Where Did Americans Move?

Forbes published this really great interactive map features which shows where Americans moved in 2008.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=48113

Pretty messy at times but a nice visual of what cities people are moving out of and where they are going!

Luxury Lincoln Park Living Featured Home

Welcome to Luxury Lincoln Park Living!

www.LuxuryLincolnParkLiving.com.

We welcome you to this featured quality luxury home for sale in the desirable Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago’s north side. The exquisite custom cabinetry and the highest quality woodwork and detailing are throughout the home including the solid Mahogany entry door, raised panel solid cherry doors, carved mantles, fluted columns and custom woodwork and built-ins. This luxury homes gracious layout offers tall floor to ceiling heights, large expansive windows, completely refinished hardwood floors on both the main and upper levels including each of the three upper bedrooms. There is also an expansive lower level recreational room and mud room with a fourth bedroom and full bathroom for guests or perfect for live-in au pair or nanny with a dedicated private lower level entrance.

For more information floor plans and more visit www.LuxuryLincolnParkLiving.com.

This very high end home offers superior value and quality beginning with its newly built front porch with twin columns and covered roof and solid Mahogany exterior door which greets guests as they arrive. Once inside, guests will pause in the foyer and be welcomed to the formal front living room with fluted columns, crown moulding and hand-crafted mantle and wood burning fireplace. Your guests then are led through a tastefully designed fully customized office room including twin desks, large and functional desktops and cabinets offering a storage place for everything out of site when guests arrive. The next arched opening then leads to the formal dining room with pass-through wood burning fireplace flowing into an expansive chef's kitchen/family room with ample southern light filling the space making it warm and inviting for daily living. A swing door connects the butler’s pantry area to both the large working chef’s kitchen and dining rooms for serving family and guests who gather. 

This home also offers a second level with hardwood flooring thoughout, raised solid cherry doors and the same exquisite attention to details as on the main pubic level. The large rear master suite with spa-like stream shower and bath oasis en suite, walk out private terrace and wood burning fireplace are your private oasis. There are also two large bedrooms with ample storage, windows and light. The side by side laundry room is on this level as well for ease and convenience. As if that weren’t enough, a hall door leads to a stairwell from the hall leads upstairs to a massive full unfinished attic space which offers an extensive future renovation or expansion possibility should that meet your future needs.  This home has it all and is ready for the most discerning buyers who appreciate quality and value. 

Brought to you exclusively by the Gramata Realty Group and @properties. 

The Gramata Realty Group

Jim Gramata 

Broker Associate

1875 N Damen Ave

Chicago, IL 60647
773-315-6103 

www.GramataRealtyGroup.com

Featured Lakeview Multi-Unit Residence For Sale

This two-unit property Lakeview two-flat sits on a full size lot (24x125) in an RS3 zoning district on Chicago’s north side. The property is located at 3119 North Southport in the Lakeview neighborhood between Belmont Avenue (3200N) and Wellington (3000N) just south of Chicago’s popular destination Southport Corridor.

Property improvements include a two and one-half story frame two-unit residence with 2 car garage. The first floor unit includes a 2 bedroom plus office and one bathroom. The sunny bright unit includes in-unit washer and dryer and is currently leased until October, 2009 with a monthly rent of $1,745 including a garage parking space.

The second floor owner’s duplex unit includes a recently rehabbed 2 bedroom 2 bath unit with a bonus family room/office on the second level off the master bedroom. This sunny unit also includes an in-unit washer and dryer as well as an updated kitchen, hardwood flooring and pantry. There is a large deck off the eat-in kitchen which leads down to the fenced yard and two-car garage.

Great for live-in owner or solid rents for investor purchase. Review Walk Score on this property and all the features right outside the door including restaurants, shops and Belmont El stop

Visit www.lakeviewhomeschicago.com for more information today

Chicago Bucktown Real Estate For Sale

Scroll over the box below for video tour of my latest single family home being offered for sale in Chicago's Bucktown Neighborhood on the north side near Armitage and Oakley.

Visit http://www.rememberjim.com and click on the property image in the left column

Or go here now for a link to this Bucktown property webpage we've created with property features, descriptions, flyer downloads and more.

Hold the Press. Are Rates that Low?

Syndicated columnist, Lou Barnes has hit the nail on the head regarding how inflated media coverage of the current downclick in rate adjustments have been and how I as a realtor have to coach my clients about how the Feds rate reduction really has no major effect on mortgage rates but more so on short term interest rates like car loans, home equity loans and credit card loans.

Rates have dropped a bit but they are back up to 5.75% and my advice is still to wait and see on the refi decision after more economic news is seen and if you've got a place your interested in purchasing and the loan calculations are within your comfortable means then by all means, make that purchase.

Here is the full article from Inman News:

Commentary: Average rates on mortgages unchanged in recent surveys

Friday, February 01, 2008

By Lou Barnes

Contrary to the conviction of deeply confused civilians and reports by lazy news media, mortgage rates are unchanged, about 5.75 percent for the lowest-fee 30-year paper.
If you don't believe me, visit http://www.freddiemac.com/ and its weekly survey. It is unbiased by sales jive, although it suffers from "survey lag" (early-week data released on Thursdays always misses real-time reality), and assumes a fractional origination fee. Last week's "5.48 percent" captured the one-day hysterical bottom when the industry could not log onto rate-lock Web sites. Yesterday's "5.68 percent plus 0.4 percent origination" is still about right, and all but identical to the prior week's "5.69 percent plus 0.5 percent."

Yet, the media refer constantly to "dramatically lower mortgage rates." They are better, but ... drama? Freddie's average for the whole of 2007 was 6.34 percent. A half-percent drop is nice for buyers, and a help to a few refinancers, but no fire sale.

"How can it be the same ... !?!" says the client, after a cumulative 1.25 percent cut at the Fed in only eight days? Answers follow.

Brand-new January economic data are not that bad. They're not bad enough to justify the Fed's panic, let alone to anticipate more cuts. Payroll growth slipped to flat in January (negative 17,000 is within the huge range of error and revision), unemployment down to 4.9 percent in a workforce statistical quirk -- soft, but hardly a recession. The purchasing managers reported their first gain in six months, likewise soft, but with persistent strength in foreign orders. Fourth-quarter GDP grew by a mere 0.6 percent; however, aside from a temporary drawdown of business, inventories grew at 2 percent.

The Fed's form is disturbing to long-term investors. Central banking is not figure skating, but Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has departed his predecessor's 17 years of gradualism for lurching on the rink. A Fed that will lurch down will lurch up.

Investors bought long Treasurys and mortgages at these levels 2002-2004 because former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said after every meeting into 2006: Excessive monetary stimulus most likely will be "removed at a measured pace." Translation: You're safe for now, and we'll give you time to get out before we kill you.
In those late Greenspan years, deflation was the problem. Today, inflation is rising all over the world: Australia at a 16-year-high of 3.8 percent core; Europe at a 14-year-high of 3.2 percent; U.K. at 2.6 percent core; China at 6 percent-plus; and an economy completely out of control beginning to export inflation to us.

Worst Quarter Since 1994

This article was written by Chicago Crain's columnist Alby Gallun. The state of affairs in the residential real estate market has not seen such a significant slow down in this quarter since 1994.


By Alby Gallun
Oct. 29, 2007

Local homebuilders endured more pain and suffering in the third quarter as new-home sales continued a slide that began two years ago.

Residential developers in the Chicago area sold 3,796 homes in the quarter, down 34% from the year-earlier period, according to Schaumburg-based Tracy Cross & Associates Inc. On a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, sales totaled 15,296 units, down 40% from last year and their lowest level since 1994.

"It's the same old story," says Tracy Cross, president of the real estate consulting firm. "I think we are at the bottom right now. How long it stays in this trough, I'm not so sure."

After a prolonged boom fueled by easy credit and speculative buying, the residential market faltered in 2005 as rising prices and mortgage rates curtailed demand for new homes. More recently, lenders have tightened their loan criteria amid the subprime lending crisis.

The downturn has rippled through the industry, forcing widespread layoffs at homebuilders and subcontractors.

"On our end, it's terrible. It's awful," says Jim Venhuizen, owner and president of Cimarron Construction Inc., a New Lenox-based carpentry contractor that serves the residential market.

Cimarron employs about 25 carpenters now, down from roughly 100 a couple of years ago. Though the firm is still profitable, its net profit margin has shrunk to the low single digits, well below the 10% that is the norm for the carpentry industry, he says. Work is scarce, and homebuilders that do have work for firms like Cimarron are demanding price cuts.

"Everybody's going to be working real cheap for the next year, for sure," Mr. Venhuizen says.

Another apparent victim of the downturn in the new-home market is Neumann Homes Inc., which last week said it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (ChicagoBusiness.com, Oct. 22).

The Warrenville-based homebuilder, which had 15 subdivisions in the works in Illinois, has laid off most of its employees and closed all of its sales, production and customer service offices.

The new-home business is especially bad in the suburbs, where sales fell 42% in the quarter, to 2,502 units, according to Tracy Cross. Sales in the city fell 14%, to 1,294 units.

A growing number of people who signed contracts to buy new homes are canceling, either because they can no longer qualify for a mortgage or they simply don't want to buy anymore, Mr. Cross says. The average cancellation rate is about 30% now, up from the more typical 15% to 20%, he estimates.

"Some are walking away from earnest money," he says. "Others are coming up with creative ways to get out."

The average Chicago-area new home sold for $416,329 in the third quarter, up 16% from the second quarter. But that number reflects a shift in the sales mix toward expensive condominiums in the city rather than any broader pickup in the market.

Though the downturn is deeper and longer than most observers expected, sales are so low that they can't drop much further, Mr. Cross says. Only 77 of the 817 condo and townhouse developments the firm tracks had eight or more sales during the quarter, and 327 either logged no sales at all or suffered a net loss of sales as buyers canceled contracts.