According to the latest home sales numbers from the Illinois Association of REALTORS®, December, 2011, existing-home sales in Chicago hit 1,536, up 6.4 percent from the 1,444 homes sold in the same month one year earlier.

The news wasn’t as good when it came to the median sales prices of these homes. According to the association’s numbers, the median home sale price for Chicago stood at $156,000 in December of last year. That’s down 6.2 percent when compared to the same month in 2010. Back then, the median sales price of Chicago homes came in at $166,250.

Bob Floss, president of the Chicago Association of REALTORS®, was quoted in the press release accompanying the December numbers as saying that the December rally was a good sign for the future of Chicago housing sales. The numbers give hope that Chicago’s winter and spring home-selling seasons will be strong ones, he said.

Floss, though, expressed concerns about the median sales price of Chicago condominiums and single-family homes. This number shows no sign of rising, and, in fact, continues to fall. Floss pointed to the large number of distressed residential properties on the market: Foreclosures tend to drag down the median sales prices of homes near them.

Until the number of foreclosures falls, don’t expect the median sales price of Chicago residential properties to rise.

The association press release also quotes Loretta Alonzo, president of the Illinois Association of REALTORS®. She says that buyers in December simply found too many good housing deals to pass up.

That’s good news, of course, for sellers trying to move their properties. It’s not great news, though, for sellers trying to get top dollar for their homes. Buyers today simply expect to find bargains on the condos and single-family homes that they purchase.

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.

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.

The timing of all this can be difficult. Often, sellers have to take a chance: Do they buy their dream home today even though they’re still trying to sell their Chicago condo? Or do they wait to sell their existing home before buying a new place to live? Both options come with challenges: Homeowners who buy a home before they sell their current residence might end up having to make two mortgage payments a month as they struggle to sell their existing homes, especially in today’s challenging Chicago housing market.

And those buyers who go the other route might find themselves without a place to live once they’ve closed on the sale of their existing home.

The Chicago Tribune, though, recently outlined the growing popularity of an alternative, the contingency sale.

In a contingency offer, homebuyers get a set period of time — the Tribune says it’s usually from 30 to 60 days — to sell their homes before the deal on their new home closes. If buyers don’t sell their properties during this time period, the deal evaporates.

During the contingency period, if another buyer makes a better offer on the new home, the owners of that residence can accept it. In most cases, the first buyers have a short period of time — often one or two days — to remove the contingency on their offer and purchase the home outright. If buyers don’t take this opportunity, the new buyers are free to purchase the home.

Contingency offers come with risks for both sides. Buyers, of course, might lose the home they want because a better offer comes in. Sellers might see their purchase offer evaporate if their buyers find that they can’t sell their existing residences. And when a home has a contingency offer on it, it generally attracts fewer potential buyers.

In brisk real estate markets, most sellers won’t accept contingency offers. In Chicago during the real estate boom, sellers rarely took on such offers. Today, though, sellers are more willing to consider this alternative as single-family homes and condominiums sit on the market for months.

Buyers and sellers, though, need to discuss the pros and cons of contingency offers with their real estate agents before entering into one of these agreements.

The Chicago singer and Oscar-winning actress has a contract pending on a 12,000-square-foot home in the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, according to the Chicago Tribune. The home is listed at $2.795 million.

It’s not certain yet just what Hudson will pay for the house. But Hudson’s purchase, even if it’s a full-price offer, provides a quick lesson on the state of the housing market in the Chicago area today. And for Chicago home sellers, the message is clear: Price reductions are still the order of the day for many city condominiums and single-family homes.

If Hudson pays $2.795 million for the home, she will nab it for a price that is more than 33 percent lower than the residence’s original listing price, according to the Chicago Tribune story. That original list price stood at $4.2 million before falling to the current price that attracted Hudson’s offer.

This is happening on a smaller scale to home listings across the Chicago area. Sellers still are frequently dropping their asking prices as their only way to attract buyers. There’s a reason for this: Home buyers today are savvy. They know that the housing market, both in Chicago and across the country, is down. They know, too, that many sellers are eager to move their condominiums and single-family homes, and are willing to drop their asking prices to do it.

If you’re trying to sell today, it’s important that you work with a REALTOR(R) who knows your market. This professional can help you set the right price for your listing, and can boost your odds of moving your residence in the shortest amount of time possible.

Simply put, too much holiday cheer can turn off potential buyers. It can also make your home look cluttered and small. And those are two adjectives you don’t want buyers to associate with your condo or single-family home.

Remember, selling a home is a very different process than is living in it. When you’re selling, your home must also look its best. And you must always have it decorated to showcase its most positive features. When potential buyers tour your residence, you want them to remember the size of your generous master bedroom, the modern appliances in your updated kitchen and the open space in your living room.

You don’t want them remembering that 10-foot-tall Santa waving to them from your front lawn.

Tasteful decorating is even more important today. The number of home buyers shrinks during the holidays and winter months even in the strongest of residential housing markets. It’s not as much fun to tour homes when the temperature plunges below the freezing mark.

But in today’s challenging housing market, one in which it’s difficult to even move condos and single-family homes in top neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Lincoln Square, it’s more important than ever to showcase your home to its fullest. The number of buyers out there is low. And they have plenty of homes from which to choose when they’re finally ready to purchase.

Don’t give these buyers a reason to bypass your residence. It’s OK to decorate. No one will hold your holiday cheer against you. But when you overdo it, and when your home looks more like an amusement park ride than a residence, you run the real risk of turning way those elusive buyers that are actually out there today.

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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REALTORS®, in fact, have embraced technology as much as have any sales professionals. Search the Web and you’ll find pages of blogs written by REALTORS®. Search the MLS online and you’ll find a growing number of condominium and single-family home listings that have virtual tours attached to them.

And if you ever see a REALTOR® hustling to a showing, you’ll undoubtedly notice a smart phone clutched in this professional’s hand.

REALTORS® are married to technology. Of course, this was inevitable; home buyers and sellers are the same way.

The Chicago Tribune recently ran a feature story on the changing ways in which consumers buy and sell houses.

The most interesting fact in the Tribune story is this: 90 percent of consumers are going online to help find their homes, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

For sellers, this is an important stat. They absolutely have to list their homes prominently online if they want to compete for buyers in today’s market. And it’s not just about listing a home on the Multiple Listing Service any more. Sellers need to showcase their homes with virtual tours. They need the written copy describing their homes to contain the right keywords to attract potential buyers. And they need lots of photos to accompany their online listings.

It makes sense, then, for sellers to work with tech-savvy REALTORS® who boast busy Web sites and who write well-trafficked blogs. These are the REALTORS® in today’s online marketplace who will attract the most potential buyers for sellers’ homes.

I still remember the days when online marketing was in its infancy. At that time, no one was quite sure how to best spotlight residential real estate on the Web. Today, it’s amazing how far we’ve all come. Just count how many “FOR SALE” signs boast a separate Web site address that’s unique to that particular property being sold.

It’s a new world today. And in a slow market like this one, it’s crucial for sellers to take full advantage of all the marketing opportunities that the Internet provides them.

Both the first-time homebuyers’ credit – which provided first-time buyers a tax credit of up to $8,000 – and the move-up buyers’ credit – which gavemost other buyers a tax credit of up to $6,500 – expired at midnight on April 30. This has led economists and housing experts to wonder if buyers across the nation were in a race to beat this deadline.

And if that’s the case, they add, the housing sales numbers in May and beyond might suffer with no tax credit to inspire buyers.

Personally, I can’t deny that both tax credits have played a large role in encouraging buyers to enter the Chicago market. But I think that the city’s affordable housing prices have played as important a role. Buyers know that they can purchase a condominium or single-family home in even the best neighborhoods of Chicago, places like Lakeview, Lincoln Square or Lincoln Park, at extremely reasonable prices.

Whatever the case, you can’t deny that April’s sales numbers were strong ones. The sales of single-family homes and condominiums rose 41.1 percent in April when compared to the same month one year earlier. The city saw 1,985 housing sales in the month compared to 1,407 in April of 2009.

The best news is that housing sales have been trending up for quite some time now. April marked the eighth consecutive month in which housing sales showed a year-over-year sales gain.

At the same time, there was a glimmer of good news regarding Chicago housing prices. The city median sales price in April stood at $225,000. That’s up 3.2 percent from a year ago, when the median sales price had fallen to $218,000.

These are all solid numbers, and I’m glad to see them. I’m sure the tax credits did play a role in them. But I also think that buyers recognize just how good a value Chicago homes are today.

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The Journal’s most recent quarterly survey of housing-market conditions in 28 metropolitan areas found that inventories of homes for sale remain quite high in many big cities, including in Chicago. At the same time, the number of distressed buyers who face potential foreclosures also remains high in many cities.

This combination is a perfect recipe for keeping housing prices at their current affordable levels. When buyers have many homes from which to choose, they don’t have to overpay to land their dream home. When more homes fall into foreclosure, it tends to drag down the asking prices of other residences in the surrounding neighborhood. After all, it’s not easy to ask $300,000 for a condo when the neighbor’s place, in foreclosure, is selling for $220,000.

While this is bad news for sellers, it’s the opposite for buyers. They can still find high-quality homes in Chicago for prices that are more than fair.

The Wall Street Journal forecast specifically mentions Chicago, saying that our city is similar to places like Charlotte, N.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Nashville; and Philadelphia: The supply of homes already on the market is far higher than the national average.

Again, this is good news for buyers. It means that they have plenty of good homes to chose from in Chicago.

The local housing market is in a solid recovery. But the number of sales is increasing faster than is the median sales price of homes. This means that sellers have a choice to make: If they don’t have to sell, they might want to wait a year or more in the hope that housing prices will rise. If they do need to sell, they have to commit to working with their REALTORS® to find the right price for their home in this market.

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