Do I Need an Attorney to Handle a Real Estate Transaction?

The real estate agents will handle the negotiation over the price and dates in the Contract however they are under no obligation to protect your legal interests in the transaction.

Because of that, in the Chicago area, Buyers and Sellers almost always hire an Attorney to represent them. With such a big purchase or sale, the small fee an Attorney will charge (typically $500) is well worth it.

Attorney Bradford Miller at Bradford Miller Law, P.C. has a great reputation when it comes to Real Estate transactions.  There are testimonials on his website, www.bradfordmillerlaw.com as well as yelp.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.
Real Estate Law, Landlord Tenant Law, Estate Planning
134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040
Chicago, IL 60602
312-238-9298
http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Do you owe more than your property is worth?  You should consider doing a short sale.  There are no legal fees because Bradford Miller Law PC offers free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale.

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

Chicago-area home sales up 19% in December

By Mary Ellen PodmolikChicago Tribune

More than 7,000 consumers in the Chicago-area bought themselves a home last month, the best finish for the year since December 2006, just before the local housing market's bubble burst.

December sales of existing homes in the nine-county area rose 19.2 percent from a year ago, to 7,372 single-family homes and condominiums sold, the Illinois Association of Realtors reported Tuesday. The median price of $151,500 recorded for the month rose 4.5 percent, from $145,000 in December 2011.

In terms of volume, it was the best monthly performance for the market since December 2006, when 7,530 homes were sold. Twelve months later, in December 2007, the number of homes sold locally had plunged to 5,033.

While it showed improvement, last month's $151,500 median price was far below the December 2007 market high of $247,800.

Pricing recovery was even more evident within the city of Chicago, which recorded a 14.6 percent year-over-year increase in sales, to 1,806 properties sold at a median price of $185,000, up 19.4 percent from December 2011's $155,000.

The pricing improvement is largely a result of the continued shrinking inventory of quality homes on the market, which for months has meant homes are going under contract faster than they have in the past. Sellers of choice properties, whether they are in the traditional market or foreclosures, are fielding multiple offers from potential buyers.

"The 18.9 percent decrease in market time from the same time in 2011 shows a continued clearing of inventory, of both single-family homes and condominiums, which should prompt action among buyers and sellers and continue to promote home price stabilization," said Zeke Morris, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors.

Sales of Chicago condos swelled to 1,037 units sold, up 17.7 percent from a year ago, and the median sales price of $235,000 for a unit was up 28.8 percent from last year.

The median price is the point at which half the homes are sold for more and half for less.

"I believe we're going to have the most promising spring market we've had in years," said Zeke Morris, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors. "We can give (sellers) a slightly more confident expectation."

The pricing improvement is largely a result of the slim pickings of properties listed for sale, which for months has meant homes are going under contract faster than they have in the past.

Compared to a year ago, inventory has plunged. For instance, in Chicago, there were 14,183 homes for sale in December 2011. Last month, there were 8,036 listed properties, or 43.3 percent less. As a result, the average number of days it took to sell a Chicago home fell almost 19 percent year-over-year, to 77 days last month.

Sellers of choice properties, whether they are in the traditional market or foreclosures, are fielding multiple offers from potential buyers, both owner-occupants and investors.

"We have a lot of pending deals out there," said Mabel Guzman, an @properties real estate agent. "Sellers are holding onto their price, knowing they're the only thing in the market. People are going to get frustrated if there isn't enough product to buy."

For the year, 90,365 homes were sold in the Chicago area, a 26.7 percent increase from 2011, while the median price slipped 1.5 percent, to $160,000. In the city, the annualized median price rose 5.7 percent, to $185,000, for the 22,333 homes sold, a gain of 22.4 percent in sales volume.

According to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., the average commitment rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage in the Chicago area was 3.32 percent in December, compared with 3.33 percent in November and 3.94 percent in December 2011.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.

134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040

Chicago, IL 60602

312-238-9298

http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Are you interested in doing a short sale?  Bradford Miller Law, PC offers free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale.  Contact our office today for a free consultation.

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

Real estate is crucial to a growing economy

Did you know? On an average sale, approximately $28,581 is generated and goes into the local economy. Realtors, movers, inspectors, attorneys, etc all realize an economic benefit from a sale of a home. The real estate industry is crucial to our economy. Lets hope things get better in 2013.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.
134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040
Chicago, IL 60602
312-238-9298
http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Are you interested in doing a short sale?  Bradford Miller Law, PC offers free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale.  Contact our office today for a free consultation.

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

Seller closing costs

I often get asked "what kind of closing costs can I expect when I am selling my home?"

First, let me clarify that I consider realtor commissions, taxes, title related fees, etc all to be "closing costs." Others may only call title-related fees "closing costs."

For Sellers, the largest closing cost tends to be the Realtor commission. This commission is typically 5% of the sale price. The next largest cost is real estate property taxes. In Cook County, we pay property taxes in arrears - which means that in 2012, we paid the 2011 property taxes. So when you sell your home, you must give a property tax credit to the Buyer for the time you spent in your home in the current year. This property tax credit can be negotiated and a formula is used to calculate the actual amount. The remaining costs include title related fees, city, county and state taxes.

Overall, Sellers can typically expect to pay around 8% of the sales price in total closing costs. This includes the Realtor commissions of 5%, taxes and title related fees. For example, on a $200,000 home, the Seller can expect to pay around $16,000 in total closing costs. Again, each transaction is different, and if no Realtors are involved, the closing costs will be much lower since there will be no commissions to pay.

Whether you live in Chicago or the suburbs, if you are trying to sell your home contact our office for a free consultation.  Our office phone number is 312-238-9298.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.
134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040
Chicago, IL 60602
312-238-9298
http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago eviction attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations. This is intended to be advertising. Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

Chicago’s Midrange Homeowners Taking the Hardest Hits

Note: I think this article brings up good points.  If you are a "midrange homeowner" that needs help, call our office for a free consultation.

By Dennis Rodkin, Chicago Magazine

When Zillow announced last week that Chicago is the country’s number one market for homebuyers, I snarkily replied on Twitter that, by the same token, Chicago is the number one place where sellers are taking it in the shorts. Two reports out that same week backed me up, offering further detail on how hard Chicago’s prolonged housing stupor is impacting local homeowners—whether they’re hoping to sell or just monitoring the value of their largest investment.
Released by DePaul University’s Institute for Housing Studies, the Cook County House Price Index for the third quarter of 2012 found that prices for midrange single-family homes and condos took the biggest hit. Houses in the middle tier were down 10 percent from a year earlier, while those in the lowest price tier were down 2 percent and those in the highest were up less than 1 percent. Middle-priced condos were down 13 percent; the lowest-priced were down 11 percent, the highest, 2 percent.
(The institute groups properties into tiers using calculations that are too complex to lay out here. Its director, Geoff Smith, says that the best way to picture the tiers is this: Low-value homes have a median price of $74,000; middle-value have a median of $165,000; and high-value homes have a median of $438,500.)

And from FNC, a mortgage technology company, came a report that said Chicagoans have the least liquidity of homeowners in any major U.S. city. In other words, they have such low equity that selling to move is harder than in any other city.

“It’s more difficult to get out of their homes without losing money, and their inability to [move] makes the Chicago economy slower to recover than others,” says Robert Dorsey, a founder of FNC and its chief of data and analytics. His report also noted that Chicago sellers, when they do sell, take the biggest price cuts: 13.9 percent, on average.

Together, the two reports paint a gloomy picture for Chicago’s middle-class homeowners: Their home values are still slipping, and they can least afford to sell. Each probably pushes the other. “Middle-class folks are going to have most of their wealth tied up in home equity, which in many cases has evaporated,” says Smith. “So you have a lot of folks who are trapped.”
Owners of higher-value properties typically bought their homes with a larger equity stake than middle-class owners, Dorsey notes. Smith adds that, given their comfortable financial footing, those wealthier homeowners may also have been less pressed to refinance and pull equity out of the home during the boom years. At the lower end, both analysts say, the stronger prices are largely the result of investors buying up foreclosed properties in large numbers.

Solutions? “There is no doubt that unless there is a big influx of jobs in the Chicago area, your recovery will stay slow,” Dorsey says. “A lot of [housing’s] recovery will be driven by the unemployment rate, and Chicago is still one of the high unemployment cities.” For the middle-class homeowner in particular, Smith says, “there needs to be bigger consideration of short sales and principal forbearance so people can afford to move.”

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.

A Law Firm Dedicated To Real Estate Law, Landlord Tenant Law, and Estate Planning

134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040

Chicago, IL 60602

312-238-9298

http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Offering free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising.  Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

 

Do you owe more on your mortgage than your home is worth?

If so, you may want to consider a short sale.  Millions of Americans are in the same position and were able to sell their home through a short sale.  At Bradford Miller Law, PC we handle short sales every day.  And we charge you NO LEGAL FEES!  If you need to sell your home but owe more than it is worth, call our office today for a free consultation.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.

A Law Firm Dedicated To Real Estate Law, Landlord Tenant Law, and Estate Planning

134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040

Chicago, IL 60602

312-238-9298

http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Offering free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising.  Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

Did the Housing Market Escape the Fiscal Cliff Unscathed?

We all heard about the "fiscal cliff" and the midnight deal that temporarily dealt with the problem but how did this agreement affect the real estate market?  The below article talks about that and more.

Courtesy of Chicago Agent Magazine

by PETER RICCI

We knew it would go down to the wire – after countless discussions, negotiations andstories by the media, Congress finally reached an agreement to avert the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” and the housing market, upon initial impressions, seems to have escaped the party relatively unscathed.

Not only is the mortgage interest tax deduction still in place, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 was extended for another year and even the deductibility of mortgage insurance premiums for select homeowners was renewed through 2013. That all sounds great, but does the nature of Congress’ bargain bode unwell for housing?

The Housing Market and the Fiscal Cliff: Dancing Cheek to Cheek

As HousingWire noted earlier today, the immediate outcomes of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, as the fiscal cliff bargain was called, were a net positive for the housing market:

·         The mortgage insurance premium deduction, which has expired at the end of 2011, allows eligible borrowers who itemize their tax returns (and who have incomes of less than $100,000 per year) to deduct 100 percent of their annual mortgage insurance premiums.

·         The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, which was set to expire on Dec. 31 of 2012, was extended for 2013, so for another year, homeowners engaging in short sales will have their debt reductions excluded from taxable income (though as we’ve covered before, that only applies to a specific kind of underwater homeowner).

·         Even the increase of the capital gains tax rate from 15 to 20 percent for individuals earning more than $400,000 will have minimal impact on housing; as HousingWire explained, only if individuals have the aforementioned income level and gain more than $250,000 from the sale of a property will they be affected by the higher rate.

·         And as RisMedia noted, no trade group was more active than the National Association of Realtors for housing legislation in 2012, so it’s likely that NAR’s political clout reflected positively on housing in the negotiations.

Housing Market – Sequester This!

Of course, as with many things in Washington, it’s not a simple matter of President Obama signing the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 and all our problems going away. As NPR wrote in an excellent summary of the act and its importance in the fiscal cliff discussions, the U.S. government still faces the same budget deficits that it did in 2012; rather than addressing those deficits, the act instead targets the taxation side of the fiscal cliff discussions, and delays any discussions of the deficit (and the automatic spending cuts, sometimes called “sequestration,” that would take place) to March.

And that fact, said Spencer Cowan of the Woodstock Institute here in Chicago, should keep real estate agents on their toes.

“Clearly, this is a very temporary situation,” Cowan said. “I wouldn’t feel safe about anything.”

Between the government’s budget deficit, the debt ceiling and the fragmentary nature of our current Congress, Cowan said all are problems that still need to be addressed, and though housing dodged a bullet in the preliminary discussions, it could still become a bargaining chip come March, when the sequestration talks resume – and the coveted mortgage interest tax deduction could definitely be a part of those discussions.

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, PC

A downtown Chicago law firm practicing in the areas of real estate and estate planning.  We offer free representation for homeowners contemplating a short sale.  For a free consultation, contact our office at 312-238-9298.

Even as prices rise, owning easily beats renting cost in Chicago

Note: I saw this article and thought it was pretty good...courtesy of chicagorealestatedaily.com

By: David Lee Matthews December 27, 2012

2012 may be remembered as the year home prices started rising again, but owning remains significantly cheaper than renting in the Chicago area.

The cost of renting was about 31 percent higher than the average monthly mortgage payment here in the third quarter, according to a report by Deutsche Bank A.G. That disparity, which factors in property taxes, insurance, and other homeowner costs, was greater in Chicago than in all but seven U.S. metropolitan areas tracked by the German bank.

The ratio has flipped over the past five years, as home prices and interest rates have plunged and apartment rents have jumped. Before the bubble burst in 2006, the cost of renting here equaled 58.5 percent of the cost of owning — its lowest point — but rose sharply in the ensuing years, peaking at 148.9 percent in first-quarter 2012, according to Deutsche Bank. Put another way, the cost of renting vs. owning is now more than double what it was before the crash.

The spread reflects the record-high rents landlords are charging in the wake of the housing bust. Though low interest rates and still-depressed prices have fueled a recent rebound in the residential market, some would-be homebuyers are still unwilling to take the plunge.

“Everybody feels if they buy a place, they need to stay there a long time,” said Prudential Rubloff Properties broker Jeff Lowe. “When somebody tells you they're renting for awhile, some of their friends might actually be jealous.”

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of Chicago-area single-family home prices bounced back earlier this year but fell 1.5 percent from September to October, its second straight monthly decline. The index, however, was still up 4.3 percent for the year.

Just seven metro areas — Atlanta; Orlando, Fla.; Cleveland, Tampa, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Rochester, N.Y., and Las Vegas — posted higher rent-buy ratios in the quarter, according to the Deutsche Bank report. The national average was 107.8 percent.

“Not surprisingly, regional rent-buy results continue to highlight a bifurcation between core gateway markets in the Northeast and California, where renting oftentimes remains the cheaper option, and markets where housing has been hardest hit, namely Florida and the Midwest,” the Deutsche report said.

Owning could remain the less expensive option in the Chicago area for a while longer, based on another Deutsche Bank report forecasting that prices here will fall another 2.9 percent by next June, and 8.6 percent by June 2015. Chicago's three-year outlook is third-worst among other cities in the report, trailing only Las Vegas (-13.1 percent) and Sacramento, Calif. (-9.5 percent). Deutsche expects home prices across the nation to rise 6.3 percent over the next three years.

Yet apartment landlords soon may have a harder time hiking rents, especially downtown, where developers will complete nearly 4,700 apartments over the next two years. They will lose some tenants whatever they do, Mr. Lowe said.

“People don't want to rent forever,” he said. “Even if (rents) start increasing consistently 1 or 2 percent, I think financially people will be comfortable buying again.”

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.

A Law Firm Dedicated To Real Estate Law, Landlord Tenant Law, and Estate Planning

134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040

Chicago, IL 60602

312-238-9298

http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Offering free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising.  Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.

 

4 Housing Issues to Watch in 2013

Courtesy of Daily Real Estate News
What does 2013 have in store for the housing market? With marked gains this year, housing experts expect the housing market to continue to gain momentum in the new year.
The Wall Street Journal recently offered up some chief housing issues likely to be important in the New Year. These include:

• Inventories rise: To meet the increased demand, home builders are increasing production and more sellers may be more willing to test the market as housing prices increase. 
• Home prices spur demand: More buyers have urgency with home purchases as rents rise, housing values gain momentum, and mortgage rates remain low. 
• Credit remains tight: “While rising prices could serve as a tailwind, new regulations may lock in some of the defensive underwriting posture while impeding capital rules may lead banks to pare their lending footprint,” The Wall Street Journal predicts.
• Broader economy dictates how far recovery goes: If unemployment decreases and the economy improves, many of the biggest challenges facing the housing market would likely fade, such as tight credit, the large number of underwater home owners, and a high rate of foreclosures. 

“Any renewed weakness in job growth could put housing back into the stall that it found itself in between 2010 and 2011,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The housing market is still fragile. ... If lawmakers can’t agree on a series of spending cuts and tax hikes to avert the ‘fiscal cliff,’ that could crimp demand or damage confidence.”

Posted by Bradford Miller Law, P.C.

A Law Firm Dedicated To Real Estate Law, Landlord Tenant Law, and Estate Planning

134 N. LaSalle, Suite 1040

Chicago, IL 60602

312-238-9298

http://www.bradfordmillerlaw.com

Offering free legal representation to homeowners seeking a short sale

Key words: Chicago short sale attorney, Chicago landlord tenant law attorney, Chicago estate planning attorney, Chicago real estate attorney, Chicago real estate lawyer, Chicago building code violations, short sale attorney Chicago. This is intended to be advertising.  Please consult with an attorney before acting on any information given here.