By Karen Moeller, on February 25th, 2026 
Reality: In St. Louis, the tax bill follows the districts, not the border
Buyers often compare taxes by location name. The numbers rarely work that simply.
Ask almost anyone in St. Louis where property taxes are lower and you will usually hear the same answer: the county. The assumption feels logical. The city has an earnings tax and dense services, so people expect housing taxes to follow the same pattern. But property taxes here do not work like a single switch you flip by crossing a municipal line. They behave more like a patchwork. For example, Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 24th, 2026 
Reality: Most problems come from neglect, not age
Buyers often worry about plaster cracks and radiators. The real warning signs are usually somewhere else.
“I love the character… I’m just afraid it’ll be a money pit.” If you spend any time touring homes in St. Louis, you will hear some version of that sentence sooner or later. Often while standing in a foyer with original millwork, pocket doors, or stained glass that newer construction rarely offers.
Buyers are right to be cautious. Older homes do require attention. But the mistake many buyers make is Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 23rd, 2026 
Many homeowners start in the same place. They are not fully committed to moving, but they are curious what their home might bring. Somewhere in that conversation the idea of “testing the market” appears, and it sounds reassuringly reversible. Dip a toe in the water. See what happens. Decide later. But real estate does not really have a preview mode. There is a point where curiosity turns into an official step, and many homeowners do not realize when they cross it.
What Sellers Think It Means
When most homeowners hear “test the market” they assume: No Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 22nd, 2026 
One of the first questions buyers ask about a house is simple:“How many square feet is it?”
It feels logical. More space should mean more value, and for decades price per square foot has been treated as a shortcut for comparing homes. Buyers gravitate toward the number partly because search sites place it right next to the price, making it feel like the most objective way to compare properties. But after walking through thousands of homes with buyers, one thing becomes clear. Two houses can have identical square footage and feel completely different to live in, Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 17th, 2026 
Why the same market can produce multiple offers and price reductions at the same time
Spend a few minutes browsing recent listings and you may notice something odd. One home sells immediately with competing offers while another nearby reduces price after only a short time. Yet both exist in what is commonly described as the same seller’s market. The contradiction makes sense once you understand what that label actually measures and what it does not.
For decades real estate conversations have relied on a simple guideline. Around six months of housing inventory suggests balance. Less supply favors Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 16th, 2026 
Recent national housing headlines have sounded familiar. Foreclosure activity has increased across the country, with ATTOM Data Solutions reporting annual gains for eleven consecutive months. For many buyers, especially those who remember the late-2000s housing crisis, the reaction is immediate. If foreclosures are rising, bargains must be coming. In St. Louis, that conclusion rarely follows.
ATTOM’s data confirms filings have risen year over year, but they are increasing from historically suppressed pandemic-era levels rather than from a distressed market baseline. The Mortgage Bankers Association delinquency survey and Federal Reserve mortgage delinquency rates show the same pattern. Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 14th, 2026 
How to tell if the Delmar Divine redevelopment truly works
When a new housing project is announced in St. Louis, most people do not start by reading the details. In a city where redevelopment projects have often carried big expectations, reactions tend to start with comparison rather than celebration. They start by remembering. This region has seen ambitious redevelopment before. Some helped. Some faded. So when a project like Delmar Divine is introduced, the real reaction is not excitement or negativity. It is evaluation. The question is not whether St. Louis has tried to stabilize neighborhoods before. The question is Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 8th, 2026 
There’s a moment almost every first-time landlord has. It usually happens right after the first rent check clears. They lean back and think, This is great. Why didn’t I do this sooner?
Fast forward a few months and they’re in the basement with a flashlight in their mouth, halfway through a YouTube video titled “Easy 5-Minute Pipe Fix,” wondering how a tiny drip just turned into a much bigger problem.
Rental ownership is often sold as passive income. In reality, it’s a small business with safety rules, maintenance standards, inspections, permits, and real liability. Collecting rent is the fun part. Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 6th, 2026 
In my last article, we stepped back from the headlines and looked at what really drives affordability. Not political sound bites. Not whether prices should go up or down. Just the fundamentals. Supply, construction costs, financing, and whether the monthly math works for everyday families.
Once you see it that way, the next question becomes obvious. If those are the levers, how do we actually move them? Just “build more homes” sounds simple until you talk to a builder who cannot make the numbers work. There is no big red easy button, but the good Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 5th, 2026 
Spend five minutes with housing headlines lately and you’ll see the same debate on repeat. Prices are too high. Prices need to stay high. Protect homeowners. Help buyers. Every side sounds urgent, and every side sounds certain. It makes for good sound bites. It doesn’t make for very helpful answers.
Because for most families, housing isn’t a political talking point. It’s deeply personal. It’s whether they can finally stop renting. Whether their kids get their own bedrooms. Whether retirement feels secure. Whether a move across town is possible without blowing up the monthly budget. And when Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 4th, 2026 
A recent federal case shows how ownership can be challenged on paper and why a few simple safeguards matter more than most people realize.
Here’s something I didn’t expect to see in a federal indictment this year: 17 St. Louis homes allegedly transferred using fake deeds. Not sold. Not foreclosed. Just reassigned on paper through forged documents. If you’re wondering how that could even happen, you’re not alone. I had the same question. So I dug into how our recording system actually works, where the gaps are, and what homeowners should know.
According to prosecutors, stolen Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 3rd, 2026 
Every morning I walk past 751 North Taylor. Most days it looks the same. Quiet. Steady. Like it has been there forever. In a way, it has. It is not the largest house on the block. It does not have the newest finishes or the sharpest curb appeal. At first glance, it simply looks like an older home that has quietly watched the neighborhood grow up around it.
But look a little closer and you are looking at something rare. The house is believed to date back to around 1858, making it one of the oldest surviving Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on February 3rd, 2026 
When two incomes make one mortgage possible
For years, the path to homeownership followed a predictable script. You finished school, settled into a job, maybe got married, and then you bought a house together. Lately, though, I’m watching buyers in St. Louis rewrite that story.
More often, I’m working with people who aren’t couples at all. They’re friends who have rented together for years, siblings who get along well enough to share a kitchen, or longtime roommates who are simply tired of watching rent checks disappear every month. Instead of waiting for the “traditional” setup, they’re Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 26th, 2026 
When a real estate transaction slows down, most buyers and sellers assume the issue is the inspection. A roof concern, an aging system, or something else visible and measurable that everyone can point to. Inspections are tangible. Buyers attend them, reports are long, and repair negotiations can get emotional. When momentum slows, it feels logical to look there first.
But that assumption does not always hold up. Sometimes a closing stalls for a reason no one saw coming, and the problem has nothing to do with the condition of the house itself. Instead, it has everything Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 24th, 2026 
What Buyers Should Watch for When a Home Looks “Updated”
Walking into a freshly renovated home can feel like a deep exhale. New floors. Fresh paint. Updated fixtures. Someone already did the hard work, right?
Maybe.
For many buyers, especially first-time buyers, excitement plus staging is a powerful distraction. The house smells clean. The furniture is perfectly placed. The lighting is flattering. And before you know it, your brain quietly clocks out while your heart starts imagining Thanksgiving in the dining room.
That is usually when the house starts telling on itself.
Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 23rd, 2026 
Dual agency is legal in Missouri, but it is frequently misunderstood. At first glance, it can sound efficient. One agent. One transaction. Fewer moving parts. What is often overlooked is the trade-off. When dual agency is established, the agent must step back from full advocacy for both the buyer and the seller.That limitation is significant, and it fundamentally changes the agent’s role in the transaction.
Understanding that shift is essential before agreeing to dual agency.
What dual agency means in Missouri
In Missouri, dual agency occurs when the same brokerage represents both the buyer Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 22nd, 2026 
Few phrases in real estate create more confusion than “As-Is.”
Buyers often see it as a warning label.Sellers sometimes view it as a shield.In reality, it is neither.
I regularly hear buyers say they will not even consider a home once they see “As-Is” in the listing. I also frequently hear buyers assume that “As-Is” means the seller is desperate or that the property can be purchased for pennies on the dollar. That expectation rarely aligns with reality. In most cases, the seller has already considered the condition of the home and priced it Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 22nd, 2026 
For many years, homeowners insurance followed a predictable script. The house itself mattered most. Age of the roof. Square footage. Replacement cost. Claims history.
That is changing.
Across the St. Louis region, insurance underwriting is becoming increasingly location-specific, meaning where a home sits now plays a larger role in coverage terms and pricing than many buyers and sellers expect. This shift is not universal across all insurers, but it is widespread enough to be affecting real estate transactions in noticeable ways.
Communities like Eureka often feel this change sooner, not because something Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 19th, 2026 
The little brick bungalow on a quiet tree-lined street.The creaky front porch where neighbors waved and kids dropped their bikes in a heap.The basement that smelled faintly like mildew and ambition, where a ping pong table leaned against wood-paneled walls and a “rec room” became the setting for birthday parties, teenage angst, and late-night conversations.
Most of us in St. Louis grew up in some version of that house.
It was not fancy. It was not open concept. The refrigerator was probably avocado or harvest gold. There was a “good couch” nobody was allowed Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 18th, 2026 
Recent U.S. Census data confirmed that the St. Louis metro added population last year.
But the bigger question clients keep asking me is this: are we actually growing, or are people simply moving around inside the region?
For years, the St. Louis region has worn a familiar label. Flat. Stagnant. Losing people.
So when a client recently asked me a deceptively simple question, it stopped me in my tracks.
Is Greater St. Louis actually growing, or are people just moving from one municipality to another inside the same metro?
It is a fair question. It is also a more important Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 17th, 2026 
When a multi‑billion‑dollar development is proposed a few blocks from someone’s front porch, it stops being a business headline and becomes a neighborhood story.
The newly unveiled plan to transform the historic Armory and the adjacent former Macy’s/Famous‑Barr warehouse into what developers are calling the Armory Innovation District is one of the largest private development proposals the region has seen in years. It includes renovation of the Armory into office space and construction of a hyperscale data center on the warehouse site, with a stated goal of positioning St. Louis as a serious player in the national tech and AI Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 15th, 2026 
How Entry-Level Homes Got Bigger, Fancier and Harder To Afford
Ask three different generations what a starter home looks like and you will get three very different answers.
Your grandparents might picture a 2-bedroom bungalow with 1 bath, wood paneling and a carport. Your parents might think of a 3-bed, 1.5-bath ranch that needed wallpaper scraped and a deck added someday. A lot of today’s buyers walk into their first place looking for an en suite bath, walk-in closets, an attached garage and a kitchen that is already Instagram ready.
Starter homes have not disappeared in St. Louis, but Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 15th, 2026 
The City of Ballwin will officially expand its municipal boundaries in April after city officials approved plans to annex two residential neighborhoods and a school currently located in unincorporated St. Louis County.
Annexations are far less common today than they were decades ago, which makes Ballwin’s decision notable. While modest in scale, the move offers insight into how municipalities across St. Louis County are quietly rethinking governance, service delivery, and long-term planning.
Annexation is the legal process by which a city brings nearby land into its municipal boundaries. While it once played a major Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 15th, 2026 
When people talk about what drives home values, the same factors tend to dominate the conversation. Interest rates. Inventory. Schools. Taxes.
What receives far less attention is public park investment, even though in communities like Eureka, it plays a meaningful role in shaping buyer behavior and long-term market stability.
This is not about trendy amenities or short-term demand spikes. It is about how permanently protected land, trail systems, and outdoor infrastructure function as a form of market stability that does not fluctuate with economic cycles.
Parks as Fixed Infrastructure
Route 66 Park Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 12th, 2026 
When a federal housing official publicly tells homebuilders to “build more,” it sounds simple enough. More homes should mean more supply, and more supply should ease affordability pressures.
That logic works at a national level. On the ground in the St. Louis region, the story is far more complicated.
Recently, **Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte called on builders to accelerate construction on lots they already control, arguing that housing affordability will not improve without increased production. The message was clear and widely shared.
What matters just as much is where Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 12th, 2026 
If you want a quick snapshot of how people feel about change in Kirkwood, you do not need a formal survey. You just need to scroll for a moment. Reactions to the newly approved downtown apartment project range from enthusiastic to uneasy, with plenty of thoughtful pause in between.
That mix of responses makes this a good moment to step back and look at what was approved, what it replaces, and why this particular project is sparking conversation.
First, a quick clarification
This project is separate from the previously discussed development planned between South Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 9th, 2026 
You may have seen recent news about the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, often referred to as RECA. For many St. Louis–area families, this is not an abstract policy discussion. It is personal.
The challenge is that most people do not know what the law actually covers, who it applies to, or whether it is worth looking into at all. This article is not about fear, speculation, or legal advice. It is about practical, factual guidance.
What RECA is and what it is not
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is a federal compensation program, Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 8th, 2026 
Housing affordability has returned to the national conversation. Recently, a senior White House economic adviser said the entire Cabinet is working on ideas to address housing challenges across the country. No formal policy has been released yet, but the statement itself has prompted questions in local markets like St. Louis.
The most important question for homeowners, buyers, and builders here is not what Washington is saying today, but what could realistically change looking ahead to 2026.
St. Louis Has Housing. The Issue Is Fit.
St. Louis does not face the same inventory crisis as Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on January 7th, 2026 
Because changing the messenger doesn’t change the message.
When a home doesn’t sell, the most tempting explanation is also the simplest one.
“It must be the agent.”
That conclusion feels productive. Change the sign. Change the outcome.
But in the St. Louis market, most stalled listings aren’t suffering from a marketing problem. They’re stalled because a hard decision hasn’t been made yet.
Price versus reality.
I recently worked with a seller who had already tested the market once. When we looked at the data together, one Continue Reading →
By Karen Moeller, on December 19th, 2025 
*A new federal reporting requirement affects certain entity and cash transactions nationwide, including St. Louis.*
Not every change in real estate shows up in market statistics or price charts. Some changes are procedural, happening quietly behind the scenes, and only become noticeable when a transaction suddenly feels more complicated than expected.
A new federal reporting rule from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, commonly referred to as FinCEN, falls squarely into that category. While it has been discussed for some time at the national level, it is now close enough to implementation Continue Reading →
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