Archive for the 'Chicago Real Estate News' Category
City Home Sales Continue to Show Improvement
July 1st, 2009 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
With each passing month, it becomes more evident: Chicago’s housing market has stabilized, and has begun its long-awaited recovery.
The numbers from the Illinois Association of REALTORS® tell the story. The sales of existing homes in Chicago rose 11.5 percent in May. A total of 1,537 existing condominiums and single-family homes were sold in the month. In April, only 1,378 of these residences were sold.
At the same time, the median sales price of these homes continued its steady, gradual rise. Condominiums and single-family homes sold in the city in May saw their median sales price go up 2.3 percent to $225,000. In April, the median sales price stood at $220,000.
Of course, this is a slow recovery. Both sales and median prices are still significantly down from last year at this time.
According to the REALTORS® association, May sales in Chicago were down 27.5 percent from the 2,119 homes sold during the same month one year earlier. At the same time, the median sales price in Chicago was down 29.5 percent from the price of $319,000 that sellers fetched a year ago.
The numbers may not be quite as high as we’d like. But the fact that they are trending upwards – no matter how gradually – is good news. This marks the fourth straight month in which both sales and median sales prices have risen for homes sold in Illinois.
It’s good to see some normalcy returning to the Chicago housing market. I, for one, hope to see sales and sale prices continue to their upward movement.
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The Power of the Two-Flat
June 29th, 2009 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
The traditional Chicago two-flat – multiple-story homes common on the city’s North Side – has always been a great home for first-time buyers. That’s because these buyers could live on one floor and then rent out the other. This rental income helps the first-time buyers pay their mortgage.
The plan, then, is to wait as the two-flat appreciates. When it’s time to sell, you’ll make a nice profit that you can use toward your next home.
Does this plan still work? Yes. In fact, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the two-flat is attracting a growing number of first-time buyers today.
Two-flats in neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood and other top Chicago communities are more affordable than they’ve been in years. According to the Tribune story, these homes were some of the first lost to foreclosure during the housing slump.
That leaves the prices on today’s two-flats in a range that’s affordable to many first-time buyers. Experts quoted in the Tribune story say that many two-flats today are selling for the same amount that they were moving for in 2000 and 2001.
The story also explains that financing a two-flat is relatively simple for owners who plan to live in the building. These owners can acquire an FHA loan that allows owner-occupants to put less than 5 percent down. The loan also allows owner-occupants to apply potential rental income to their own incomes. This way, owners may quality for a higher loan than they would if they were buying a traditional single-family home or condominium.
Of course, there are some downsides to living in a two-flat. The main one: You may not like being a landlord. It’s not always easy to live with renters. When something in your renter’s unit breaks, you’ll have to get it fixed. You’ll also have to do the background work to make sure you’re renting to occupants who have a history of paying their bills on time.
If you are willing to do this work, though, buying a Chicago two-flat may be the right choice for you. It might serve as your entry into the Chicago housing market.
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Will New Governmental Agency Prevent Another Mortgage Crisis?
June 26th, 2009 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
The Obama administration last week announced a new plan designed to prevent any future mortgage meltdowns like the one we’ve seen during the housing slump. The plan would result in a new consumer protection agency that would have broad powers to revamp the way the mortgage-lending business works.
According to a feature story on the Politico blog, the proposed new agency would require mortgage lenders to offer consumers loans with simple terms in addition to those with more complex terms. Borrowers would have to opt out of the simple mortgage loan products if they wanted to instead go with the more complicated versions.
The new agency might also place more responsibilities on mortgage brokers. Though nothing is final yet, brokers might have to make sure that their customers can afford the mortgages they write for them. The new consumer agency might even ban certain lending practices such as pre-payment fees, which on some loans are passed on to borrowers who pay off their mortgage loans early.
The consumer protection agency wouldn’t concentrate only on mortgage lending, but would also oversee the way credit card companies charge their customers.
It’s all part of an effort, Pres. Barack Obama said last week, to prevent another financial disaster like the one that pushed the country into the recession we’re still trying to work our way out from.
Is this new agency a good idea? Anything that protects consumers is a positive. But borrowers have to remember one thing: They have to use some common sense, too, when applying for mortgage loans.
First, it’s important for borrowers to only work with reputable mortgage professionals. Despite what you might read in the newspapers, the vast majority of mortgage loan officers, bankers and brokers are honest, hard-working and smart professionals. If you’re looking for a loan officer, check with your REALTOR®. He or she should be able to recommend several.
Secondly, if you feel that a loan officer is trying to talk you into taking out a mortgage product with which you are uncomfortable, walk away. There are many more professional mortgage loan officers out there.
Finally, take an honest look at your financial situation before applying for a mortgage loan. You know how large of a mortgage payment you can make each month. Don’t try to stretch yourself too thin financially to get into a more expensive home.
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In Another Good Sign For The Housing Market, Builders Are Clearing Out Their Inventory
June 26th, 2009 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
If you only saw the headlines this week, you may have missed another positive sign in the housing market.
According to the Census Bureau, the supply of newly-built homes for sale fell to 10.2 months in May, its lowest level in 10 months.
Unfortunately, the New Homes Sales story wasn’t positioned as a positively by the press. Instead, the most common headline on the data read “New Home Sales Dip 0.6%” with many journalists referring to the figures as “weak” or “disappointing”.
Only, that’s not completely true.
See, one of the nice elements of the monthly New Home Sales report is its footnote section in which the Census Bureau talks about statistical Margin of Error and that section tells us that if the Margin of Error is larger than the measurement itself, the report is useless.
And that’s exactly what happened in May.
New Home Sales were measured to have fallen by 0.6 percent but that data point was dwarfed by its 17.8 percent Margin of Error, The “headline data”, in other words, was just a guess.
The press reported it anyway.
Nonetheless, as it relates to the economy, falling home inventories are a positive. Having 10-plus months of homes on the market is still high historically, but a definite improvement over what we saw earlier this year.
So long as low mortgage rates and aggressive pricing persists from builders, we expect even less supply in the months ahead.
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Rubloff’s Mario Greco Group Named in National Ranking of Top Real Estate Sales Agents
June 24th, 2009 categories: Chicago Real Estate News, For Buyers, For Homeowners, For Sellers, Housing Market, Mario in the News, Real Estate News
CHICAGO — Showing remarkable resilience in a tough market, Chicago’s Mario Greco Group of Rubloff Residential sales agents has been named among The Real Estate Top 400 Professionals of 2008. The national awards ranking is sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, REAL Trends and Lore.
The Real Estate Top 400 honors four categories of top-100 residential agents and teams: Individual Agent, Sales Volume; Individual Agent, Transaction Sides; Agent Team, Sales Volume; and Agent Team, Transaction Sides.
For its $131 million in sales for 2008, the Mario Greco Group ranked 26th in sales volume for an agent team. Despite the down economy, in 2008 the group beat its 2007 MLS volume of $112,239,179. The Mario Greco Group also ranked 88th in transaction sides for an agent team, for the 224 buyers or sellers it represented in 2008.
“It’s a nice reward for a really good year in 2008, and also for six years of hard work in this business,” Mr. Greco said of his group being included on the lists sponsored by the Journal. “It’s nice to be recognized by your peers and by a legitimate national publication.”
Mr. Greco’s staff includes 15 additional agents. “Without them, I wouldn’t have achieved what I achieved,” he said. “It’s a testament to them that in the worst market in our lifetime, we still managed to increase our sales volume.”
He credits the team’s success, and that of Rubloff as a firm, to being a reliable brand in tough times. “We didn’t do anything differently in 2008 than we did in previous years, other than concentrate even more on pricing and customer service,” Mr. Greco said. “In any bad market, in any industry, the established brands tend to get stronger.”
At an average of $5 million, sales volumes per agent are higher at Rubloff than at any other Realtor in Chicago.
Tom Horwich, the company’s co-owner, said that Rubloff provides its agents with state-of-the-art business communications and IT support. In April of 2008, Rubloff rolled out a new version of Rubloff.com, and a new luxury-marketing program called Rubloff Residential Elite, which targets affluent buyers and sellers of luxury real estate with both print and Web advertising.
“We don’t want to be the biggest,” said Howard Weinstein, co-owner of Rubloff Residential Properties. “We simply want to be the best.”
Rubloff has been a household name in Chicago real estate since 1930, when it was founded by Arthur Rubloff. Owned by Weinstein and Horwich since 1996, Rubloff Residential Properties is one of Chicago’s most respected real estate firms. Rubloff provides real estate services to a diverse set of communities including the North Shore, Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast, the South Loop, and Michigan’s Harbor Country.
Visit Rubloff’s award-winning Web site at Rubloff. For more information on The Real Estate Top 400, visit The Wall Street Journal Top 400 Agents article.
Article Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
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