s house and hesitated over simple things like where the mugs are or which towel to use? When you’re the one hosting, a few small touches can take that guesswork away and help guests feel truly welcome, whether they have a guest room or you’ve turned the living room into “home” for the weekend.

Simple details go a long way: a spot where they can leave a suitcase open, a basket for their towel, toiletries and charger, the Wi‑Fi password on the nightstand, and an extra blanket or fan so they can adjust the temperature. Our latest blog shares more ideas like these to help you get ready for overnight guests from St. Croix Valley and beyond.

Simple ways to get your home and guest space ready for overnight company in St. Croix Valley.

09/22/2026

The playing field in our real estate market changed over the last five weeks. Not the way a football season changes — quieter than that.

Here is the number almost nobody reports. The median list price across Stillwater 55082 is $790,000. The median price of homes that came on the market this week is $655,000. That is a $135,000 spread — new listings entering roughly 17% below the standing median.

That is not a crash signal. It is a pricing-discipline signal. Sellers coming to market right now are setting numbers that actually clear. The homes still sitting at the higher median are, in many cases, the ones that launched in June and July on spring math.

Thirty-two percent of active listings have taken a price cut. Two percent have raised one.

To be precise, because the headline version of this story will get it wrong: this is not a buyer's market. The Market Action Index actually rose to 44 and inventory fell to 57 homes. Buyers have leverage on price that they did not have in April. They do not have leverage on selection.

Full breakdown by price tier at the link.

09/18/2026

This is the least intuitive advice I give all year, and the window is open for about four to six weeks.

If you are listing your Stillwater home in spring 2027, the photographs that will sell it need to be taken this October.

Picture your property in March. Grey sky. Dormant grass the color of a paper bag. Bare maples. Mud where the beds should be. Now picture the first two weeks of October — full color across the bluffs, gardens still intact, the river valley doing the exact thing that makes people fall in love with Stillwater in the first place.

A buyer scrolling listings in April is not comparing your house to other houses. They are comparing your photographs to other photographs.

Our Luxury Plus Listing Program captures peak fall color, aerials, and twilight exteriors now, banks them, and launches your listing in spring with images that cannot be recreated in March at any price.

Message me if you want to get on the October calendar.

09/16/2026

Every important conversation in my family has eventually happened at an overlook above this town.

From up there, Stillwater arranges itself like a model: church steeples, the ribbon of Main Street, the bridge, the river doing its slow silver work between two states. My grandfather brought my father up to look. My father brought me. I've brought my own — and, more than once, I've brought a family trying to decide whether to leave a home they love.

Because from the overlook you can see the truth of it: nobody ever really leaves this town. They just change which rooftop is theirs. My job, four generations in, is making sure that trade honors both the home they're leaving and the life they're headed to.

If you're standing at that decision this fall — I know a good overlook, and the coffee's on me.

09/16/2026

Here is the number almost nobody reports.

The median list price in Stillwater is $925,000. The median price of homes listed this week is $624,900. That is a gap of roughly $300,100.

Two things are true at once. Upper-bracket homes take longer to sell, so they accumulate and pull the median up without telling you anything about

demand. And this week's sellers are pricing to sell rather than testing the market.

The proof is in the next line of data: 25% of Stillwater listings have taken a price reduction, down from about 30% earlier this season — and 0% have

raised their price. Fewer sellers are having to cut because fewer started too high.

That is a market that has learned something.

Data: Altos Research, week ending 9/13/26.

09/15/2026

You can ask us about the doorbell, too. When we talk about selling your St. Croix Valley home, we’d like to know about any smart devices you’re hoping to bring to your next place. We can help you work out what to include and make sure buyers know what’s staying.

For devices you leave behind, there’s also the question of disconnecting your accounts and handling subscriptions. Our blog explains how to prepare for that part of the move. Give us a call with questions about your own setup; you don’t need to have everything decided first.

Selling a smart home in St. Croix Valley? Here’s how to handle your video doorbell, thermostats, locks, subscriptions, and other connected features before you move.

09/14/2026

The Stillwater market just switched back on.

Four coming-soon listings. Twelve new listings. Seven homes under contract — all in one week.

That is a genuine two-sided week. Sixteen properties entered the pipeline and seven left it under contract, which tells you buyers stepped forward the

moment fresh inventory appeared. Active inventory is down to 55 single-family homes and the Market Action Index is holding at 44, still on the seller's

side of the line.

Full breakdown in this week's Valley Ledger. Link in comments.

09/11/2026

Every year I tell clients the same thing, and every year the ones who listen sell better.

There is a window in the St. Croix Valley — usually the first three weeks of October — when the maples and oaks are at full color and the lawn is still green. It lasts about two and a half weeks. After the first hard frost, the grass goes, the leaves come down, and your home photographs like winter for the next six months.

If you are listing this fall, listing in spring, or you simply want the images on file, I will arrange professional exterior and aerial photography of your home during that window. No cost. No obligation. You keep the images either way, and there is no listing agreement attached to this.

Call or text me at 612-819-3518 and we will get you on the calendar before the color turns.

Serving Stillwater, Bayport, Oak Park Heights, Marine on St. Croix, Lake Elmo and Afton.

09/09/2026

There's a week in early September when the Valley changes its light — and every generation of my family has noticed it.✨

The haze of summer lifts, the river turns a deeper blue, mornings arrive with a thin silver mist on the water, and suddenly every home on the bluffs photographs like it's showing off. Real estate confession: I book more listing photography in September than any month of the year. Not by accident.

It's also, quietly, when the serious buyers arrive. Summer browsers are back at school and work; the people touring homes in September mean it. Fewer of them — and worth more.

Four generations of Septembers here, and it still gets me every time. What's your tell that fall has reached the Valley?🍂

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