Archive for the 'Chicago Neighborhoods' Category
July 15th, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, For Buyers, Green Homes
What do homebuyers in Chicago want? They’re searching for quality homes at fair prices. They want to live close to public transportation. They want good schools and plenty of nearby shopping and dining choices.
And, increasingly, they want green homes.
This search for environmentally friendly homes is finally getting a bit easier. CLTV’s Web site recently ran a story on the changes being made by Chicago’s MRED, a local multiple listing service of homes for sale.
Late last year, the MRED listing service gave REALTORS® the ability to add nearly two dozen green or energy efficient features with their property listings. According to the CLTV story, these features can include anything from drought-resistant landscaping to low-flow plumbing fixtures to bamboo flooring.
This is good news for Chicago buyers who are looking for green features. They can now find these environmentally friendly amenities listed prominently on many of the home listings they view online.
This move is something that officials from the National Association of REALORS® are happy to see. The CLTV story says that they’d like to see all the nation’s multiple listing services do this. Currently, according to one association official quoted in the story, from 30 to 40 of the services allow their REALTORS® to enter green and energy efficiency data in their home listings. That’s not a lot of services when you consider how many dot the country.
I don’t think it will be much longer, though, before we see an increase in green information on home listings. The reason is a simple one: It’s something more buyers are looking for.
I’m not naïve enough to believe that environmentally friendly features will trump price, location and construction quality. But a growing number of my clients are interested in living in homes that are environmentally friendly. If they’re looking at two houses that are mostly equal, these clients will go with the home that boasts the greener features.
Here’s some advice to the sellers out there: If your home does have some nice green features, advertise them prominently. In today’s tough residential real estate market, sellers need every advantage that they can get. Green features are just one more tool they can use to help move their homes.
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Why Not Rent That Unsold Condo?
May 27th, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, For Homeowners, Renting in Chicago
It’s not easy selling a condo in Chicago these days. There are just too many vacant units on the market. Not surprisingly, a growing number of condo owners in the city are taking a bold step: They’re renting their units out for short-term stays.
Dennis Rodkin, the writer of Chicago Magazine’s Deal Estate column, tackled this issue last week. He wrote that the idea is gaining popularity among condo owners who are hoping to trim at least some of the costs associated with paying the mortgage on units they no longer want to own.
Rodkin cites a spokesperson from HomeAway, an online vacation-home rental company, who told him that the service had 120 listings in Chicago in April. That’s up 53 percent from the same month one year earlier. More importantly, the spokesperson mentioned that more than half of these vacation-home listings were city condos.
For vacationers, this is good news. Spending a week in a Chicago condo in Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square or just about any other hot city neighborhood makes for a great vacation. It’s a benefit for the owners of these units, too. They may not be able to sell their Chicago condos; but there’s no reason why they can’t at least collect a nice chunk of rent during the prime summer vacation months.
Unfortunately, not everyone is happy about this. Some condo residents worry that the increasing number of rentals will turn their buildings into party zones. Rodkin reports that the Chicago City Council’s Joint Committee on Zoning License is considering a new nightly vacation rental ordinance. If approved, the measure would force condo owners to pay licensing and inspection fees when they rent out their condos. The ordinance would also force them to pay taxes on their rental proceeds.
I understand the concerns of condo owners, but this ordinance does seem more than anything like a way for the city to squeeze even more money out of its residents. If this measure passes, I wonder, will it put a serious crimp in the short-term rental plans of Chicago condo owners?
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Single Buyers Becoming A More Significant Part of Home-Buying Market
March 3rd, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, For Buyers
First-time homebuyers have been given a lot of credit, including in this blog, for helping home sales rise in Chicago throughout much of 2009. But the Chicago Tribune, in a story on Sunday by Mary Ellen Podmolik, revealed that there’s another group of buyers that has done its share to boost the sale of local condominiums and single-family homes: single buyers, especially women.
According to the Tribune story, the number of unmarried single buyers has been on the rise since the Chicago housing market first began booming about seven years ago. Since then, there have been twice as many single female buyers as there have been single males.
The Tribune cites data from the National Association of REALTORS® that says that for the fiscal year ended in June, single buyers accounted for 38 percent of all home purchases in the Chicago area. And single women accounted for 26 percent of these sales.
In Chicago itself, not counting the suburbs, 44 percent of buyers for the 12 months ended in June were single, the REALTORS® association data said. Single females accounted for 29 percent of the condominium and single-family home sales in Chicago during the 12-month period.
That’s higher than the national average, where single women accounted for 21 percent of all home purchases. Nationally, single men accounted for just 10 percent of home sales.
These numbers don’t surprise me. After all, Chicago is a great place for singles of any gender to live. Every neighborhood in the city boasts its own character, and the trendiest, places like Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, and Lakeview are alive with high-end restaurants, independent theaters, hip shops and busy nightspots.
At the same time, housing in Chicago’s top neighborhoods is affordable today. The city’s average median sales price is down from last year, and down even more significantly from where it stood just three years ago. This means that single buyers suddenly have more sales power. Many of them can also take advantage (for the time being, at least) of the federal government’s first-time homebuyer tax credit of $8,000.
No, the fact that Chicago is attracting single buyers doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, I’d be more surprised if the number of single buyers went down.
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High Percentage of Chicago-Area Home Sales Were Distressed Properties in 2009
March 1st, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, Foreclosures, Housing Market
The good news about 2009 is that housing sales began rising again in Chicago during much of the second half of the year. The bad news? A large portion of these home sales in the Chicago region last year were of the distressed variety.
A local real estate company reported that distressed properties accounted for at least 34 percent of home sales reported in the Chicago area in 2009.
This continues a trend that started in late 2007. And it’s not one unique to Chicago. As the nation’s economy began to falter, a growing number of homeowners lost their jobs or saw their annual incomes plummet. Many of these homeowners suddenly began struggling to make their mortgage payments for the first time in their lives.
In 2009, U.S. households received 2.8 million foreclosure filings, according to online real estate data company RealtyTrac. This figure represents an all-time high for the country.
It’s little surprise, then, that so many of the Chicago area’s housing sales last year were of foreclosed and distressed properties. Fortunately, there is help for homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgage bills. The federal government in 2009 launched its Home Affordable Modification Program, which provides financial incentives to encourage mortgage lenders and banks to somehow lower the monthly mortgage payments of struggling homeowners.
If you are having difficulty making your mortgage payments, call your mortgage lender immediately. Even if your lender isn’t participating in the federal program, it might still be willing to modify your mortgage loan. After all, your lender does not benefit from seeing you lose your home to foreclosure.
I’m glad that home sales seem to be rising steadily these days. But I’ll be even happier when a much smaller percentage of these sales comes from distressed properties.
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Chicago Home Prices Down, But Not By Much
December 30th, 2009 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, For Buyers, For Homeowners, For Sellers, Housing Market
The story’s been the same throughout much of 2009 in Chicago: Average city housing prices are lower today than they were a year ago.
This didn’t change in November, according to the latest data released by the Illinois Association of REALTORS®. But in a bit of a silver lining, sales prices didn’t fall by all that much in the month.
The REALTORS® association reported that the median housing price in the city of Chicago for condominiums, single-family homes and townhomes stood at $215,000. That’s down 3.4 percent from the median sales price of $222,500 in the city one year earlier.
This isn’t the best of news for Chicago home sellers. After all, they’re trying to get the best prices for their homes. But the fact that the median sales price was down less than 4 percent is a good sign for the health of the local housing market.
The numbers tell me that housing prices in Chicago are finally reaching a stable point. Let’s face it, local home prices soared too high here during the height of the residential housing boom that ended in mid- to late-2006. These prices needed to fall. Of course, the process has been painful for home sellers and homeowners alike. Sellers are no longer able to name their price and then watch as buyers fight over their property. Owners are watching helplessly as their condos and single-family homes, even those in neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Lincoln Square, lose value. In fact, some studies suggest that about 15 million U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgage loans than what their homes are worth.
But as painful as the process has been, it is an important one. There will come a day soon – hopefully in the coming year – when housing prices are no longer lower today than they were a year or two years ago. When that day arrives, we’ll know that housing prices have finally reached equilibrium.
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