After years of decline, home-improvement spending increased 9% in 2012, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, which predicts a double-digit surge for 2013. Planning to get in on the renovation revival with a project of your own? You’ll want to utilize a tool that some [...] Read more »
7 Things Buyers Love + Sellers Fail to Mention
In real estate, we often use the term “under market” to describe a home that is priced or purchased for less than it’s fair market value. But I sometimes see an unrelated real estate phenomenon I think Webster would rank as a second definition for “undermarketing”: to list a home [...] Read more »
What Is Happening To Mortgage Rates?
Over the last month mortgage rates have moved steadily higher, and over the last week rates have spiked to the highest point in the last 2 years. For most of the last year rates have been stable and hovering around 3.5% (before pricing adjustments). This has been a result of [...] Read more »
Case Shiller: Chicago Home Prices Leap Way Ahead Of Last Year
Today’s release of the Case Shiller home price index for April confirms what we’ve all been feeling about home prices in Chicago: they are on a tear. On a year over year basis single family home prices rose at the fastest rate in 8 years. For condominiums it was the [...] Read more »
Real Estate Gurus are Full of It
At the ripe old age of 18, I started real estate investing the same way a lot people do: I read a bunch of books by real estate gurus and become convinced I would be able to make millions in just a few short years. It took my adolescent brain [...] Read more »