From the monthly archives:

January 2008

Stop Chicago City Council from Raising Buyer Transfer Tax 40%!

January 31, 2008

Next Wednesday, February 6, the Chicago City Council will vote on a plan to increase the buyer transfer tax by 40%! Currently, Chicago home buyers pay $7.50 tax per $1,000 of value. On a $400,000 purchase this amounts to $3,000 (7.5 * 400). If the tax increase is approved, the tax on the same home [...]

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3 of Naperville’s Zip Codes Saw Price Increases in 2007

January 28, 2008

Yesterday I showed houses in Naperville to a couple. At this point, they don’t have a preference for a specific area of Naperville, so we looked at houses in several parts of Naperville.
Naperville continues to be a very popular Chicago suburb as evidenced by the rise in median house prices in 2007 for 3 out [...]

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Foreclosures and the Lessons of Baywatch

January 25, 2008

Wednesday I attended a presentation by real estate attorney, Richard Laubenstein (shown left), with Di Monte & Lizak, LLC. Richard’s presentation, “Short Sales and Sun Tans”, showed the similarities between handling short sales (see my post “Short Sales are Anything But“) and lessons Richard learned watching “Baywatch“. Who knew that David Hasselhoff could help me [...]

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Durty Nellie’s – A Palatine Institution

January 21, 2008

Saturday I showed houses and condos to buyers in Palatine. With single digit temperatures, we were freezing by the time we got to the last home.
Afterwards, I should have stopped in at Durty Nellie’s in downtown Palatine (180 N. Smith) to warm up. Durty Nellie’s has been a neighborhood pub in Palatine for over [...]

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How to Hear About Upcoming Open Houses for Homes That Meet Your Criteria

January 17, 2008

Baird & Warner’s HomeFinder System not only lets buyers find homes that meet their criteria, it now sends weekly email updates of such homes that are having an open house in the coming weekend.
The open houses aren’t just Baird & Warner open houses, but open houses for homes listed by all Chicago area brokers. The [...]

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Finding a Home Within a School’s Boundaries Takes 2 Kinds of Searches

January 14, 2008

For families with children in school, schools are often an important part of the home buying process. On Friday I started searching for a new home for a lesbian couple in Palatine. They want to keep their 8 year old son in the same elementary school, but with another child soon to be on the [...]

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Desperate Realtor

January 11, 2008

Here’s some long overdue Realtor humor by Mattababy. A little fuzzy, but funny!

Radon Testing Guidelines & Disclosure for Illinois Home Buyers

January 8, 2008

Starting January 1, 2008 home buyers signing a sales contract for a home in Illinois must receive from the sellers the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) pamphlet entitled “Radon Testing Guidelines for Real Estate Transactions” (or an equivalent pamphlet approved for use by IEMA) and the Illinois Disclosure of Information on Radon Hazards.
Radon is [...]

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Short Sales are Anything But

January 5, 2008

Today I showed houses in Des Plaines to a couple. Most of the homes I showed were short sales. A short sale is a situation where the sale proceeds are less (short) of what is owed on the mortgage.
Probably the biggest difference between a short sale and a regular home sale is that the process [...]

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Chicago’s Galewood Neighborhood

January 2, 2008

After viewing houses in Oak Park on Sunday, my buyers and I decided to check out some houses just north of Oak Park in Chicago’s Galewood Neighborhood on Monday.
As show on the left outlined in red, Galewood is just north of Oak Park on the other side of North Ave. (Hwy 64) and just east [...]

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