Chitownproperty

Before you catch yourself thinking that today’s tough housing market is an unprecedented event, read Mary Umberger’s column this week. She reminds us that real estate markets in every part of the country have suffered through tough times before that lasted much longer than the current market correction is expected to last. Remember, [...]

The recent downturn in the local condo market has opened up new opportunities for first-time buyers, the Tribune says. Some owners anxious to sell in today’s tough market are more willing to negotiate, and developers are throwing in more amenities as part of the base price to entice purchasers.

With the current environment of stagnant or even falling home prices, coupled with a tightening of the mortgage market, buying a home can seem like a risky proposition right now. But it carries the same risk it always has, provided you are realistic about what you can afford, says a marketing professor in this [...]

The big real estate news of the week of course was the median price of American homes will fall this year for the first time since the government started keeping such statistics in the 1950s. This is more proof of the long slowdown in the housing market, and further underscores what we’ve been saying [...]

$1 million is a lot of money for a house, but what exactly does that get you? CNN/Money has a tour of $1 million homes around the country, incluing this woodframe single-family home near Wrigley Field. No offense to those Cubbie fans, but if we had a $1 million to spend, we’d take [...]

Those of you who can remember your economics class in high school will be happy to know that the basic laws of supply and demand still apply to the real world, especially to the real estate market right now. The general slowdown in the market means that inventory, i.e. supply, is up, meaning that [...]

A reader at CNN/Money asks the question whether they should buy now and take advantage of low interest rates, or wait and see if prices are going to fall even more. The answer, of course, isn’t as simple as they would probably like. You could take advantage of falling prices to bargain your [...]

The New York Times ran a great piece this weekend about the thought process that goes into setting a market price. The number are huge because they’re talking about New York, but whatever the market, an asking price isn’t so much a flat statement of how much the seller would like to get for [...]

It may seem silly on the surface, but the Super Bowl typically marks the kickoff of the annual “spring market” in real estate, when sellers finally put their homes on the market and buyers hit the pavement in earnest. It makes more sense in Chicago this year with the Bears playing in the big [...]

If you own real estate or are in the market for a new home, no doubt you’ve paid attention to — and been slightly frightened by — the recent news that median prices and sales numbers have dropped significantly for the first time in years. But as this Tribune editorial by Kenneth Harney points [...]

Pricing your home in a cooling real estate market can be tricky, because you can no longer rely solely on the sales prices of comparable properties in your neighborhood. When all was going well, sellers and their agents could count on finding recent sales data, adding a time-appropriate increase to that price, and getting [...]

The recent housing market boom is winding down, but that means now it’s time for someone to take the fall. Who’s to blame for creating the irrational exuberance about real estate? Well, pretty much everyone. As the Tribune’s Mary Umberger explains, the finger can be pointed at just about anyone involved in [...]

Popular sentiment seems to be that the hot real estate market of the past few years is going to end with a “soft landing,” no drastic price drops, but a gradual settling of home values back down from the stratospheric appreciation rates. This week, the New York Times examines what would happen to the [...]

With markets across the country cooling down to more sensible levels, some people are sitting out of the real estate game, convinced that prices will go down even further. These “bubble sitters” are waiting for just the right moment to swoop in to pick up a great deal, cashing out of the market now [...]

Gone are the days when you can expect to sell your home fast for top dollar. Whether it’s the effect of rising interest rates, overpriced housing markets, or high local inventory, sellers need to alter their strategy to get the highest market value out of their homes in a reasonable amount of time. [...]