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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]