I watch NBC’s “Today” Show for 15 minutes each morning while I stretch for my morning workout. When my schedule allows, I often watch CNBC’s “Mad Money” with Jim Cramer during my early evening walk on my treadmill. So it was especially disappointing to hear Jim Cramer’s inappropriate comments on home buying on “Today” not […]
How Your Mortgage Company Can Put Your Offer at Risk
Mortgages are not commodities. The service your mortgage company provides is just as important as the interest rate. I hope the following story illustrates this point. Last Thursday evening I received an offer on one of my listings. There was no mortgage pre-approval, so I called the buyer’s agent first thing on Friday. She didn’t […]
How a Buyers Agent can Let Down a Buyer
Perhaps one of the best ways to understand the value of using a buyers agent is to look at what happens when a buyers agent doesn’t do her job. Before recently meeting with a seller I printed the previous listing sheet for her home. It showed that the home had 3 bedrooms and a full […]
How to Calculate Month’s Supply of Homes on the Market
Lew Sichelman, a syndicated real estate columnist, wrote about some helpful real estate market statistics in today’s print version of the Chicago Tribune, but I must take exception to his calculation of month’s supply of homes on the market. The online version of the article, “The need-to-know numbers, for buyer and sellers”, isn’t available on […]
An Unfortunate Situation That Could Have Been Avoided
Today I had coffee with another businesswoman, Jennifer, who shared her story of buying a new home. The woman used a REALTOR® to buy the home from a builder in Algonquin. After the contract was signed the agent disappeared not to emerge until the end of the closing when she picked up her commission check. […]
