from the morning’s darkness a voice emerged
The thin faint notes emerged today. Before light had a chance to truly arrive and lend definition to the branches’ murky shadows, a trilling leaned against the silence.
A robin, I suppose, casting its voice to the gloming. Not so much in protest but more of a simple statement.
“I am here.”
And amid the pre-stirring hour or so before dawn I noted the voice to myself, recognizing that I’ve not heard its accent stitching the hushed segments of Chicago’s wintry night. And so perhaps the light before us is the beckoning of spring’s impending arrival.
Soon the green shoots so vividly and lyrically described by Dylan Thomas will appear and sniff upward and out until full flourish is achieved. And we, if a moment we take, will be treated to front row seats.
Another miracle. So common as to be mistaken for a lower case “m.”
It’s funny that the truest and greatest of things is boxed within common slang and vernacular while that which is momentary is declared momentous, capturing headlines and the day’s top notice.
But the thin true voice of the darkness-swathed bird arose this morning before the sun and I was fortunate to be present to hear it.
Now buoyant from the feathered friend’s suggestion of spring’s impending arrival I enter the remainder and bulk of the day perhaps with the edges softened (somewhat), bringing this essence to the table at an afternoon home inspection in Lakeview, with this morning’s promised arrival of an executed contract for another Lakeview single family home, ongoing discussions representing clients in their purchases of an Albany Park home and a Lincoln Square condo, and arranging a host of showings in Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Bucktown and Wicker Park for tomorrow for another client.
And in homage to the sweet-voiced bird and the Disney movie I watched with the boys two nights ago and hats off to Casablanca I’ll just put my lips together and blow and whistle while I work.
number crunching and making an offer to buy a chicago home
Busy.
I just penned a lengthy message to a listing agent whose property my clients have directed me to make an offer. Actually it’s a counter-offer. And due to the utter lack of relevant comps we are left to surmise the home’s value on a catch-as catch-can basis.
Be that as it may, what we know is that the home was purchased in 2006 and given that market analytics reflect a Chicago real estate market akin to 2003-2004, we know straight away that the home’s value is less than its original purchase price.
But what does that mean exactly?
That’s where the debate begins
Its value today is less than what it originally sold for so we commence the process trying to triangulate values on a geographic and calendar basis. Given that third party appraisers establish a safety net of about a half mile and back some 90-120 days, that’s where we begin.
But for this specific Chicago condo there’s nothing to be gleaned via this approach, yielding a round shiny goose egg. So then we consider macro and local statistics that suggest today’s market mirroring the numbers of 2003-2004 and so we establish a regressive model plugging hypothetical numbers in to derive an assumptive analysis.
Meaning? Just as the market advanced in quantitative terms on a single-digit basis year after year until it didn’t we simply reverse the process. Toward this end I plugged in 3-5 point declines leaning against the 2006 purchase amount to establish a range of annual decline to 2004. This is one portal through which we enter the realm of what we will pay.
Another portal is to consider that the extended metropolitan area declined 12.1% in 2009. Multiplying this number against the purchase price and subtracting it traces a quick path to a roughly comparable figure that we will pay
Blah blah blah.
Bottom line? Sellers want to get as much as possible while buyers are very cognizant of the egg mentioned above and said egg’s innards and their (buyers, that is) absolute reticence to wind up with yolk on their faces. Meaning nobody wants to and nobody (especially when working with trusted real estate professionals) will.
Where will it end up? Time will tell. One interesting thing that I shared with the agent representing the seller of the property my clients like (but not so much that they will overpay) is that as rates rise, buying capacity shortens.
To wrap it in a tight little hard-to-swallow pill, consider this from the National Association of Realtors:
The announcement has been made that the purchase of mortgage backed securities will continue until June of this year. After that point we expect that market rates will increase. The difference between 5% and 6% rates on a $250,000 loan would mean that payments would rise from $1,041 to $1,342.
That’s a $300 per month spike on loans of $250,000. That doesn’t even consider he egregious and usurious rates of jumbo loans.
Think that will trigger some degree of atrophication of property sales?
Can you say uh-huh?
So what it begets is an environment where sellers are well-served to consider the prospective suitors before them as they arrive or run the risk of remaining transactionally celibate.
six plates spinning . logistics of the chicago real estate market
Have you ever cooked a meal? I’m not talking about smearing a layer of almond butter on gluten-free bread to be greeted by a ample amount of organic jam and blasted into the furnace of your hunger as soon as it is made. I am talking about a meal with a simmering pot on the back burner, a salad prepped on the butcher block, a pork loin in the oven and a little sumpin-sumpin sauteeing on the front burner.
That’s what I am talking about. A meal, not a snack.
Among the other notable and varied talents of my beautiful wife Nicole is her capacity to manifest creativity as she wields her wand to whip up meals that bring together any number of different elements all toward the end of delight and deliciousness.
It happened last Sunday as we entertained a cluster of family and friends to watch one of the best Super Bowl games that I can recall. For my part I reverted to my role as the Big Dipper, prepping the peanut oil to a hearty 400 degree zeal to convert a namless turkey into a crispy delicacy just a little toward the fat side of the menu after 45 minutes immersed in burbling hot oil.
Nicole on the other hand, working with a measured grace as I was showing a West Loop condo at 10, two River North Condos from 11-noon, two second showings of East Village condos, and a drop by showing of my Andersonville condo on the way to my Edgewater home, was lining up a remarkable salad with feta, olives, organic greens and peppers, a cajun-inspired sauteed shrimp course, properly breathing red and white wines, fresh bread and a few other things that slip my mind as I trend toward an ancillary food coma just thinking about the weighed down table. All of it was capped off by freshly brewed coffee from beans from local roaster metropolis and angel food cake with ice cream and fresh strawberries.
For most of my adult life I have regarded this daily multi-tasking as akin to the stick-spinner on Bozo’s Circus. You remember the guy? Comes out in a striped sport coat like he’s getting ready to meld his voice with another three members of this or that barber’s quarter? He has six or so three foot sticks and he puts a plate on each one, centered just right to spin madly but stay aloft while the mini-orchestra plucks its strings to some bright melody that can veer into darkness at any moment.
When my wife is investing her heart into the meals that she shares with us, it is like the stick-spinning guy keeping the plates aloft with a maddening sense of grace and balance.
The same thing goes for the jam-packed schedule of representing buyers and sellers in the mine field of Chicago real estate. As with anything there is a method to the madness as I establish the schedule with my buying clients, show my listings to prospective buyers, keep tabs on upcoming events, solicit new business, run analyses to maintain accurate snapshots of the market, submit offers and negotiate deals on both the buy-side and sell-side.
Meaning what? Yesterday I met with clients who came about from a phone call from San Francisco on one of my exempt single family listings of a custom built single family home in North Center. In the course of our half-hour conversation we clicked and he, Chris, asked me to represent him and his girlfriend in their relocation from the West Coast.
I picked them up yesterday morning at the Park Hyatt and we wheeled around for five hours yesterday (with another seven planned today). As we incinerated turkey sandwiches at a charming place in Roscoe Village he and Gabrielle commented that I had not updated the blog in a while.
True that. Seems like one of the plates hit the ground. And yet with this morning’s effort I hope to set the plate straight, aloft and spinning to join the other spinners that include…
- seeing another eight of so places including two for the second time with Chris and Gabrielle
- have photos taken of Sarah and Richard’s delightful East Village single family home at 5.30
- meet with Ryan and Heidi tomorrow morning at 9 to look at Lakeview condos
- arrange Bryan and Maggie’s inspection of Edgewater new construction
- get together with with Karina to view two Lincoln Park lofts at 2.40
- and in the midst of all that show my Lakeview condo listing twice, show my North Park two flat after noon, show my West Loop developer’s unit after 3p and possibly submit an offer or two with one or all of my buying clients.
And then what? Be ready for the madness of the next day while emphatically telling Nicole that I love her.
imagining . an important piece to finding your chicago home
I was up late last night. 3 am. Gazing with bleary eyes at my computer screen, fascinated by a documentary streaming to me via NetFlix.
Actually, it was a several part Discovery series about Mt. Everest. And I couldn’t peel myself away, even as I tumbled well beyond a reasonable hour to repose.
And though I was fully willing to continue watching my common sense stormed to the dais of reason and compelled me to close the computer and then close my eyes.
I was thinking of Everest today as my hands blotched bluish amid the icy nature of the Chicago day today as I showed condos in Roscoe Village and Lakeview.
The nature of imagining.
To a certain extent that is what much of real estate is, whether in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, New York or wherever.
Imagining.
We imagine ourselves in a setting, trying to understand whether this is what we want, where we want to be. Cooking in this kitchen, lounging on this deck, entertaining in this home, living on this street.
Imagining.
And as my client today “tried on” the various condos that we visited I in turned at least for a moment, as my hands trended toward blocks of ice I imagined what it would be like to be traversing the Khumbu Ice Fields miles above sea level toward Everest’s peak.
Now that would be cold.
While Everest holds a profound fascination for me, I have no great yearning to stretch my soul against its ferocity, preferring in this instance to admire its aesthetic.
Admiring aesthetics is also something we do when we view a home. Always are we told to not let emotions play a role when looking at homes. But the truth of the matter is that emotions do and must play a role. I mean can you imagine your higher and better self participating in the decision-making process. Of course buying a home is imbued with very pragmatic concerns such as shelter, convenience and capital gain (or so we hope). But without being set into motion by emotion there will, for the vast majority of us, not be a catalyst toward making a decision.
Having said this, though, a critical piece in today’s market is establishing a baseline analysis to enable my buying clients to identify a home’s value. What this means with all of the buying clients whom I currently represent is tracking spreadsheets that identify a home’s list price, what it last sold for, what discernible mortgage amount remains on a resale property, what current inventory is listed in the general vicinity and what comparable properties have sold and for how much.
Phew.
This same type of analysis figures prominently in the manner in which I list places, enabling me to establish right pricing which is a vital part of plugging a property listed with The Real Estate Lounge Chicago into my marketing system that propels my Chicago real estate listings to the top of the charts for online home buyers.
Speaking of marketing, here’s a smidgen below related to my new West Loop condo listing at 1526 Monroe, a delightful three bed and two and a half bath home with upgraded kitchen and marble baths in award-winning Skinner Elementary District.
And the point is? Imagine yourself living in this right-priced home.
1526 monroe . 402 – west loop condo in boutique building
Don’t Detest the Text . Just Take the Pledge
It’s not that I detest the text. It’s just that sometimes it makes sense to rest your thumbs.
Like when they, the thumbs, are supposed to be proximate to the other four fingers of each hand in the 10 after 2 position to safely steer the car.
And safely steering the car doesn’t happen when trying to steer a conversation. By text.
So rest the thumbs. Which is what I am doing.
When I drive, that is.
The whole idea of going Luddite when it comes to cars, thumbs and texting is gaining momentum. So much so that an email earlier today from a colleague at my brokerage (now Chicago’s top real estate brokerage, by the way), featured the tagline below…
It makes sense. Despite the notion that constant motion is the steady state theory of being on the leading edge of representing sellers and buyers in the Chicago real estate market, common sense when it comes to where our hands should and must be when we drive is refreshing.
And safe.
And we at @properties think it is good business.
So, whether you listen to Oprah who has taken the banner and asks you to take the pledge.
Or whether you respond to sterner stuff like the fellow pictured below, keep it in context and when you drive, drive. And save the texting for when the vehicle is parked.
