Blog

Construction of luxury apartment buildings is on the rise in Chicago and there is no sign of it slowing down. There may be as many as 8,700 new apartments downtown by 2016 and there are approximately 28,000 downtown today. This means that Chicago will possibly have 30% more apartments in the downtown area in just a couple years!

Carbon monoxide is the number one cause of poisoning deaths in the United States making it one of the worst dangers found in homes! Never leave your car or grill running in your garage without the garage door open for an extended period of time. You want to properly ventilate your dryer, oven, furnace, and water heater outside your home so that carbon monoxide does not collect inside your home. Carbon Monoxide is odorless, invisible, and it does not have a taste making it a silent killer just like radon.

It seems like everyone wants to be a flipper these days and I am not referring to the lovable dolphin. Flipper and flipping are trendy terms for buying distressed property, fixing it up, and reselling the property within a year for a profit. Television glamorizes flipping houses and television producers purposely make it look like a very easy process. HGTV, A&E, and several other networks have entire television shows that revolve around flipping.

Many people ask if the bank will file a deficiency judgment after a short sale. It is a great question to ask but the answer is not always clear. Sometimes deficiency judgments after a short sale pop up unexpectedly because the homeowners did not seek legal or tax advice when performing the short sale. Every situation is different so it is important to understand what a deficiency judgment after a short sale is.

This is how TV teaches us to sell a home.

The Price is Right

The Price is Right taught us that it is always better to go low on value, because if you go over, you will be disqualified and not even get a chance to play. If your house is not priced correctly, your house will not sell. The house will not get any offers and no agents or buyers will even walk through. That is why it is important to price your house competitively so that you get maximum exposure. When you price your house aggressively, you will be able to sell it in any market regardless what the economy is doing. If the price is right, your home will get people to “Come on Down” as commonly referred to on the show.

It has been rumored that Zillow may be acquiring Trulia sometime this week. Zillow is the largest United States real estate website and Trulia is number two.

Because of these rumors, Zillow (Z) stock opened at $127.68 and closed at $145.76 on Thursday July 24th. Friday, July 25th, the Zillow stock closed at $158.86.

Things are getting better across the country for the most part though. Many economists have agreed that a true recovery cannot begin until the foreclosure rates and shadow inventory decrease. This is great news for the real estate market and this will help raise property values in markets where foreclosure proceedings decline month after month.

Real estate transactions fall apart for many reasons and a real estate transaction is never a done deal until the deed has been recorded at the title company. That is why doing due diligence on any property is extremely important by the buyer, the seller, the loan officer, the title company, and the Realtor.

Illinois Senate Bill 2664 has to do with condominium associations. In the past, many buyers in Illinois have been responsible for hefty association dues owed when buying a REO property. Sometimes buyers were completely blindsided and given an enormous bill after they purchased a property.

If a very high offer comes in on a short sale, it is unwise of the seller to accept the highest offer if it is above or very close to the homes retail market value. What happens in many cases is that the buyer will walk because the short sale process takes a long time and the buyer recognizes that they are not getting a good price on the home because they are buying it as-is.