- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

(bright music) - We learn a bit more about the local housing market.

We also hear the latest community updates and catch up with local businesses in R-Spotlight.

All that coming up next on R-Town, the show about Rochester.

(upbeat jazzy music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, R-Town.

(upbeat jazzy music continues) For many, the housing market in Rochester seems to be changing and shifting each year.

Here to give us an inside look at the latest trends in the local housing market is Karl Rogers, an executive with the Southeast Minnesota Realtor's Office.

Welcome to R-Town, Karl.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

- So to kick us off, how did the housing market fare in Southeast Minnesota Last year?

- Yeah, last year with respect to the surrounding counties, Olmsted, Dodge, Fillmore, Winona, and Wabasha, for the past two years, actually, we've seen about a 12 to 15% decrease in home sales year over year.

So for the past two years, there's been around a 25 to 30% decrease in the past two years.

Recently the Wall Street Journal has put out an article and NAR research has supported that at a national level, actually, home sales have been the lowest in 28 years.

- [Nicole] Wow.

- Data locally supports this as well for as far as we can go back as in our MLS systems in 10 years it's been the lowest with respect to home sales.

- What are some of the factors influencing that?

- I think the biggest factor influencing that is an increase in sales price and affordability is becoming a major issue.

- And you know, I think in here in Rochester we often hear that things are getting more expensive and things are also changing from year to year.

Specifically in terms of these rising sale prices, is that an accurate assessment of what's going on here in Rochester and why is that?

- Yes, absolutely, it's very accurate.

Rochester is, although I believe we are somewhat protected with a little bit of an economic bubble with Mayo Clinic and all the money in our local industry, what we have seen is over the past 10 years, about 100% increase in median sales price.

Right now the median is just over 300,000 and 10 years ago it was right around 150,000.

- That's quite a leap.

- That's incredible.

- It is.

Of course, everyone's talking about the interest rates, so let's talk a little bit about interest rates.

How did higher interest rates impact the local housing market last year?

- Yeah, they had a significant impact on the local real estate market.

Over the past year as they have increased, I think it really put a halt and put the brakes on some buyers, and if you think about people in three different buckets of people who want to move, people who maybe are on the fence of wanting and needing to move, and then the people that absolutely need to move, the first two groups may have really held off a little bit, I think, in the past year, so this year currently we're seeing them drop a little bit and we have some early indications that this will be a bounce back strong year.

- Okay, well, we look forward to hearing more about that in the future.

Another trend that was in the report was talking a little bit about how buyers are opting for smaller homes.

Can you tell us a little bit about that and the impact of this trend?

- Sure, that's been a very interesting trend over the past few years.

I believe it started with maybe ironically Covid where everybody was locked up and needed to be in their homes.

We saw a little bit of a trend with that where people maybe wanted less home but more land that they could work on and produce on their own.

There's been some buzzwords in the real estate industry around tiny homes and what's called an accessory dwelling unit.

Some people are building smaller ADUs, they're called, on their property to either live in themself and rent out their primary residence, or the opposite with that.

- So what are some of your insights as we head into this new year about what the housing market might look like?

- Yeah, it's an interesting question at the beginning of every year that we wish we had a crystal ball to determine what's gonna be coming in the next few months.

But there are some early indications this year from some agents in our office and some others I've been talking to that it's gonna be a strong year.

I've heard from another agent in the office, a home in a higher price range, just over 600,000 hit the market as coming soon, which means that it was out for advertisement but was not able to be viewed in person and the home got a full price offer with no contingencies, without even someone being able to see it in person.

Now that's all case by case, but I really do feel that 2024 is going to be on the uprise with respect to real estate this year.

- I'm sure that's optimistic outlook for you all as well.

Thank you so much for joining us, Karl.

- Yes, thank you.

(upbeat jazzy music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on R-Town.

We visit Gallery 24 in its new space and hear what prompted their move.

We also get an update on the approved Olmsted County budget for this year, but at first we find out what's behind a growing number of girls and young women taking up wrestling as a sport in this week's R-Culture segment.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Taya Viker and I'm a 10th grader at Mayo High School.

(upbeat music continues) I've always grown up in a wrestling family.

I always liked watching wrestling and watching my cousins wrestle.

I went to open mat and I had a lot of fun just trying different moves and just being very physical there so I decided to join.

- The interest in girls wrestling has exploded in the last few years.

I don't know the exact statistics on it, but I know that it has doubled year after year.

(upbeat music continues) Girls wrestling became a Minnesota State High School League sport two years ago, so it's been growing really in the last couple years.

We've started getting a little bit more recognition in the media and things and in the last few years it's just exploded, and not just in Minnesota but across the country.

We're noticing even in our program, which we're a very large program to begin with, about 1/3 of the people on the team are girls.

- The hardest thing about wrestling is definitely the conditioning.

It's a lot of conditioning, a lot of running to get into certain weight classes.

Well, I have six pins and one tech fall, then I've got pinned three times.

So my first two losses were in the beginning of the season, my first two matches, but with more practice, I got really good at it and started to win more.

(crowd cheering) (upbeat music continues) - Taya's fantastic.

As a first year wrestler, she came from a wrestling family, but she's great.

She tries hard practice every day, is very physical.

(crowd yelling, cheering) - It was strange at first to be like that physical and hands on, but you really get used to it once you get used to doing the moves and like throwing people down.

- Our numbers in Rochester here, for example at Mayo, have gone from one to four to 17 this year, so we've grown quite a bit.

- After wrestling, I feel really relieved and I feel really calmed and excited with how much stress I'm relieving.

When I pin someone, I feel really excited and I feel like all the practice and all the hard work really paid off in the end due to all like the physical labor.

(crowd cheering) I've noticed very few like girl wrestlers up until, especially at Mayo this year since we have our first girls team and so it feels really nice to be a part of that and be one of the first girls to join.

The most fun thing is learning new moves and getting better at it.

My go-to move is usually a snap down.

You grab the back of the person's neck and you just really hard just go like that and then they either go to their knees or you can head lock them and then pull 'em to the ground.

(crowd yelling) It's a lot.

You're very busy over certain weekends so I have less time to do other things, but in the end I think I enjoy it more to be doing this here than rather being at home.

- That's something that I've been around for a long time and I've never been able to be a part of before is just starting the sport from scratch and recruiting it from scratch and starting its own culture.

There's a whole girls wrestling culture that we're growing and starting right here at Mayo High School and it's fun to be a part of that.

40 total, all right, let's give it a go, one, two, three.

(coach, group claps) - Just encourage girls to come out so there's more girls teams and more wrestling for other girls that are already in the sport.

- [Coach Koepp] I hope that in the future girls wrestling continues to grow and that I'm looking forward to it expanding to a point where it's got an equal number of girls to guys ratio.

I think that'd be a fantastic thing, fantastic goal for girls wrestling in general.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter at KSMQ#RTown, or KSMQ.org/RTown.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I am Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight where we cover happenings, organizations, entrepreneurs in Rochester, so I have with me today Brooke Burch, welcome.

- Thank you.

- And your service and business that you provide is custom alterations and sewing and you also provide classes, but first let's take a step back and cover what got you started.

I love your story and how you started your business.

- I grew up in Rochester and I went to college for fashion design in Wisconsin.

I came back and didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

I had a child when I was 24 and that kind of spurred me on to get my business off the ground.

I always knew that I wanted to work for myself so that was a goal that I've kept up till this day.

- Your business is homegrown.

Share a little bit more about the journey, how you started in your apartment and expanded your business from there.

- I started doing alterations out of my apartment in 2015 and the ball just got rolling.

People heard about me through word of mouth and I built my business up that way.

During the pandemic I had to switch gears and start producing masks, so I did that throughout the entire pandemic and I met a lot of customers I didn't normally have through that process.

After that I started teaching group classes for sewing and everything just kind of grew from there.

I rented from a local business owner named Abe Sawyer and we had a really good connection and he kind of helped me into the place that I am in now, so I really appreciate his help.

- Which is a really cool story because it was a building right next to his business.

You were able to kind of have a storefront and then expanded.

Where are you located right now and what does your store offer?

- Right now I'm located just off Broadway in Rochester at 11 9th Street Northeast.

I offer vintage clothing.

I have a vintage clothing boutique called Vintage Rack and I do a mid-level and introductory sewing lessons as well as still do alteration work.

- Let's talk a little bit more about that Vintage Rack.

I think it's so cool.

How do you source your clothing for that?

And then, you just put beautiful displays out, share a little bit more about that.

- I collect clothing from all over the place and I go up to the Twin Cities and buy, sell and trade up there.

I also do the Minneapolis Vintage Market, so I befriended a lot of the vendors from there as well and bring all that good stuff back to Rochester.

- And it's some good stuff.

About the custom sewing and classes.

Really quick, if you could recap, how is that offered?

Where can folks find out more about that?

- They can reach out to me directly if they wanna sign up for classes.

I teach people of all ages starting from age eight and we just kind of go at their own pace.

I think that's what attracts people to my classes.

- That's so awesome and I love that you offer that because home economics is not really offered in school anymore and so we need a little something like that in this town.

Thank you so much for being on the show, Brooke.

- Thank you.

- This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Hello once again, Rochester.

This is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Legislative Rundown.

We are in a legislative preseason right now.

We don't know exactly what the big topics are going to be at the Capitol this year, but we have some ideas.

The actual legislative session won't start until Monday, February 12th, but in the meantime we're seeing a number of events and press releases hinting at what some of the major topics might be.

Certainly one of those garnering the most attention would be the topic of physician-assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill. Obviously this would be a hugely controversial topic and it appears that it may require bipartisan support in the Senate and the reason for that is while this bill is likely to be introduced by DFLers, they have a one-vote majority.

As such, without changes it would appear that some bipartisan support would be required to at least pass this in the Senate.

What actually happens, we'll wait and see.

Minnesotans who vote in the upcoming presidential primary will now have their data shared with the state party whose primary you vote in.

Now this is something that is not public data under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, however, the political parties will be able to receive your data unless the state law on that changes.

Census data recently came out that affirmed what many of us already know.

If you are a renter in Rochester or the state of Minnesota, it is sometimes hard to pay your rent.

In fact, about half of renters in the state of Minnesota are struggling to pay rent, that defined as more than 30% of their income is going to pay rent, but geographically it varies greatly around the state and the worst part of the state is right here in Southeastern Minnesota where 55% in the most recent data are struggling with rent affordability.

There are real solutions out there.

One of them is the People Over Parking Act, which is likely to be hugely controversial, but it would prohibit municipalities from setting parking minimums.

Now, developers could still build as much parking as they wanted to build, but it is something that would greatly help affordability of housing and seems to be doing so in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

This has been Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Legislative Rundown.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (gentle harp music) - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout.

I'm here at Gallery 24 off of Elton Hills Drive, talking with Emma Olstad, board member and artist.

Can you share a little bit more about your role here with Gallery 24?

- I'm a Gallery 24 board member and also an artist here.

My role is to serve on a committee and we make a bunch of decisions that create this beautiful space here.

I mostly work on website design and social media.

- [Danielle] You're an artist too.

What kind of artwork do you do and how do you have it displayed?

- [Emma] Yeah, so I mostly paint with acrylics and I display in the other room over there.

(reflective music) - [Danielle] I noticed that there is a live demo and you could see there are plenty of offerings and different type of artwork here.

Can you share kind of a highlight of what is being offered?

- Yeah, so we have all kinds of art here.

We have woodworking, painting in many different mediums, acrylic, oil, watercolor.

We also have jewelry, magnets, all that kind of stuff.

So our intent is to have a space that anyone as an artist can come and can join and share their art.

We have a diverse set of artists here and it's always great to see something new.

- [Danielle] What makes you most excited about having a collaboration like this?

- Being able to show our artwork to the community because it's not always easy to find a space.

And always, I love, as soon as I come in here, I always love seeing the different kinds of arts 'cause there's always something new, always something new every time I come in so you're able to see what people have created in the last couple months or last couple days.

- Just checking out this artwork.

Look at this cute little turtle.

This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout.

(upbeat music) - At the end of 2023, Olmsted County approved its budget for this new year.

Here to walk us through the ins and outs of what this budget means for the county and our community is Director Wilfredo Roman Catala.

Welcome to R-Town.

- My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

- So to get us started, can you tell us what the combined budget amount is for 2024 for the county and the Housing Development Authority?

- Absolutely, so the combined budget is about $372 million, which if you think about it, equates to about $2,200 per person when you take into consideration all our population of about 168,000.

And then from there, normally people are very interested in what taxes are doing, so taxes or property taxes in this regard will be about $131 million out of that amount.

And that equates to about $777 per person per year out of, again, of that calculation using the 168,000 population rate.

- Thank you for breaking that down for us.

Can you tell us a little bit, just briefly, how the budget is developed?

- Yeah, so I know people think it's a big mystery, but it's not, it's just a lot of collaboration.

It's a lot of conversation that take place For the county, we start early on in the spring with a conversation with the county commissioners, which are the representative of our community, and from there we start developing the budget, which as you probably know, or maybe you don't, but Minnesota has a tradition of having a lot of mandates from the state down to the local level for counties.

So for us, about 70% of the work that we do at the county level is mandated or required from the state so we need to develop our budget understanding there's certain things we can adjust aside to eliminate or reduce because they're mandated by the state.

From there, we start again having those meetings with department directors, staff within the county, conversations with community so we can start developing priorities from a strategic perspective, and then the budget just becomes a financial interpretation of those priorities.

Obviously we have services that we provide that are not mandated and those on an annual basis, we evaluate and decide do we need to seize those programs, do we need to expand the programs?

Do we need to do something different with those programs?

But that's kind of the normal process.

On a yearly basis, we review every single budget line item, making sure every funding is properly accounted for, and then from there, using as a base, our strategic priorities decide how we're gonna fund the following year.

- And to guide that process.

I love how you phrased it as sort of a financial sort of interpretation of the priorities, and in terms of the 2024 budget, what will this fund in the community?

- Yeah, so obviously there's many things.

Our life as residents of Olmsted county is touched by many things that we do as an organization.

Obviously we are a service organization providing services, but also there's construction, there's a number of things related to capital.

Our focus in 2024, there's a mirage of things that will be happening from a health and human services perspective.

Law enforcement, from basic administration of services, but at the same time, elections, assessments of properties, health, courts, providing a space for our courts, even though those are functions provided by the state, we provide the space for them to function and provide services so it's kind of a involved process.

- The HRA's property tax has been increased this year and it's sort of at the maximum I think that's allowed by Minnesota statute.

If you could talk to us a little bit about that and how these additional funds are going to be used.

- Yeah, so just like us as regular citizens in the community, we see the impact of inflation.

So the county and the HRA both will see that impact as well from the cost of utilities, from the cost of purchasing supplies, from the cost of paying for salaries and benefits.

Specifically the HRA, the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, their focus is on making sure we have affordable housing for our residents that are most vulnerable.

So that's the focus there.

So these funds, what we're gonna use those funds are for expand, if you will, or fill the gap when there's no state funding or federal funding available or there's a greater need than those funds that are available, then we tap into these local resources to make things happen.

We also will use those resources to acquire new properties, improve the existing properties that we have to provide services and instances provide additional resources, for example, things like rental assistance, homeless prevention, and things like that.

- Thank you for sharing that.

You mentioned earlier that the budget is also very grounded in sort of the county's strategic plan.

Can you talk a little bit about how the 2024 budget will be supporting the county's four-year strategic plan process?

- Absolutely, so there's a significant focus on the health of our community, right, and especially mental health.

There's a lot of behavioral situation and crises that are continue to experience in our community and we have identified that.

As a good example, we have an outreach group, or team, that focus on dealing with behavioral situations in our community and that group has been expanded from five individuals to nine starting in 2024 and they provide an alternative resource when law enforcement is called they right along or they, in lieu of the public safety personnel attending the call, our staff will attend that call and deal in the proper, deal the situation in the proper way with if a behavioral crisis versus a criminal crisis.

- That's a very important resource obviously for the community and sort of for the continued mental health, community health of the community.

In addition to that, the strategic plan piece of things, there's also the capital improvement program.

Can you tell us a little bit about some of the key projects that are part of this year's annual CIP?

- Yeah, so the plan is a five-year lookout into the future.

It covers from 2024 to 2028, all the different capital needs for the organization, from buildings, from equipment needs, acquisition of land or property.

Some of the quite interesting projects that we have in that is one of them will be the renewal of Grand Park so we continue to invest in our community in that regard where people can celebrate and gather and have a good time locally here in Olmsted County and so that's a significant investment of about $55 million that we're putting into that over the next three years.

- Wonderful, well thank you so much for joining us, Director.

We really appreciate all you do for the county and for filling us in on what can be a very big sort of topic on the budget.

- Fantastic, thank you, appreciate it.

- And thank you all for joining us today.

I hope you learned as much as I did about all that's going on in our city and the people making it happen.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #R-Town.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, host of R-Town, the show about Rochester and we will see you next week.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.