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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »