Crain’s quoted numbers from Moody’s Analytics saying that the Chicago-area economy should grow by about 1.6 percent in the first half of 2012 and by about 2 percent for the full year. These numbers sound positive until you consider that six months ago Moody’s predicted that the Chicago-area economy would grow by about 4 percent in 2012.

Crain’s points to the economic uncertainty caused by unstable financial markets and European debt worries. This, the story says, has made employers overly cautious when making new job hires.

Because of this, Moody’s is predicting that the unemployment rate in the Chicago area will jump to 11.4 percent in the first half of 2012. That’s up from 10.6 percent in the second half of 2011. Six months ago, Moody’s predicted that the Chicago-area unemployment rate would stand at 9.2 percent in the first half of 2012.

This is bad news, too, for the Chicago housing market. Buyers won’t be as willing to invest in a new home if they’re still worried about losing their jobs. And as Moody’s numbers show, Chicagoans have little reason to be optimistic about the safety of their jobs.

Just because a new year has started, it doesn’t mean that Chicago, and the rest of the nation, don’t still face serious challenges. Until unemployment finally falls, expect the Chicago housing market to struggle.

This latest news points out once again how important it is for home sellers to work with a skilled REALTOR® to set the right price for their condominiums or single-family homes. Buyers today are smart; they won’t overpay for a home. Those sellers who do set an unrealistic asking price will see their residence sit on the market for months, ignored by today’s savvy home buyers.

But there is some good news regarding the retail giant: Of the store closings the company recently posted on its Web site, none are located in Chicago or Illinois.

GlobeSt.com reported that Sears, in late December, listed 79 of the 100 to 120 stores it plans to close. Not one of these stores is located in Illinois, and GlobeSt.com wonders whether the large tax break that the state recently approved for Sears had something to do with this.

Also in December, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law to give Sears a tax cut of $150 million during a 10-year period. This move came after Sears threatened to move out of the state.

This hasn’t been a good year for Sears. GlobeSt.com reported that the retailer saw its comparable store sales fall 2.6 percent for the year and 5.2 percent since late October. The 100 to 120 stores that Sears closes should save the retailer about $170 million, according to the GlobeSt.com story.

It’s possible to argue the merits of giving companies such large tax breaks. It’s possible, too, to debate whether Sears’ recent tax cut played a role in its decision to not close any of its Illinois stores.

But it’s not possible to argue that Sears’ decision to spare Illinois and Chicago any store closings is a boon to the area. And, remember, anything that helps the local economy also helps the Chicago-area housing market.

Buyers are more likely to spend money if they feel more confident about the local economy. And confident buyers are essential to the health of the Chicago housing market.

So there’s one thing to agree on here: The fact that Sears is keeping its Chicago stores open is good news for everyone in the city.

According to a recent feature story in the Chicago Tribune, the number of homes in the foreclosure process rose 20 percent in November in Cook County when compared to one month earlier. The Tribune said that much of this increase stemmed from a jump of 57 percent in the number of homes in the county that were sent to court-ordered auctions.

Citing data from online foreclosure company RealtyTrac, the Tribune reported that foreclosure filings were reported on more than 224,000 properties across the United States in November. That’s a drop of 3 percent from October.

No matter how you look at the numbers there are too many housing foreclosures in Chicago and the United States. This is unfortunate because foreclosure has such a devastating effect on families.

If you’re struggling to pay your mortgage bills each month, call your mortgage lender immediately. The sooner you call your lender, the better your chances of working out a new payment arrangement, a reduction in your mortgage loan’s interest rate or some other way to avoid losing your home through foreclosure.

I understand that this is no easy thing, calling your mortgage lender and explaining that you’re struggling to pay your monthly housing bills. But lenders will often work with you to find some solution to your mortgage woes.

Foreclosures remain the number-one deterrent to a housing market rebound, both in Chicago and across the nation. Foreclosures make it more difficult for sellers to get the prices they want for their homes. Buyers would rather pay $50,000 less for a similar home down the street that’s gone through the foreclosure process.

If you don’t want to become the latest foreclosure statistic, call your lender. Ignoring your mortgage problems won’t help them go away.

Now comes word that the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has made its own mistakes when it comes to reporting the number of homes sold each month across the United States.

According to a story by MSN Real Estate, the national association over-reported the number of homes sold from 2007 to 2010. This means that even fewer homes were sold last year than the 4.91 million — the lowest number already in 13 years — that NAR reported.

The association says that it will release its new updated numbers on Dec. 21.

It looks like the errors could be large. The national association began looking at its past numbers after CoreLogic, a real-estate analysis firm, challenged the association’s numbers, saying that they could be as much as 20 percent too high.

According to MSN Real Estate, CoreLogic’s analysis showed that there actually should have been 3.3 million homes sold in the United States in 2010. That’s a big drop from the national association’s 4.91 million number.

After looking at their numbers, officials from NAR said that they have counted some home sales twice.

This is an unfortunate time for NAR to be proven wrong about its sales numbers. Many consumers already have negative feelings about the real estate industry. A mistake like this will only provide more fuel for this distrust.

But no matter whether you use the numbers from CoreLogic or those from NAR, one piece of information remains true: The number of home sales across the country remains far too low, especially when compared to the big home-selling pre-2007.

According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, interest rates in the United States on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loans averaged 3.99 percent for the week that ended on Dec. 8. That’s down just a bit from the 4 percent average interest rate of one week earlier and down significantly from the rate of 4.61 percent a year earlier.

Interest rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgage loans were even more impressive, according to data from Freddie Mac. This rate stood at 3.27 percent for the week that came to a close on Dec. 8. That’s down from 3.3 percent from a week earlier and 3.96 percent from a year ago.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage interest rate is also just a tick above its all-time low of 3.27 percent, which it hit in October.

This is, of course, great news for consumers interested in purchasing a Chicago condominium or single-family home. Low interest rates mean that it is less expensive for buyers to borrow money. Buyers today, then, can save hundreds of dollars a month on their mortgage loan payments compared to the days when interest rates of 6 percent or 7 percent were considered solid.

On the downside, the process of applying for a mortgage loan isn’t easy today. Buyers will need to send their mortgage lenders paperwork proving that they make enough money each month to afford their new mortgage payments. They’ll also have to produce documents showing lenders how much they pay each month in debt.

Borrowers will also have to submit to a credit check. Lenders today reserve their lowest mortgage interest rates for those borrowers who have FICO credit scores of 740 or higher.

But for those buyers willing to submit their paperwork, and who have strong credit scores, buying a single-family home or condo today is more affordable than it’s been in a long time.

First, the prices: According to the latest findings from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, home prices in the Chicago area dropped 0.8 percent in September when compared to August. They were also down 5 percent when compared to September of 2010.

Prices in the Chicago area today are at levels the area last saw in the spring of 2002, according to the Tribune story.

The “better” news? The Tribune also reported on the latest numbers from CoreLogic that showed that 24.9 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage in the Chicago area owed more on their loans than what their residences were worth at the end of September.

That number isn’t great. But it is better than the 25.2 percent of homeowners who were underwater on their mortgage loans at the end of the second quarter of this year.

Still, even with that slight improvement, 383,625 residences in the Chicago area were underwater on their mortgage loans at the end of September. Obviously, that number is far too high, especially considering nationally that only 22.1 percent of all residential properties with mortgage loans were underwater at the end of the same month, according to CoreLogic.

Both sets of numbers show that the housing market in Chicago, as in the rest of the nation, has a long way to go before it can be considered healthy again. The good news is for buyers: Home prices in the City, even in traditionally attractive neighborhoods such as Lakeview, Lincoln Park and Lincoln Square, remain affordable. Buyers today can find great bargains on good properties in the best locations.

It’s easy these days to get down on the U.S. economy. The recovery from the Great Recession hasn’t been strong enough to please anyone. The national unemployment rate is still too high. Housing values are stagnant. Home sales are down.

But, no less a financial guru than Sam Zell says that the U.S. economy is now on the right track. And that certainly qualifies as good news.

The Bloomberg news service covered Zell’s recent speech at a real estate conference in Chicago. According to the story, Zell told audience members that the U.S. economy will continue to improve and that high-quality real estate remains a wise investment.

I couldn’t agree with Zell more, especially when it comes to his thoughts on the value of real estate. I’ve argued during even the worst days of Chicago’s real estate slump that city housing remains a top investment. Yes, the value of Chicago condominiums and single-family homes is down now. But that just makes this an even better time to purchase local real estate.

Housing in Chicago’s top neighborhoods, places like Lincoln Square, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Bucktown and Ravenswood, remains a solid investment. It’s true that no one can predict how home values will react over the years. But historically, home values have risen over time. The key is for owners to hold onto their homes for a long enough period of time – usually five years or more does the trick.

Buying a house was never meant to be a get-rich-quick investment. Remember, when you buy a condominium or single-family home, you get the benefits of living in that home. You also get tax advantages that you don’t get when you rent. You can’t say that about any other investment you can make.

During the days of the U.S. housing boom, buyers in Chicago were able to purchase condos or single-family homes in hot neighborhoods, fix them up and sell them for sometimes double what they initially paid, all in a few months’ time. That isn’t happening today.

But that doesn’t mean that owning a home is a bad financial investment. Though nothing is guaranteed, those homeowners who are patient will usually find that their homes are good investments.

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According to the most recent sales statistics from the Illinois Association of REALTORS®, the sale of single-family homes and condominiums in Chicago fell 19.5 percent in July from the same month one year earlier. In July, 1,589 homes were sold. That’s down from 1,975 homes sold in the same month in 2009.

Now, that number seems awfully bad. But it isn’t as bad when you consider that condominium and single-family home sales fell 27 percent across the nation in July.

Chicago home sales also look stronger if you consider year-to-date sales. Thanks in no small part to the federal first-time and move-up buyer tax credits, both of which expired on midnight on April 30, Chicago’s year-to-date home sales are ahead of what we saw last year.

According to the numbers from the Illinois Association of REALTORS®, Chicago’s housing sales from January through July were up 25 percent from the same period in 2009. So far this year, Chicago has seen 12,397 home sales. That’s far ahead of the 9,915 home sales the city saw from January through July of 2009.

If you’re still looking for bad news from the REALTORS® association, you can always study its median sales price numbers. The median price is an important one; it’s the figure at which half of homes sold for higher prices and half for lower.

According to the association, the city of Chicago’s median home price in July stood at $196,000. That’s down 19.8 percent from the $245,000 at which the median stood in the same month one year earlier. The year-to-date median sales price of $215,000 is down 6 percent. The median price was $229,000 for the period of January through July of 2009.

The point of all this isn’t to confuse home buyers or sellers. It’s to point out one fact: The Chicago housing market is a mixed bag of positive and negative news today. In that respect, it’s little different from the majority of housing markets across the country.

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But all of these factors, which make selling a condominium or single-family home today so challenging, make this a great time to buy a home in Chicago.

The Illinois Association of REALTORS® reported that the median sales price of Chicago homes stood at $230,000 in the second quarter of this year. That’s an extremely affordable price for Chicago. And by taking out an FHA loan, buyers here only have to come up with a down payment of 3.5 percent of a home’s purchase price.

At the same time, inventory levels are high. Buyers have a lot from which to choose when it comes to buying condominiums or single-family homes in some of the city’s top neighborhoods, like Lincoln Park, Ravenswood, Lakeview, Lincoln Square and Streeterville.

Then there’s the news regarding mortgage interest rates. According to the latest numbers from Freddie Mac, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan stood at an amazing 4.42 percent for the week ended Aug. 19. The rate for the average 15-year fixed-rate loan hit 3.90 percent. Both rates were down from the previous week, and down from the same period one year earlier. This means that buyers today can get more home for their dollars.

Even the high number of foreclosures in Chicago and the rest of the country can mean good news for buyers. When banks and other lending institutions have to re-sell their foreclosures, they usually do so at a greatly reduced price. Again, this gives buyers the opportunity to purchase homes for fewer dollars. Some buyers might purchase a foreclosure to be able to get into a neighborhood that they otherwise could not have afforded.

No one’s arguing that this is a difficult time in which to sell a home. But for first-time buyers and any others who don’t have to first sell a residence, this is a great time to buy.

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The Daily Herald recently ran a story about the growing number of single buyers purchasing condominiums and single-family homes in the Chicago region.

This is a big change. It used to be that single men and women rented apartments. Today, though, a growing number of them are skipping the rental period altogether.

The reasons are many. For one thing, the median sales price of condominiums and single-family homes in Chicago and its suburbs has dropped during the housing slump. Chicago housing is more affordable today than it’s been in years. Single buyers can purchase more home for their dollars today.

Then there are the record-low mortgage interest rates. The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan was still well under 5 percent as of the middle of July. That’s a terrific rate. For single buyers, it means they’ll pay less each month on their mortgage payments.

The Herald story also points out that the now-expired first-time homebuyer tax credit from the federal government, which provided a tax credit of up to $8,000 to buyers who were purchasing their first homes, encouraged a larger number of single buyers to enter the housing market.

There are other benefits to single buyers today, too. Sellers in Chicago and its surrounding areas are often desperate to move their homes. They’re often willing to lower their asking prices and make more concessions to buyers, all to help sell their homes in less time. There’s also a large inventory of condos and single-family homes on the market today. Simply put, buyers have plenty of choices when looking for a Chicago home today.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea for singles to purchase their own homes as soon as possible. Residential real estate in the Chicago area has traditionally retained its value. Though there are never any guarantees, single buyers who purchase today at what might be near the bottom of the local housing market will be well positioned to see their home purchase increase in value before they sell.

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