What to know before choosing a developer — – chicagotribune.com
The Tribune posted a nice guide this week for how to perform due diligence on a developer if you are buying a new home, with tips for checking up on their track record and history with the city, pricing selections, and warranty items.
Even in this climate, there’s no rule like an old rule — — chicagotribune.com
This week’s Tribune has a useful article about how longstanding “rules” of real estate still apply, even in today’s changing market. Buyers and sellers can count on certain maxims to get the best deal, regardless of the financial environment, including:
Zillow.com has just released their quarterly home value reports for major metropolitan real estate markets. The good news is that home values didn’t decline in the Chicago area as much as they did in the rest of the country. The bad news is that they did decline 5.8 since the first quarter of last year. The national average was an 8% decline.
What’s interesting is that numbers like this, plus the constant drumbeat of news coverage about declining home value, don’t seem to change people’s opinions of the value of their own home. According to another survey by Zillow, 72% of homeowners believe their home increased in value over the past year, while only 25% of homes actually did so.
