Archive for the 'Chicago Info/News' Category
Business Leaders Give Emanuel Strong Marks For First Year As Mayor
May 21st, 2012 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago News, Economic Recovery
It looks as if Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is on his way to becoming a favorite of city business owners, at least if a recent survey by Crain’s Chicago Business is to be believed.
According to a recent story by Crain’s, about three out of every four respondents to the survey said that Emanuel has been either very positive for Chicago businesses or has been positive but “could do more.”
Crain’s reported that only 9 percent of respondents to its survey said that the new mayor has been bad for business during his first year in office.
This is good news for homeowners in Chicago. We want businesses to view the city as a friendly, progressive place. We want them to think of Chicago as a city that welcomes new businesses to its borders. The more businesses that call Chicago home, after all, the more attractive the city becomes. And the more attractive Chicago is, the greater the number of people who want to live here.
That greater demand, of course, can only prove positive for the Chicago housing market.
The majority of respondents say they support Emanuel’s efforts to reduce crime, balance the city’s budget, promote jobs, reform Chicago’s public schools and promote ethics reform.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that all is well in Chicago. Emanuel, after all, has only been in office for a year. The city still faces challenges when it comes to falling home values, pension issues, crime, traffic congestion and, of course, unemployment.
Other respondents said that it might not matter what Emaneul does if the state legislature in Springfield doesn’t, as one respondent told Crain’s, “get their act together.”
Still, the survey is an encouraging one for Chicago residents. Let’s just hope that businesses continue to view our new mayor as favorably as his time in office runs on.
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Are Chicagoans Miserable? Forbes Thinks So
May 4th, 2012 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Chicago News, Real Estate News
You live in Chicago. When you wake up in the morning, do you look forward to your day? Are you ready to tackle the challenges that await? Or do you slam the snooze button and wish it was the weekend?
Forbes Magazine thinks that most of us Chicago residents fall into the latter category, waking up on the wrong side of the bed most days.
The magazine, which loves its lists, earlier this year ranked Chicago residents as the sixth most miserable in the country.
The reason for our grumpiness? According to Forbes, it’s the often brutal winters, the high property taxes and its terrible traffic. Forbes editors might have added that Chicagoans are struggling with a housing market in which home values continue to fall, but that hardly makes our city unique today.
Let’s look at the complaints listed by Forbes. Yes, our winters are usually harsh. But not last winter. In fact, last winter felt positively tropical. So we can scratch that one off the list, at least this season. The property taxes and the traffic, though, I’ll give Forbes. Traffic is especially a concern. Unless you’re taking the CTA or Metra, getting around town can be a true chore on busy weekdays.
But I think Forbes is still being too harsh on our city. Yes, Chicago can prove frustrating. But it can also be a fascinating place. We have great restaurants and live theater. We have tremendous green spaces and busy shopping districts. The night life is unrivaled here, and we have an abundance of professional sports teams from which to choose. We have as diverse an array of neighborhoods as any city across the globe.
In fact, it’s Chicago’s attractiveness that I think will eventually prove the savior our local housing market. People still want to live in Chicago. It is undoubtedly the top city in the Midwest. That bodes well for the future of the city’s housing market.
So, yes, Chicago isn’t perfect, as Forbes points out. But where would you rather live?
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Renting May Not Be Cheaper Than Buying
April 11th, 2012 categories: Chicago Info/News, For Buyers, For Sellers, Housing Market, Renting in Chicago
Think renting an apartment will save you money when compared to buying a house? Don’t be so sure.
According to a story by the Reuters news agency, average monthly apartment rents across the country saw their biggest increase in four years.
This sheds new light on the age-old rent vs. buy question.
Some have said that it makes more financial sense to rent as housing values continue to fall across the country. But does that still hold if apartment rents continue to rise? As rents climb, it no longer seems quite as affordable to rent.
According to the Reuters story, asking rents across the country have risen to $1,070 a month on average. That’s an increase of 0.5percent from the last quarter of 2011. Effective rents, which take away perks offered by landlords such as free months of rent, jumped 0.9 percent during the first quarter of this year to $1,018 a month. That’s the largest increase in effective rents since the first quarter of 2008.
There’s a simple reason why rents are rising so quickly: supply and demand.
The Reuters story reported that apartment vacancy rates in the first quarter of this year fell to their lowest levels in more than a decade, to a stunningly low 4.9 percent. As demand for apartment living increases – thanks in part to housing foreclosures – the supply of available units has been shrinking. That allows landlords to increase the amount of rent they charge each month.
Will this formula change any time soon? It doesn’t look like it. Foreclosures continue to rise, and people who’ve lost their homes need to live somewhere. Many of them are entering the rental market, further reducing the amount of available rental units.
So if you’ve long thought that renting was a cheaper option than is taking on a mortgage loan, the latest numbers suggest that you may have to change that line of thinking.
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Trulia Study Offers More Proof: This Is A Great Time To Buy A Home In Chicago
April 5th, 2012 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, For Buyers, Housing Market
Looking for a reason why it makes sense to buy a home today? Trulia, an online real estate portal, has a big one for you: The odds are that where you live it’s cheaper to own a home today than it is to rent.
And that includes residents of Chicago and its suburbs.
Trulia recently released its new rent-vs.-buy study, and the results were intriguing: In 98 out of 100 major markets across the country — including Chicago — it was cheaper for consumers to own a home than it was for them to rent.
The reasons for this? Rents are increasing across the country. They’re certainly rising quickly in Chicago and its suburbs. And at the same time, housing prices continue to fall, in Chicago and across the country.
Then there are the low mortgage interest rates, still around the 4 percent mark for 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loans. This makes it less expensive for buyers to borrow money to finance the purchase of a home.
This all combines to make owning a home more affordable than renting.
I’ve long said that this is a great time to buy a home. Look at our Chicago market. According to data from the Illinois Association of REALTORS(R), median home prices here were down 6.6 percent in February from the same month one year earlier. That translates to a median price of $141,000 this February compared with a median price of $150,000 last year at this time.
And this trend shows no signs of slowing. Housing foreclosures continue to glut the Chicago market. Foreclosures tend to drag down the median sales prices of homes throughout an entire area.
The Trulia study, then, provides yet more evidence that there’s rarely been a better time to buy a home, whether you’re looking for a condominium or single-family home in the Chicago area or across the country.
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Does new research report oversell housing recovery?
April 3rd, 2012 categories: Chicago Info/News, Economic Recovery, For Sellers, Housing Market
Is a new report from the Urban Land Institute on the nation’s housing too optimistic? That’s the debate.
According to a recent story by the Wall Street Journal, the Urban Land Institute in late March released a report that details several encouraging trends in both residential and commercial real estate.
For instance, the survey predicted that the demand for new homes will finally start to rise again. According to the Urban Land Institute, single-family housing starts should jump from 428,600 in 2011 to an estimated 800,000 in 2014.
Even more encouraging for home sellers is this prediction: The Urban Land Institute says that home prices may start to rise again in 2013. And three years after that, the institute predicts, housing prices will have risen by 3.5 percent.
However, the Urban Land Institute report is not completely positive. Researchers with the institute say that consumers should not expect a housing recovery that in any way resembles the residential housing boom, when the country saw soaring home prices. The coming recovery will be a more modest one. But, the researchers predict, it will also be a steadier one.
The recovery will also not be universal. Researchers predicted that certain markets that were particularly hit hard, places like Las Vegas and parts of South Florida, will trail behind healthier areas for many more years when it comes to housing prices.
Even with the caution thrown in, critics have complained that the Urban Land Institute report is too optimistic. The Wall Street Journal story quotes Kenneth Rosen, chairman of California’s Rosen Consulting Group, as saying that it stretches belief to imagine that new single-family home starts will nearly double by 2014.
Who’s right? I’d love to say that the folks at the Urban Land Institute are in the right. But it’s far too early to say. I’ve learned that today’s housing market is one of ups and downs. We’ll just have to wait to see if home prices actually do start to rise in 2013.
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