November 2008

Chicago Home Prices Fall Far Less Than National Index

November 29, 2008

This week ChicagoRealEstateDaily.com reported that Chicago home prices fell less than the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index. The 10-city index for September 2008 plunged 18.6% from September 2007. Chicago area prices were down 10.1% for the same period. Click to continue...

Why Real Estate Stats Can Be Misleading

November 25, 2008

In Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, real estate columnist Mary Umberger’s headline was “Near South Side homes selling, on average, for more than list price“. Mary reported Zip Realty’s finding that homes in the 60605 zip code had sold for an average of 106.4% of list price during the latest quarter! This is certainly the kind of Click to continue...

Mother-In-Law Houses Not More Expensive

November 22, 2008

This week I heard from a woman interested in buying a house with a mother-in-law (also known as in-law) arrangement in the near northwest suburbs. She and her 90 year-old mother are currently sharing a one bedroom condo. No matter how much someone loves their parent, that’s a challenging situation. With our current economic situation, Click to continue...

What Home Buyers Need to Know About Seller Rate Buydowns

November 19, 2008

Today in my office’s sales meeting our loan consultant talked about seller interest rate buydowns. That’s when the seller pays to lower the buyer’s mortgage interest rate. If home buyers will be living in the home for at least 5 years and staying with that loan, it can be a great deal for them since Click to continue...

Rogers Park Home Buyers Generally Pleased

November 16, 2008

Last night I had dinner at the home of a couple of my Rogers Park clients. When I see former home buying clients, I’m always interested in hearing about their experiences in their home and neighborhood. They were disappointed in the slowed redevelopment of Rogers Park over the past 2 years, but reported feeling very Click to continue...

Mount Prospect, IL Named Best Place to Raise Kids

November 13, 2008

Northwest Chicago suburb, Mount Prospect, was recently named “The Best Place to Raise Your Kids in the U.S.” for 2009 by the editors of Business Week. Mount Prospect was picked primarily for its school performance, affordability, and safety. According to the article, Prospect High School was just ranked 12th among all Illinois high schools. I’ve Click to continue...

Chicago Real Estate 101: How Realtors are Paid

November 10, 2008

On Saturday a woman wanted me to show her a house in Naperville. Even though the house was priced at $750K, I politely declined. The problem was the woman was already working with a Realtor. If I had shown her the house and she wanted it, she probably would have used her Realtor to write Click to continue...

Why Home Inspections are Even More Critical for Foreclosed Homes

November 6, 2008

Normally when you buy a home in Illinois the sellers must provide disclosures about their knowledge of any defects or safety issues. However, such is not the case for foreclosed properties. Since the seller (the bank) didn’t reside in the home, they aren’t obligated to complete disclosure reports such as the Illinois Association of Realtors Click to continue...

Just Like in Politics, It Pays to Fact Check in Real Estate

November 3, 2008

While it’s been an exciting political season, I won’t miss the barrage of misinformation that has been spewed forth. Fortunately, there are several political fact checking sites such as PolitiFact.com, FactCheck.org and The Fact Checker to help us sort out the half-truths and outright lies. Between my own fact checking and the sellers’ own words, Click to continue...