60646 Blog

Trulia, a very popular real estate search engine, has introduced a new mashup called “Trulia Hindsight“, along with a user’s manual here. This awesome little Web 2.0 gizmo allows you to go back in time and look at an animated map of real estate development in a city, town, village, neighborhood etc. I tried to search for 60646, and voila: here is the result. Be careful, this toy is addictive.

I, and many other registered real estate professionals in the State of Illinois received an email from our local associations about the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) a few days ago that was somewhat disturbing. But please allow IDFPR to explain on their own website:

The red underlined text (my doing) leads me to the following questions: What exactly happened between “sometime in January 2007″ and May 3, 2007? Why weren’t IDFPR licencees informed sooner than sometime in late May (notwithstanding the Federal Law enforcement authorities’ involvement in this case)?

The most cynical part imho is this subliminal message: We got hacked. You clean up the mess this may have created for you, yourself. Here are the phone numbers to the credit bureaus. Have a nice day.

Saw this DVD rental kiosk for the first time today, outside of the Jewel food store at Village Crossing mall:

Now, I usually rent my DVD movies at Blockbuster online, which has the advantage that I receive a free movie for every DVD that I rented online, when I return the online DVD to the store. But if you watch movies only sporadically, this might be the way to go.

Villa Rosa, at 5345 W. Devon Ave. The green sign specifies the reasons:

1. Inadequate waste water disposal.

2. Establishment not rodent-proofed.

Let’s hope things get cleaned up quickly here, because Villa Rosa is a popular spot among Edgebrook residents.

Update May 25, 2007: Villa Rosa has apparently cleaned up, and is open for business again. Yay!

In a real estate buyers market, such as the one we’re currently experiencing in many parts of the country, setting the correct asking price for your property can easily become the most challenging part of your Realtor’s marketing mix. As it is, even in a balanced real estate market, pricing a home at market value is often a difficult task, because every home is unique and proper adjustments to comparable properties need to be made in order to arrive at a meaningful asking price for your property. By definition, a sales transaction would then occur when supply meets demand. And finding that intersection where your Realtor will find demand for your home depends in large part on your pricing decision.

In my dozen years of assisting homeowners with the sale of their properties, I have found that the vast majority of showing requests (from Realtors) for a listed property are made within the first week of the property being listed for sale on the market. It’s what I would call the “Golden Week”. It’s when the “action” takes place. The reason for this phenomenon is that the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) systems in use today across the country are supercharged high-tech pieces of software that allow Realtors to instantly and automatically notify their buyer clients about new properties that enter the market for sale, based on the buyers’ pre-defined home search profiles in the MLS. Time is of the essence. Within the MLS, listing agents are even able to see stats about how many and which Realtors have emailed the new listings to their buyer clients.

Assuming that your Realtor has fired off the remaining weapons in his/her marketing arsenal (advertising, Internet exposure, open houses etc.), there should be numerous requests to view your property, IF, you have priced your house competitively. However, since property valuation is more of an art rather than a science, as any appraiser will tell you, there is a correct way to reduce your home’s asking price when your Realtor’s phone won’t ring. The thing to keep in mind is that it is possible to reduce your price, but you cannot increase it.

The major mistake that I see many sellers make in a buyers market, once the “Golden Week” has passed without any significant buyer interest, is to keep dwelling on the originally set asking price for weeks to come. After being listed for a month and a half or two with perhaps three showings in total, these sellers suddenly decide to reduce the price by a huge margin of often $15,000 or more. Subsequently, buyer interest is revived, and showings pick up. But why wait for so long, and why such a big price reduction?

Remember, your Realtor’s job is to test the market via the price of your property. Your agent’s job is to find that intersection where a ready and able buyer lurks, and is willing to buy your property. That intersection has to be approached carefully (price reductions in smaller increments) but swiftly (shorter intervals between price reductions), in order to meet the bona fide buyer at the right time and at the right place, before she moves on to your competitor’s property. Otherwise, your property will continue to linger on the market, and even in a buyers market that may lead to the often incorrect perception that there is something physically wrong with your real estate.

It’s been wonderful over at Blogger these past couple of years, but I’m ready to move on, and I’m actually in the process of doing so. As I’m transferring my blog, there are lots of things I’m learning about my new home that are different, and your patience with me on this is much appreciated. Thanks a bunch.