The last time I bought real estate, the REALTOR did not have all the data. I was shown only their in-house listings. It was a hasty decision - and real estate is usually not meant to be hasty.  I made a mistake, not about the purchase, but how I went about it.  You can believe me or not, but it is the truth. (disclosure, I obviously am affiliated with First Weber, but I did not use First Weber for this purchase which I reference)

First Weber wants a good customer and client experience. We provide all the available data. We want you to say good things about us.   What do you want from your real estate company and if we did a great job - please let us know by leaving a comment.  If we can improve, please let us know too.

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There are certainly professional home stagers available for those who want to hire a specialist who will do much more than the basics shown in the video.  First Weber's Concierge Department has several to select from if you are interested in the next step.

What are your plans? 

That's good news for property owners in Milwaukee and Madison.  People want to live here.  As reported on JSOnline.com, Madison leads the state in growth. Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewwicz said "Madison remains a very desirable place to live and positive growth rates like this reflect that high quality of life." Madison, Wisconsin saw a 10.7% increase in population from 2000 to 2008. Another way to say that is an additional 22,491 chose Madison, Wisconsin as the place they wanted to live. 

Milwaukee population increased by almost 8,000 in that same time period, remaining Wisconsin's largest city, ranking the 23rd largest city in the United States.

Other Wisconsin statistics of note are shown in this image (photo credit Journal Sentinel via jsonline article)

Sales prices have declined, but much less than nationally. In 2007, Dane County's median sales price was $210,000. This year it is $202,000.  With the current market attractive to the first time home buyer ($8,000 tax credit which expires by December 1, 2009) a decrease in average sales price may mean more activity in the lower end of the market.

There are currently almost 11,000 single family homes for sale in The South Central Wisconsin MLS.  The average list price is $255,000.

There are just over 3,000 condos for sale in South Central MLS with an average list price of $215,000.

Homes are selling in Wisconsin.  During the month of May, 2009 131  0-2 Bedrooms homes sold; 554  3 bedrooms homes sold; 265  4+ bedrooms homes sold and 169 condos were sold.  There is still a great amount of inventory available. 

If there are additional statistics you are looking for in another county or city, please send us a questions or a comment.  First Weber and firstweber.com cover the vast majority of Wisconsin and certainly have access to a wide variety of information.  We'd be happy to help.

If you'd like to search real estate, naturally we'd suggest firstweber.com.  Not only because it is our website  - if you  want the most Wisconsin listings, it is one of the Wisconsin real estate websites with the most. Hope you pay us a visit.

First Weber is mentioned in the Wausau Daily Times article for the Front Runner multi-media marketing program as well as the I Phone app for Wisconsin real estate:

"Those who like to peruse real estate listings online might want to check out Front Runner, the new interactive multi-media marketing package adopted by First Weber Group.

The system caters to tech-savvy consumers by taking advantage of popular social networking sites, YouTube and Web-enabled smart phones. It is designed to ensure maximum exposure for all listings, and allows potential buyers to instantly text with an agent.

In addition, First Weber has incorporated iPhone technology, using GPS to instantly show users every available home in the area in which they are looking.

First Weber can be found locally at 1818 Grand Ave. in Wausau, 2007 North Mountain Road in Rib Mountain, and 101 E. First St. in Merrill. Visit www.firstweber.com."

First Weber Group has 50 locations across the state of Wisconsin and Front Runner is available automatically for every First Weber listing. 

We are pretty proud of it and would love to hear from those of you who have used our Front Runner real estate marketing system. Comments welcome.

Some real estate webites only offer their own listings - firstweber.com offers 5 MLS systems and all the participating broker's listings.  See the whole Wisconsin real estate market by visiting firstweber.com

.  Welcome Emmy Probst, Deb Jenny, Steve Hochhausen and Dan Lyne to the First Weber Team. We sincerely hope the past clients and customers of Rountree become satisfied customers and clients of First Weber Group as these 4 REALTORS sell real real estate in their new home.Roundtree Realty has merged with First Weber Group, Platteville

Front Door is one of the national real estate websites that First Weber pushes our listings to through our Front Runner Multi Media program.  Have you searched for real estate on national websites like Front Door or Trulia before?  What did you think of the experience there? Were listings easy or hard to find?  Our experience is that some of those sites are heard to search, or hard to search for an individual property.  We can tell people are searching these sites for Wisconsin real estate because everytime someone clicks through to a First Weber listing from a national real estate website we feed to, Front Runner records a hit.  We have found it to be beneficial added exposure for First Weber listings.

One difficulty of feeding to national websites is that we don't control the display nor the updating of the listings like we do on firstweber.com.  However, each listing we push out, does always have a link back to the listing on firstweber.com for up-to-date information. 

We will be doing a redesign of firstweber.com in the near future.  If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see added, please tell us by making a comment.

The Wausau version of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life was held last Friday and Saturday at John Muir Middle School track. First Weber entered a team captained by Karen Harvey. Multiple First Weber agents walked throughout the night to raise funds.

The First Weber Group Foundation was one of the sponsors for the event with a contribution of $2,500. That along with contributions and fund raisers allowed our local Grand Ave and Rib Mountain Office to raise more than $5,000 for the Relay.

This should be interest to first time home buyers for sure. We are here and are always ready to help you. That is the bottom line.   And beyond that -- we know you always have questions. Ask away. This forum is for you.

It can be a very exciting process. Looking at homes is the fun part - you and your First Weber agent do other things after, and before, that are not so fun but necessary.  Depending on your needs, you should start searching for homes now.   Get pre-qualified on what you can spend. Define your needs and wants. Look online or choose and agent and let them do the looking for you. You should surely start an automatic email update of new listings via my firstweber.

Before you begin looking, decide if you want a buyer agent or not.  Your agent can tell you all about your choices in representation.  Get the ball rolling and look at homes NOW, because changes in the real estate closing process (finalization of your purchase and loan) have changed.

It can take up to 45 days to get a loan approval these days, thanks to changes in appraisal requirements.  There will be a tremendous demand for closings in November when the deadline hits. Plan ahead. Depend on your agent. Start now.

Good luck! We are excited for you!  Let First Weber know how we can help.

Coming in at #4 for Cool is Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a comfortable climate and a vibrant city scene.  Milwaukee, Wisconsin's winters are in the 20's on average (reasonable for midwest cities, you may even come to like it); comfortable in summers with 70's, 80's, 90's.  We've got Summerfest, lakes, rivers and a variety of reallly real estate at affordable prices. More Milwaukee Cool (non temperature related) here such as the Calatrava and Riverwalk.

View the complete list of top 10 cool cities here . All info compliments of FrontDoor.com.

What do you think?  Do you agree with the list? 

The Sun Prairie office hosted its annual Summer Kick Off Party. This year the Sun Prairie Cardinal (Cody Freidel – Rose Freidel’s son) and Maynard G. Mallard from the Madison Mallards attended along with current and past clients. Everyone enjoyed hot dogs, desserts and soda. There was even a bouncy house for the kids. It was a big hit. We had our own Andy Lindgren DJ the event and had a hula hoop contest.

Looks like a nice event for the community.

Let's hope for a great summer for Wisconsin real estate!