Archive for the 'Chicago Real Estate News' Category
NATO Summit To Make Chicago Center Of The World This May
May 17th, 2012 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
Chicago will be the center of the world late this weekend when leaders from across the globe gather in our city for the NATO Summit.
May 20 and 21 will be an exciting time for Chicago. It’s the first time that a U.S. city other than Washington has hosted a NATO summit. And the event will certainly receive its fair share of attention. According to the official Web site of the summit, about 2,000 journalists from across the world are expected to gather in Chicago to report on this historic event.
This is why I love living in Chicago. And it’s why so many homeowners do, too. Things happen in Chicago. It’s an important city not only in the United States but on the world stage. As a result, real estate here remains valuable, even during the tough economic times the city and country are now experiencing.
Of course, not everyone is happy about the upcoming NATO summit. Residents are worried about possible terrorism attacks. Others are worried about increased traffic, while others fret about road closings and increased difficulty in getting around the city.
I understand the concerns. People still have to work and move around Chicago as the summit meetings are taking place. But we have to remember: This is an historic event. It’s a great honor for the city to have been chosen to host these meetings.
Maybe veteran news reporter Walter Jacobson sums it up best: In a recent column on the website of CBS 2 News Jacobson says that it’s time for Chicago residents to stop complaining about the inconvenience caused by the NATO summit. As Jacobson rightly says, it’s OK for residents to wonder if this is a good use of taxpayer dollars or if protests surrounding the summit will turn ugly. But to worry about blocked streets and crowded roads seems a bit childish. After all, we’ll only be inconvenienced for three days.
But history? History will remember this event long after all those world leaders leave our city.
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Survey: Homeownership Still A Dream For Many Renters
May 14th, 2012 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
A recent study by a major home builder shows that many renters still want to become homeowners. This is fascinating when you consider the state of the housing market today.
Home values, of course, continue to fall. Foreclosures are rising. Homeowners are struggling to sell their single-family homes and condominiums.
Still, many renters aspire to the traditional American dream of homeownership. If that holds true today, in what might be the worst housing market most of us have ever seen, it speaks well to the true power of what owning a home means in this country.
According to a recent story by the Wall Street Journal, a survey from PulteGroup, a large national home builder, found that among those renters who plan to purchase a home in the future 60 percent have “increased their intent” to do so from a year ago.
This means that a growing number of surveyed apartment dwellers are considering jumping into the housing market.
This is good news for owners planning to put their condominiums or single-family homes on the market. The more renters who enter the housing market, the greater the demand will be for for-sale residences. And when demand rises, so, finally, will housing prices.
Of course, the results of this study don’t change the fact that the housing market, even in such solid markets as Chicago, is still in a slump. It will take a long time for demand to rise enough to push up sluggish home values.
The PulteGroup survey even points out some of the current woes of the housing market. The survey, for instance, found that more than half of renters aren’t buying homes because they don’t have enough money to come up with a down payment. The survey found, too, that nearly 30 percent of renters believe that it is cheaper to rent than it is to buy, a fact that is preventing this group of renters from jumping into the housing market.
Finally, the survey found that more than 20 percent of renters were too worried about their employment status to consider investing in a home.
The good news, then, is that many renters do aspire to become homeowners. The bad news? It might take them a while to reach this dream.
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Home Sales Expected To Rise In 2012, But What About Housing Values?
May 3rd, 2012 categories: Chicago Real Estate News, Economic Recovery, For Sellers, Housing Market
The latest report from the National Association of REALTORS®, the association’s Pending Home Sales Index, indicates that condominium and single-family home sales will rise in 2012 when compared to a year earlier.
That’s good news for home sellers. And the REALTORS® association trumpets the numbers in a press release that maintains that the housing market across the country is firmly in recovery mode.
But there’s a reason that this housing recovery – and sales are increasing in Chicago, too – feels so hollow. While the number of condominiums and single-family homes selling is on the rise, the prices of these sales are not.
In fact, the latest numbers from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller housing price index indicate that housing prices across the country are beginning to fall. The news is especially gloomy for Chicago, where in February, according to the Case-Shiller numbers, housing prices in the area fell to a 12-year low.
So that’s why it’s so hard for home sellers to get excited over the good news coming from the REALTOR® association’s Pending Home Sales Index. Yes, homes are selling in greater numbers. But owners who purchased their residences during the housing boom years – say, 2004 through 2006 – are taking big losses when they sell homes now. According to Case-Shiller, Chicago-area housing prices have fallen by more than 37 percent since September of 2006.
There are plenty of reasons why housing prices continue to fall. First, and most importantly, they simply rose too high too fast during the days of the housing boom. That kind of price growth was unsustainable. Prices simply couldn’t have kept rising at that rate. Today, the housing market is in a period of correction. Housing values are falling to a more reasonable level, something that feels particularly painful to homeowners who spent so much for their condos and single-family homes just six years ago.
Then there are the foreclosures glutting the housing market today, both in Chicago and across the country. These distressed properties, which generally saw at prices below market level, drag down the values of homes around them. This results in a steady decrease in home prices in entire neighborhoods.
The difficult truth is that Chicago and the rest of the nation have a long way to go before the fallout from the housing crisis clears. And even as home sales across the country rise, there’s no denying that this housing recovery hasn’t been an enjoyable one for many homeowners.
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Falling housing inventory a small bit of good news for sellers?
April 24th, 2012 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
Buyers have had it pretty easy in the current residential real estate market. After all, housing prices continue to fall and sellers, many of whom are desperate to sell, have been more than willing to negotiate even deeper price cuts.
But buyers might face at least one hurdle in their efforts to land a new home: The number of condominiums and single-family homes on the market in Chicago and other large metropolitan areas has fallen significantly.
According to a story by Chicago Agent Magazine, the number of homes available for sale in major metropolitan areas was down 20.4 percent in early April when compared to the same period one year earlier.
The company HousingTracker, working with the National Association of REALTORS®, analyzed listing data from 54 metropolitan areas to come to its conclusion.
What does this mean for home shoppers? Basically, they have fewer condos and single-family homes from which to choose. It might not be quite as easy, then, for buyers to skip over one dream house and expect to find another one just as perfect for them and their family.
Sellers, though, shouldn’t get too excited over these numbers. This still remains, in Chicago and across the country, a definite buyers’ market. Even if inventory has fallen — and there are some doubts about the complete accuracy of the National Association of REALTORS®/HousingTracker numbers — it certainly hasn’t dropped by enough to give sellers any significant edge in today’s residential real estate market.
If you’re selling, you’re still going to have to price your home aggressively if you hope to receive any solid offers. And you’re going to have to do everything in your power to make sure that your home shows well, something that includes removing extra furniture, taking down most of your family photos and memorabilia, boarding your pets during showings and anything else that gives your home an advantage.
Life hasn’t been nearly as rosy for sellers as it has been for buyers recently. The dropping inventory is a sliver of good news for struggling sellers. But home sellers shouldn’t expect the pendulum to swing from a buyers’ market to a sellers’ market any time soon.
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Buffett Invests In Chicago-Area Affordable Housing
April 20th, 2012 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
How attractive of a long-term investment does Chicago real estate remain even during the worst real estate downturn any of us can remember? Attractive enough to earn the investment dollars of financial legend Warren Buffett.
According to a recent story by Crain’s Chicago Business, mega-wealthy investor Buffett recently debuted a program to finance low-income housing in the Chicago area.
The Crain’s story says that the new venture will first provide funding for a nearly $29 million center in the Chicago suburb of Lansing designed to serve senior citizens who rely on Medicaid.
The St. Anthony Supportive Living Facility would operate as a supportive living facility, meaning that it would provide meals, housekeeping and help with medications for the low-income senior citizens residing there.
I enjoy reading stories like this. It gives me yet more evidence that savvy investors recognize that housing in Chicago and its suburbs is a smart place to put their dollars. It’s true that Chicago housing values have dropped during the Great Recession and its slow recovery period. That’s true, though, of the vast majority of major metropolitan areas across the country.
What matters, though, is the long-term value of Chicago real estate. During the housing boom too many people became deluded; they thought they could purchase condominiums or single-family homes in neighborhoods like Lincoln Square, Lincoln Park and Lakeview, hold onto them for less than a year and then sell them for big profits.
This worked briefly. But it isn’t happening today. That’s because real estate was never meant to be a get-rich-quick scheme. Real estate is a different kind of investment. First, it provides buyers with tangible benefits: It’s a roof over their heads, shelter from the outside world, a place for families to grow. Secondly, real estate has historically increased in value over the long term. This means that homeowners who held onto their properties for 10 years or longer have historically made a profit when they sold.
I believe that Chicago real estate is still a wise long-term investment. I can’t guarantee that home values here will again rise. No one can. But just look at the move made by Buffett. If he believes in Chicago housing, who are we to argue?
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