Spring was a good season for Chicago real estate, with April showers also contributing to a 25.3 percent of home sales.

Illinois home sales increased 25.3 percent over previous-year levels in April, and the market looks to be in good shape, according to the spring numbers from the Illinois Association of Realtors.

Statewide home sales (including single-family homes and condominiums) in April 2013 totaled 12,621 homes sold, up from 10,076 in April 2012. This was the best April performance since 2007.

The statewide median price in April was up 7.7 percent year-over-year.

“The spring numbers are very encouraging, especially as we see substantial tightening of the numbers of homes on the market,” said Michael D. Oldenettel, CRS, GRI, president of the Illinois Association of Realtors and Managing Broker/Owner with RE/MAX Results Plus in Jacksonville, Ill. “While prices are inching up slightly due to strong demand, the interest rates continue to be a powerful lure for those who want to own a home and the spring housing market looks to be a strong one.”

Here are some figures:

• The inventory of homes for sale has fallen 30.6 percent year-over-year.
• The time it takes to sell a home has also dropped 19.8 percent from April 2012.
•  The monthly average commitment rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 3.42 in April 2013
• In the nine-county Chicago Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA), home sales (single-family and condominiums) went up 31.2 percent from last year’s numbers.
• The median price in April 2013 was up 8.1 percent year-over-year.

“The housing market is exhibiting signs of a more stable recovery with an anticipated strong early summer led by strong sales gains and more modest but still positive gains in median prices,” noted Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Director of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory of the University of Illinois. “Average time on the market, the growth in the pending sales index and an increase in the share of total sales captured by more expensive properties point to a return to greater stability in the market.”
Fifty-five (55) of 102 Illinois counties reporting to IAR showed year-over-year home sales increases in April 2013. Forty-two (42) counties showed year-over-year median price increases including Knox, up 32.1 percent to $72,000; Lake, up 16.1 percent to $188,125; Grundy, up 15.7 percent to $155,000; Cook, up 11.9 percent to $172,900; and Madison, up 4.5 percent to $116,000.

On the local side:

Statistics in the city show steady growth:

• The city of Chicago saw a 28.4 percent year-over-year home sales increase in April 2013.
• The median price of a home in the city of Chicago in April 2013 was up 22.0 percent since last April.
• Chicago condo prices posted a 21.1 percent jump.

“Housing numbers continue to indicate a steady market recovery in Chicago,” said REALTOR® Zeke Morris, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors and Operating Principal and Managing Broker, Keller Williams Realty, CCG. “We are pleased to see condo sales, in particular, regain their strength. The biggest challenge currently is a steep decline in inventory, which may pose difficulty for buyers looking for a wide selection in certain areas. On the other hand, it is a great time for people who are considering selling to talk with a REALTOR®.”

Sales and price information is generated by Multiple Listing Service closed sales reported by 31 participating Illinois REALTOR® local boards and associations including Midwest Real Estate Data LLC data as of May 7, 2013 for the period April 1 through April 30, 2013. The Chicago PMSA, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the counties of Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will.

Chicago April Home Sales Up 25.3 Percent was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Mobile marketing can be a huge boon to your business, and we’ve got five tools you can use for improving your mobile marketing game.

We’ve reported previously that mobile marketing means big business. 79.4 million people will be using mobile devices to shop in 2013. That’s over 50 percent of the digital marketplace. You can’t afford not to invest in mobile marketing technologies. Here is Mashable’s list of five tools you can use for improving your mobile marketing game.

1. Mail Chimp – Email marketing is one of the most popular ways to use technology for keeping in touch with your costumers, and there are many mobile tools for managing email.

MailChimp, for example, is an online tool for email campaigns. They’ve recently added mobile tools that let you view your email stats, check Twitter to see who is tweeting about you and manage your mailing and subscriber lists.

You can also build mobile friendly newsletters, for users who read your emails on their mobile devices. They can also use Chimpadeedoo to sign up for your newsletter via iPad. One company, Monkey Joe’s, used this app to grow its subcriber list from 250 to 10,000.

MailChimp has a free plan in addition to their pay plan. The free plan allows you to have 2,000 subscribers and sent up to 12,000 monthly emails. It includes all of their mobile-friendly features.

2. Red Stamp – For those of you seeking to add flare to your digital messages, Red Stamp enables small businesses to create and send personalized emails with letterheads, business cards, notes, invitations and announcements using your mobile device.

If you’re looking to make an impression with your digital correspondence, check out Red Stamp –- the company just launched Create Your Own Collection that enables small businesses to create and send custom, branded letterhead, business cards, notes, invitations and announcements from mobile and desktop devices.

To use Red Stamp, you must pay a one-time fee of $29.99 for custom design and set-up, and a 4.99 monthly fee for unlimited sharing. You can also order paper postcards for 99 cents, including postage, and Red Stamp will ship the cards for you.

3. Swipely – Swipely makes it easy for customers to join mobile loyalty programs by sending a text message, working seamlessly with the payment cards customers already use, rather than requiring paper cards, punch cards or key chain cards.

One restaraunt in the San Francisco Bay Area uses Swipely for its mobile loyalty program. In only one month they found that 60 percent of customers that who accessed the mobile signup page also joined the loyalty program. Hundreds of customers signed up, allowing the restaurant to market to those customers with email.

Swipely’s loyalty program is free, but you must be an existing Swipely customer.

4. TextUs.Biz – According to Time magazine 32 percent of people would rather text than talk on the phone. TextUs.Biz facilitates texting between businesses and customers via computer or iPad. Agents can use the service to keep in touch with customers by sending appointment reminders or promotional offers, and customers and text agents to request appointments or reservations.

You can send up to 100 messages for free with TextUs.Biz, but after that, the basic cost is $24/month for 1,500 messages, $44/month for 5,000 messages, and $74/month for 10,000 messages.

5. Facebook – According to research reported by Mashable, mobile users check Facebook approximately 14 times a day. You probably already have a Facebook page, but here are some new products you might not be familiar with.

Facebook Offers are virtual coupons. They are available on mobile computers as well as desktop options. Promoted Posts allow you to promote certain posts so they appear higher in your customers news feeds. Facebooks Pages Manager App allows you to manage these features on your mobile device.

Five Mobile Marketing Tools for Tech-Savvy Agents was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Generation Y, the 80 million or so Americans born between 1979 and 1995, are expected to reverse the last 60 years or so of housing policy in the U.S.

One of the more persistent questions among housing analysts is how Generation Y, the generation of Americans born between 1979 and 1995 that currently totals roughly 80 million people, will change the makeup of the U.S. housing market, and whether those changes will, in turn, affect how real estate operations are conducted. Numerous studies and hypotheses on the subject have trickled out in recent months, but the Urban Land Institute (ULI) may have released the most authoritative survey on the subject. Bearing the rather grandiose title of “America in 2013,” the ULI surveyed more than 1,200 adults in early 2013 about their housing and lifestyle preferences, and the results suggest a pronounced change for housing in the coming years.

Housing Preferences in the Gen Y

Perhaps the most radical change that Generation Y homebuyers will likely bring to housing will be a return to walkable, dense urban environments. Though sprawl and large lots have defined housing in the U.S. for the last 60-odd years, ULI’s survey finds a much different outlook among Gen Yers:

• For instance, regarding the density and walkability of an area, 62 percent of Gen Yers prefer mixed-use developments, and 76 percent place a high value on the walkability of a community.
• Meanwhile, 40 percent of Gen Yers prefer city living, while 54 percent are renters.
• Perhaps most importantly of all, 18 percent of Gen Yers used public transit for their commute to either work or school (compared to just 6 percent of all respondents). Furthermore, more than half place a high priority on their proximity to public transit, and 23 percent report walking to their destinations, the highest percentage among all generations.
• Even when incorporating other generations, the aforementioned trends were largely unchanged: 61 percent of respondents prefer a smaller home that allows for a shorter commute to work; 53 percent want to live close to shopping; 52 percent prefer mixed-income housing; and 51 percent prefer access to public transportation.

A Return to Urbanism in the U.S.?

So, what does all this mean? Though ULI’s survey does not necessarily suggest an about-face for American housing – that homebuyers will immediately sell their suburban dwellings and frolic to densely packed urban environments – it does show, rather clearly, a definite shift in residential preferences among American homebuyers, one away from car-dependent developments and towards closer-knit, walkable environments, and likely a shifting perception among Americans of what a “neighborhood” looks like.

Such trends, though, are by no means news for Joe Siciliano, a managing broker for Coldwell Banker in Lakeview, who has been seeing young homebuyers  for years flock to Chicago’s North Side for its strong public transit network and relative proximity to their places of work.

“They’ve made the market better,” Siciliano said. “Instead of leaving to the suburbs, they want to stick around here. This is a great trend.”

This is How Gen Y Will Revolutionize Housing was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

The mortgage process is integral to housing, but a new survey from Zillow finds many consumers are quite lost regarding the details of the process.

U.S. consumers may not be quite as smart regarding the residential mortgage process as many agents would like, according to a new survey from Zillow.

According to the website’s latest Mortgage IQ survey, consumers are incorrect about major aspects of the lending process a third of the time, though that may not be an entirely bad thing as far as agents are concerned.

What’s YOUR Mortgage IQ?

Some of the more notable results from Zillow’s survey included:

• Thirty-four percent of first-time homebuyers are unaware of the fact that there are home loans available that require down payments of 5 percent or less. Whether that means those homebuyers have never heard of the FHA or not, we’re not sure, but Zillow’s own Mortgage Marketplace reported that in the last two years, there has been a stunning 570 percent increase in loan requests with down payments between 3.5 and 5 percent, and the Obama administration’s Housing Scorecard continues to report a disproportionate market share for FHA mortgages.
• Consumers are also unaware of the fact that they can shop for mortgages: 26 percent of those surveyed said they thought they were obligated to close their loan with the lender that pre-approved them, and 24 percent thought the best available rates and fees would always be through the bank they do business with.
• Finally, 34 percent of respondents thought that all lenders are required, by law, to charge the same fees for their credit reports and appraisals.

Is There an Agent in the House?

On first blush, those results may seem horribly demoralizing, considering that so many consumers are so off on some of the mortgage processes’ most important qualities; however, there is one encouraging nugget that emerges from such information: it reinforces the need that so many have for an experienced real estate professional!

Therefore, you’ll want to make sure that you are abreast of the latest developments in the mortgage markets, so that you can provide reliable information about the lending process to your clients. Along with reading high-quality news sites, such as the excellent Calculated Risk and, of course, Chicago Agent magazine, you’ll also want to maintain close relations with a preferred lender. As we constantly highlight in our Ask a Lender series, a preferred lender can be invaluable in educating clients on current mortgage trends, and having such connections will undoubtedly reflect well on you as an agent.

How Smart are Your Clients on the Mortgage Process? was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Rents for Downtown Chicago apartments hit a new high in 2013′s first quarter, though market trends suggest that such highs are only temporary.

Rents in Chicago’s downtown market outdid themselves again in 2013′s first quarter, with the price per square foot for the area’s top-tier, or Class A, buildings rising more than 5 percent from last year.

As Crain’s explained in a recent story on the increases, though, such record numbers could be temporary with thousands of new rental units set to hit the marketplace in 2013 and 2014.

Downtown Chicago Rental Market – Flying High…For Now

For the time being, though, landlords are living the dream in the downtown Chicago rental market:

• Price per square foot in Class A buildings rose 1.9 percent from 2012′s fourth quarter to 2013′s first quarter, hitting $2.63 a square foot. Since bottoming in 2009, downtown rents for Class A units are now up 26 percent.
• Rent increases, though, are not restricted to Class A buildings. Class B rentals rose even more aggressively from quarter-to-quarter, jumping 6.9 percent to $2.32 a square foot.

However, such increases are temporary. Though analysts anticipate rents to rise another 4 to 5 percent over the next year, developers are planning on unleashing a huge supply of rental units into the greater downtown rental markets. According to Crain’s, seven high-rises with 2,895 units will hit the market in 2013 alone, and another 2,330 will arrive in 2014. And beyond those immediate developments, Appraisal Research calculates that 26 additional developments are underway in the greater downtown area (including the eagerly anticipated Wolf Point), which will add another 6,292 units.

So in short, though lagging supply has allowed landlords to raise rents the last couple years, the shoe may be on the other foot come early 2014, with landlords competing for tenants with lower rents.

But could supply rise too quickly? As Crain’s pointed out, more than 5,200 rental units will hit the market over the next two years; however, according to Appraisal Research, the absorption rate for rentals in Chicago has averaged just 1,540 units per year since 2009, which would lead to a surplus of roughly 2,000 units.

Suffice to say, we could be looking at a much different downtown rental market, come 2015!

Downtown Apartment Rents Hit Record High was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Taylor Lindstrom has been appointed managing broker.

Michael Pierson and Chris Eigel, principals of the prestigious Chicago-area real estate firm Prudential Rubloff Properties, have appointed Taylor Lindstrom to the position of managing broker of the firm’s Winnetka office located at 850 Green Bay Road.

Prudential Rubloff Appoints Taylor Lindstrom Managing Broker of Winnetka Office was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Frank Denovi of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Frank DeNovi, a sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, has been installed on the board of directors for The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals Chicago Chapter. The installation dinner was held on May 16, 2013 at The Clubhouse restaurant in Oak Brook, where members gathered to honor the new directors and network with local business leaders.

“I am proud to be a part of an organization with a strong mission that I truly believe in and aligns with my personal and professional goals,” said DeNovi. “NAHREP provides real estate professionals with the education and resources necessary to empower and properly guide the Latino community of buyers and sellers. Ultimately, the purpose is to help families achieve the American dream of homeownership.”

DeNovi is a long time Chicagoland resident with more than 27 years of real estate experience specializing in loss mitigation, asset management, short sales and the sale of REO properties. He is one of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s top producing Brokers, ranking No. 2 for the company in units sold and in the top 1 percent for NRT Internationally in 2012. DeNovi has also been recognized by the Wall Street Journal and Lore Magazine as one of the top 400 agents in the nation for the past several years.

“It was important to me to get involved in a larger initiative that gives back to the community,” said DeNovi. “I hope that by serving on the Board of Directors I can make an impact on the Hispanic community and be a mentor for other real estate professionals when servicing clients with multi-cultural distinctions.”

DeNovi is the first Coldwell Banker agent to serve on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Chapter of NAHREP.

Frank Denovi of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Installed on NAHREP Board was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Point2 Joins with MLS Industry Heavyweights for Major Event

Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), Chicagoland’s multiple listing service (MLS), has announced that Point2 is sponsoring and attending MREDpalooza as a ZAP! level Sponsor.

Point2 provides real estate marketing and lead management software to brokers and agents in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa, as well as listing data aggregation and syndication solutions to real estate multiple listing services in the United States, and Boards and Associations across Canada. Point2’s solutions also include the consumer real estate listings portal, Point2 Homes, in addition to property management software for small to medium size organizations managing up to 1000 units.

Real Estate Digital (RED), another Zap! level sponsor, will be unveiling its line of MRED SelectSites, state-of-the-art agent and broker websites, at MREDpalooza. RED is a leading provider of integrated technology, media and data solutions to real estate franchisors, brokerages, agents, MLSs and Realtor® associations.

In addition to having booths at MREDpalooza, both Point2 and RED will be demonstrating and explaining their full lines of products throughout the day in their own private training rooms.

“Point2 is excited to be participating in MREDpalooza,” said Saul Klein, Industry Principal of Point2. “MRED is recognized as an industry leader and the quality of their programs always exceed expectations. You’ll kick yourself if you miss this one.”

“We are thrilled to be part of MREDpalooza this year, which promises to be Chicago’s tech event of the year,” said John Hensley, Chief Product & Technology Officer of Real Estate Digital (RED). “There’s no better place to launch the MRED SelectSites web platform than at this premier event!”

Market Leader has also joined the MREDpalooza sponsorship lineup. Market Leader is a real estate software company providing a full suite of solutions from lead generation to customer relationship management.

“Not to sound too over the top, but we have been astounded by the reaction of the real estate industry to MREDpalooza,” said MRED CEO Russ Bergeron. “Clearly vendors and MRED customers alike see MREDpalooza for the wonderful opportunity it is, and we’re looking forward to seeing everybody at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont on June 18th.”

MRED has a few sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities left, and encourages anybody interested to get in touch as soon as possible. All MREDpalooza participants will enjoy significant interaction with thousands of MRED’s customers.

All Indications “Point” to MREDpalooza Being a Great Success was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Housing is putting up its best numbers in some time, but we can’t ignore some of its potential hurdles as the market changes.

Nearly every media outlet imaginable has jumped on the housing-recovery bandwagon, reporting on the numerous signs that housing has awoken from its long, painful slumber. Heck, even the Wall Street Journal, that most notoriously fickle of observers, has declared housing to be in recovery!

Yet, there remain outliers to housing’s success story that add smidgens of nuance to the recovery narrative; of course, we do not intend on being the Negative Nancy and raining on everybody’s housing parade, but we think it only fair to point out the four areas of the greater economy that could pose hurdles for the housing market in the coming months.

1. Rising Interest Rates – Interest rates are at historic lows, and they’ve fallen so dramatically that owning is now cheaper than renting in nearly every major metropolitan marketplace. Yet, it’s a certainty that rates will increase, and it would be foolish for any of us to become too comfortable with such low rates, because they are, you know, historic! And though rising rates will not necessarily derail the housing recovery, it’s worth factoring in what impact they could have.

2. Slow Employment Growth – Though the economy has been doing much better in recent months (it’s 165,000 new jobs in April was a particularly good sign), it’s still a far way off from a full recovery, and economists expect it will take five years of similar job growth for the economy to return to pre-recession levels of unemployment – and without a solid base of jobs, fewer Americans will be able to make home purchases.

3. The Changing Mortgage Landscape – According to recent readings, the U.S. government backs roughly 97 percent(!) of new mortgages via the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but that overwhelming percentage will almost certainly change early next year when the FHFA, the entity that regulates Fannie and Freddie, adopts the qualified mortgage standards from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move that is expected to raise mortgage standards substantially. It remains to be seen whether private lenders will step up and fill that void, or whether lending will fall as a result of the regulations.

4. The Burden of Student Debt – Finally, there is the escalating burden of student debt. Totaling $1 trillion and now surpassing housing debt, student debt has become such a problem that, for the first time in years, consumers without student debt obligations are receiving mortgages at a greater rate than consumers with student debt. Typically, borrowers with student debt were considered a safer bet for banks, given that their academic degrees granted them higher-paying jobs, but the situation today – where the delinquency rate for student borrowers exceeds 30 percent – has reversed that scenario.

Agents, are you concerned? Will these hurdles play out in time? Comment below!

4 Hurdles for the Housing Recovery was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.

Sean M. Carpenter, the director of training and education of Ohio NRT companies for Coldwell Banker, gave a presentation to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage agents at the Ronald McDonald House on May 15. Titled “The Realtor’s Toolbox,” the presentation included more than 22 tools, tips and techniques for real estate agents on how they can build their real estate business.

Coldwell Banker/Sean Carpenter Training – 5.15.13 was originally published on Chicago Agent Magazine - For the well-informed real estate professional, the leading source for news and perspective for real estate professionals in the Chicagoland area.