When I entered the real estate industry over fifteen years ago, I was the “chief cook, bottle washer and rainmaker” all in one, juggling every task and initiative on my own like most agents. As my business grew, I kept bumping into the same problem… not enough hours in the day. As technology evolved, I also ran into the challenge of developing skills that were better suited to today’s younger generations. So, I figured out how to get the best of all worlds.

Today, I employ a team of eight professionals specializing in sales, marketing, technology and customer service, including a seasonal intern, a virtual assistant based from home in Peoria, and a marketing assistant living abroad in China. This has kept me out from behind the paperwork and other distractions that tie down most agents, and allowed me to develop my core skills and stay focused on my clients and their needs.

It’s been exciting building a talented team from scratch over these years, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with other agents from around the country. If you’re an agent and you’ll be attending the conference, I hope you will stop by. The details can be found here.

Are you thinking about buying your first home, or perhaps upgrading, downsizing or buying an investment property? Or maybe you’re searching for a home to buy or thinking about starting? If either case describes you, we invite you to join us for our two upcoming seminars on how to buy and sell a home in today’s market.

Tuesday, November 17 - How to Buy a Home in Today’s Market

Presenters will include:

- Mortgage expert Leslie Struthers of Guaranteed Rate
- Home Inspector Alex Ratarac of Household Inspection Team
- Real Estate Attorney Leo Aubel of Deutsch, Levy & Engel
- Members of my award-winning Jennifer Ames Chicago team

Topics covered will include:

- The home search process: what you can do on your own and how an agent can help
- What is involved in getting a mortgage under today’s rules including down payment and credit score requirements, available loan products, conventional versus jumbo financing, etc.
- How a home inspection works and why you want one
- The role of your real estate attorney
- Closing costs
- The role of a buyer’s agent as your advocate

Thursday, November 19 - How to Sell Your Home in Today’s Market

Presenters will include:

- Real estate staging expert Bethany Souza of HGTV’s “Designed to Sell”
- Home Inspector Alex Ratarac of Household Inspection Team
- Real Estate Attorney Leo Aubel of Deutsch, Levy & Engel
- Members of my award-winning Jennifer Ames Chicago team

Topics covered will include:

- An overview of what is happening in the Chicago residential market
- Expectations management - what can you get for your home and how long will it take?
- Strategies to market your home for maximum impact with your target audience
- The most critical steps you can take to prepare your home for sale
- The pre-listing inspection and how it can help ensure a smooth sale
- The appraisal process and how it can impact your sale
- Managing contingencies and closing costs

Both events are free and will take place from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. on their respective dates at Ann Sather’s Restaurant located at 909 W. Belmont (just west of Halsted). Refreshments and complimentary parking will be provided.

We’re holding these events to build community goodwill by offering our expertise, so don’t worry about a sales pitch - there won’t be one. You can come, soak up some honest, sage advice, ask questions, and take off. If you wish to attend, please R.S.V.P. at seminars@jenniferames.com.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. If you are unable to join us for the seminars or have a real estate question on a different topic, please take advantage of “Ask Jenny” to pose your question and I’ll get right back to you.

This 84-page full-color publication will include profiles of the homes we have listed for sale and rent, information about favorite neighborhood amenities, and articles on a variety of residential real estate topics including luxury home development, landscape architecture, staging, home security, the local and resort home markets, and Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower.

We’ll release the magazine as a PDF document here when the time comes, but if you’d prefer to have a glossy copy of your own, contact us at (877) 440-3760 and we’ll send you one free of charge.

We hope you are as excited about the magazine as we are as we’ve put our heart and soul into its creation. Once you’ve had a peek, we would love to hear your feedback. You can comment here or send us an email at jenny@jenniferames.com. Enjoy!

The Chicago Parks District has a list of all their Halloween offerings, and About.com has a good general summary of city-wide events (though many of the dates still read “TBD”).

For simplicity’s sake, I’ve once again created a Google map made up of all the North Side Halloween events. Use it to find the upcoming events near where you live. Blue markers are Parks District events, red markers are parades, and yellow markers are all other events.

Please click through to the website for each marker to get the most up-to-date information for each event.

View 2009 Chicago North Side Halloween Events in a larger map

If you know of any North Side events I missed, let me know with a comment or email and I’ll add them.

Five questions with Jennifer Ames

Creating and managing Live and Play in Chicago

If you’re hoping to watch the race in person, the marathon website has a downloadable Spectator’s Guide (6.84 MB) with detailed information on the course and race.

If you plan on parking overnight near the race’s route, check for signs indicating the no parking zones for the race which will be enforced beginning at 1:00 a.m. on Sunday. Streets along the route will also be closed from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. the day of the race. More detailed street closure information can be found here.

Lastly, I’d like to wish the best of luck to my residential real estate sale team’s very own Client Care manager, Eleanor Olson, who will be competing in the race after a rigorous summer training schedule. In light of the relief work she has done in Zambia, Eleanor is also collecting pledges for the World Vision organization. Go Eleanor!

Photo by rbackowski

Of course, A Century of Progress was not our city’s first foray into hosting a large, international audience. The World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas was seen as a chance to show the world that the United States was a great country and to put Chicago on the world map. Among the many exhibits was the world’s first Ferris wheel.

I was on the fence about blogging on our Olympic bid until I read Greg Hinz Crain’s Chicago Business editorial, Get the Games (registration required). He weighs the pros and cons, and ultimately concludes “on balance, despite the risks, the Olympics would be good for Chicago, and Chicago good for the Olympics.”

In the meantime, I for one will be standing by with my fingers crossed on Friday morning awaiting the results.

The up-to-$8,000 credit, which can also be used toward a mortgage down payment, expires on December 1st. Buyers must close on their purchases and receive the title transfers to their homes before that date to qualify.

Despite the name, the credit is available not only to those who are purchasing their first home but also to those who have not owned a “principle residence” in over three years.

I’d like to make one important correction.  The reporter states in the video that in September, I received three “offers” on the luxury properties I had listed for sale. Actually, I’ve had three multiple offers (i.e. buyers bidding against each other for the same property) plus additional offers on four more homes I have listed, for a total of ten offers so far in September.

The fact that there are once again multiple buyers vying for the same properties (in high price points, no less) is a major development. I am feeling very encouraged about our prospects for a healthy fall market.

This weekend, the firefighters of Chicago Fire Department Engine 55 welcomed my family and another (including six children aged two to eleven) into their station house for a guided tour. You can imagine the thrill the kids shared as they tried on real firefighter helmets and coats, sat behind the wheel of a massive fire truck, and slid down the bottom section of a life-sized fireman’s pole. For my son Max, who dressed up as a firefighter at age two for Halloween, it was a highlight of his summer!

What I appreciated most, however, was the time the firefighters took to give the children (and us) some important safety tips. One fireman asked the kids if they knew what phone number to call in an emergency and what their home addresses were. He explained that it was very important that they know who to call and how to identify their location in the event of any emergency.

The fireman told the kids that firefighters are very bad at playing hide and seek. If they are ever in trouble, he said not to hide. Instead, they should call out for help and make sure everyone knows where they are.

He also asked the kids to keep their rooms extra clean. If firefighters need to crawl into their bedroom in dark or smoky conditions to rescue them, it would be more difficult if their rooms were full of clutter.

He asked the families if we sleep with our bedroom doors open or closed. He suggested that it is safer to sleep with our doors closed, but noted that there should also be a smoke detector in every bedroom. This is a more serious concern as our kids get older and have potentially hazardous electronics or power strips in their bedrooms.

To learn more about how to live safely, check out the Chicago Fire Department’s comprehensive website. There is a very helpful “Fire and Life Safety” section as well as a “Kids Section” with a two-part downloadable coloring book with safety tips to share with your children (pages 1-8, pages 9-16).

My husband and I now realize the importance of taking some extra time to teach our children what they need to know to be safe. I encourage you to also take advantage of these resources. Hopefully we will never need them, but as the saying goes, “It’s better to be safe than sorry!”

Many thanks to the firefighters at Chicago Fire Department Engine 55 at 2714 N. Halsted for their generous hospitality. You welcomed us in on a Saturday night, you spent quality time with our children, and you reminded us of how fortunate we are to live in this great city!