ongoing marketing efforts to sell chicago homes
I like what I do quite a lot. I get to help people find places to live and assist folks to transition from one place to another. In my Sir Mix-a-lot Cauldron of listings I have about 10 real estate listings in Chicago neighborhoods from Andersonville to Bucktown to the Gold Coast to Lakeview.
With every one of my listings I am a marketing sausage maker. I take a dash of this and a spice of that to create what I think is a masterful wall of marketing madness that you can’t help but bump into when you are looking online. I employ the wall at every juncture of the listing process, from when I first get pictures back or when I host an open house or when we reduce the price.
The panoply of things I use to punctuate my marketing expression include arcane things like html, website, online marketing vehicles and pdf upload sites. One such site is SlideShare where I uploaded the graphic above a half hour back to let the world know that my spacious and bright Lakeview penthouse at 3024 N Sheffield is now $469,000.
Wow! That is one $4k shy of a full $100k drop from what the seller paid in 2006.
That makes this 2/2 with spa-like bath with steam and private rooftop deck with city views and a garage parking space a darned good deal!
If this listing interests you or if you know somebody for whom it will hold allure, you may reach me at 773.848.9241.
a face in the ground advises see the open house at 2150 Damen today!
Every once in a while somebody somewhere about to nibble a cinnabun or something like it stops midbite when they see that the baked dough looks like someone famous.
Mother Theresa comes to mind. Or a few years back under the Fullerton viaduct of the Kennedy Expressway a water marking bore resemblance to the Virgin Mary. What followed was the creation of a flower and candle bedecked sidewalk shrine.
I thought of these things last night when I was late-night flipping through online Chicago real estate listings and the agent included a murky shot of a oil-splotched garage parking space. It was late and maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me but when I looked closer I was sure there was a face in the elements. Take a look and let me know what you think:
Whew, it was kind of eerie but after I acclimated to the face in the pavement it struck me as something of an omen so I turned to it and asked of it what should real estate consumer set out to do with their Sunday afternoon in Bucktown. It responded in a gravelly voice that they should beat a path to the wonderfully bedecked and harmoniously priced open house I am hosting from noon until 2p today at 2150 North Damen. Simply ring Kozlowski on the buzzer and whisk to the third floor of this boutique elevator building to a two-story penthouse with a smoking private deck with city views.
An Hour of Showings at New Bucktown Condo Listings
Saturday. Just after noon on another action-packed day amid the fray of the Chicago real estate market.
With the first of January arrived the spring market. And so far the spring market has been just that – springy! Things are active, showings are up, written contracts are many, and activity is expressly increased from what it was last fall.
As I momentarily catch my breath in the Bucktown office of my @properties brokerage I try to squeeze the truth out on the face of my tippy-tappy mac book pro. I staged an unofficial open house for the last hour of my brilliant new three-level home at 2301 West Wabansia where I met four different touring parties. These folks came on the heels of more than a dozen scheduled showings in the previous week for what has proven to be an elusive commodity on today’s market – a three bedroom condo for sale. But not only is this clean and contemporary home smart and well appointed it is offered at a fair market listing price.
I fully expect this dwelling will sell in the near future based on the fact that it fills a specific niche of the market, that it is in impeccable shape, that it is well priced and that it has dynamic differentiation in the form of a 450 square foot private rooftop, a one car heated garage space with a second parking space, three bedrooms with three and a half baths AND a separate office space.
Feedback so far has been extraordinarily positive. If this Bucktown home seems like something you or somebody you know will be interested, I can’t emphasize how important it is that you reach out to me as soon as possible. My number remains 773.848.9241 and the invitation to contact me is always open.
By the way, speaking of the upticked market… as I wrap up this momentary imprint at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago blog I fly down to my great Wicker Park graystone condo at 2118 West Schiller. From there I trace my way north to my delightful Andersonville townhome at 1801 West Winnemac. And my day wraps up with dual showings at the same time at my newly listed Lakeview condo for sale at 951 West Fletcher.
If it looks too good to be true… you know the rest
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Every so often I get an inquiry from an online consumer trying to see a place that looks pretty good. Actually, it looks so good as to be too good to be true.
Unfortunately for the inquirer places that look too good to be true usually are just that – too good to be true.
There are a couple of reasons for this great goodness factor. With the magnificent manifestation of data online some unsavory sorts extrapolate from that which is not theirs. I’m not sure why these guys take property addresses and associated photographs and confabulate advertisements touting much cheaper prices but I suppose it is akin to the emails asking you to help the true prince of somewhere far away to get his tens of millions of dollars out of the country to your great enrichment.
In other instances old listings never leave their online roost and a current time consumer mistakes something that long ago sold for something he might buy today. Alas that place is no longer available.
Sometimes we see what are known as a “dummy” ads. The creator of such an ad, either the listing brokerage or an unaffiliated third party, uses such a listing to try to attract clientele. In the parlance of the old school this is known as the “bait and switch.”
And in rare instances there are those listings that are lightening in a bottle. Usually it’s a foreclosure such as a Bucktown listing that arose in mid December and three different clients asked about it as it generated more than 30 offers within several days and sold for far more than its asking price.
While this was a tangible and viable place even it was too good to be true to an extent as it soared far beyond where its list price.
Like all of my planetary brethren I am familiar with the “looks too good to be true” conundrum. I thought of this as I danced with the vacuum cleaner this morning and hearkened back a few years when my Nicole and I thought our floor dust needs of our Old Town condo would be taken care of by the Roomba.
If you are not familiar with the Roomba it is a circular device that with the press of a button takes off an a cross hatched pattern throughout a single level of your home, picking up dust and what have you for the better part of 90 minutes to make your life better and cleaner.
At least that’s the idea. Until the buzzing, circling, beeping device runs a few times and the mechanism gets gummed up and just doesn’t seem to work well or right anymore.
Which was our experience. Over and over and over and over.
One thing I learned in the course of this not entirely inexpensive experiment was just how great Costco is. Every time the Roomba went boomba Costco was good enough to replace it. And when finally I tired of the experiment on about the sixth replacement Costco made me whole, refunding the purchase amount, enabling me to snag a whisk broom and pan to roll old school on the dust bunnies.
I don’t know what’s at the heart of the “looks too good to be true” conundrum. But maybe there is no universal truth on this one. But at least for my quixotic tilting with and against the Roomba at the core was my desire to have a shortcut. I wanted my floors clean without effort on my part.
Like skinny minis who want to be buff without hitting the gym. Or overweight folks who want to shave LBs without giving up the eclair.
Face it, you can fill in the blanks a million different ways. What I see as true here is two-fold – shortcuts have unintended consequences. The other truth, if you haven’t already guessed, if it looks too good to be true it probably is.
By the way, don’t leave your real estate needs to somebody intent on taking short cuts. Turn to somebody with an intelligent and workable plan. My number is 773.848.9241.
One more thing… I will be at 3024 N Sheffield Sunday from 11.15 until 1p. I will be at 3315 N Lakewood from 1.30 til 3.30. And my listings at 1801 W Winnemac and 1224 N Dearborn will be open from noon until 2p.
Snow on the Horizon (Unless it Doesn’t Come)
Puffy cheeked angels are hurling ever-damper spitballs earthbound as Chicago gears up for its first substantial snow of the season.
Sitting in my North Shore perch, a Starbucks near my sons’ school, I ease from one task to the next, observing the gathering expression of wintry nature. From the voices weighing in on the radio during the drive to school this morning GoreTex clad prognosticators are gathering on various bridges around the city to observe anticipated blockages and impediments the storm surely will bring.
Unless it doesn’t.
That’s the thing with prognostications, estimations, pontifications and gesticulations. The best (and worst) of intentions may bear no fruit at all. And like the weatherman so eerily portrayed by Nicholas Cage in The Weather Man, it’s perfectly feasible that the meteorologist may be mundanely mediocre and miss the mark.
I guess it remains to be seen today what will happen. At least for today. And as we wait at least we wait prepared. So the boys made their way to school today where a good part of the day is spent in outdoor activity with snow boots and snow pants. And should the white stuff not gather with any force it won’t be for our lack of readiness.
The same, I suppose, is true when it comes to homes floating like skiffs on today’s housing market in Chicago and the North Shore where a spate of early season activity has planted seeds of optimism on the parts of sellers and their Chicago real estate professionals. So long as these listed homes enter the real estate market in a state of readiness we reasonably may expect positive results.
And so with homes that are priced truly to the market (which still favors buyers) readiness first and foremost is coming to the market at the right price. Second in importance, and vital, is how effectively, extensively and aggressively the home is marketed by the real estate professional.
In truth this is why I crack eggs on the skillet of this website. Information with specific words intertwined in the narrative is the sticky stuff that sticks to the walls of google. And google essentially is the technological fire around which we information nomads gather, rubbing together sticks of search words to flick to life flames of images, notions and things we need to see and know.
And with respect to my kindling comprised of data and heaped atop the licking flames of google there is a price reduction at my historic Wicker Park greystone at 2118 W Schiller that is now $459,000 for a three bed and two bath condo with parking.
There’s also my newly listed penthouse condo in the heart of Lakeview with a private rooftop deck that will be open this Sunday from 11am until 12.30 at 3024 N Sheffield.
Another open house that has attracted tons of attention since the new year is my townhome straddling Andersonville and Lincoln Square at 1801 W Winnemac Unit C. Mitch Aronson will host the open Sunday from noon until 2pm.
Later this evening, so long as Snowmageddon doesn’t occur, I will meet an interested buyer at my gorgeous Bucktown penthouse listing at 2150 N Damen where luxury finishes and a private rooftop deck with stunning views are the highlights.
Private showings also are on tap this Saturday at my magnificent Gold Coast duplex at 1224 N Dearborn. This two-level home also will be open Sunday from noon until 2pm.
And so these skiffs of homes for sale stay afloat on the waterline of the current market, steadily nosing their way to the shoreline of selling, priced right and marketed with precision and assertiveness.
By the way, good luck as you make your way through the growing white landscape. And don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions for me at 773.848.9241.
