So, here’s what happened: A few weeks ago, I noticed that this website loads quite slowly, and is rather sluggish, in general. A call to my hosting provider confirmed that this site is hosted on an old (shared) server, and should really be hosted on a fast (grid) server. Thanks guys for letting me and my readers go through this before you proactively suggest a solution to me. Anyway, towards the end of last week, my hosting provider proceeded to migrate the blog from slow server to fast server, and that’s when the nightmare happened: The database got lost in the process! Without the database, NOTHING will work. In fact, all is lost, blog posts, comments, everything. That’s the bad news. The good news is that my hosting provider had an image of the database somewhere that they simply had to resurrect, and 60646 Blog would be back in business. Of course, this is nothing that will be solved in a matter of minutes. It takes numerous calls to tech support, issues will find themselves in a long resolution queue (we’re talking 3 to 10 business days!!!), and reps have to be begged to escalate the ticket.

Yesterday afternoon at 3 pm, 60646 Blog was finally back online. To my loyal readers, I apologize for the inconvenience and downtime. Steps have been taken to make pretty certain this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Hopefully, this site loads faster for you now than it did for the past couple of months, but if it doesn’t please feel free to comment below, or notify me by email.

Post thumbnail image courtesy: MrFaber under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Our friends at Zillow have provided us with a new plugin called “Local Market Explorer”. Local Market Explorer (LME) allows you to quickly scan local real estate market conditions by zip code/neighborhood, and it integrates local information about schools, merchants etc. from third-party vendors such as walkscore.com, education.com, and Yelp. Since we are on 60646 Blog here, naturally, I am linking to LME 60646. But at the bottom of this post, I am providing a few links to neighboring 60646 zip codes, for your convenience. To access 60646 local information, I have changed the navigation menu at the top of the blog a bit, so you can conveniently access it with one click.

Local Market Explorer

Also, please keep in mind that Zillow’s market value data for 60646 is not as meticulously separated as mine, as I break out my quarterly sales analyses into Edgebrook, Sauganash, and South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park. On the other hand, Zillow provides you with a list of detailed home sales in LME. Happy perusing.

Explore 60625 – Chicago Lincoln Square
Explore 60630 – Chicago Jefferson Park
Explore 60631 – Chicago Edison Park
Explore 60656 – Chicago Norwood Park
Explore 60659 – Chicago North Park/West Ridge

Last week, I switched from my RE/MAX office in Skokie, to the RE/MAX office in Edgebrook (YAY!) to which I will dedicate a separate post sometime next week. That’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to let you know that my mazadeh[at]remax[dot]net email address is currently not working. Why, and how do I know this? I received a text message from a client who informed me that he attempted to send me an email which then bounced back, as it couldn’t be delivered. Ouch.

A call to my regional RE/MAX organization confirmed that the problem is located at the RE/MAX International HQ in Denver, CO. One office signs off an agent. Paperwork needs to be forwarded to HQ. The new office then needs to forward paperwork to HQ to inform HQ that the agent is now on board of a new office. RE/MAX is a big organization. Things take a little bit of time, to fall into place. A big ship can’t be stopped and turned around on a dime. But,…, here’s the good news: Bureaucracy can’t stop modern communication, as my client’s text message proved (thanks Kevin). There are a whole host of other ways you can reach me. If you need to email me though, until my trusty old remax.net email address is functional again, you can do so by firing your message to markazadeh[at]gmail[dot]com. That’ll reach me 100%. Every time. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for any inconveniences caused. But I’m on it now. Have a good one.

Update 10/25/09: My mazadeh[at]remax[dot]net email address is functional again, and I am now officially part of the RE/MAX office in Edgebrook.

There’s a first time for everything. So, here we go with our first bona fide YouTube video. We’ll hope to do more of them in the future. Btw, you’re more than welcome to comment by video to our posts, simply by clicking on the Seesmic logo below the comments section. All you need, besides a computer, is a webcam and a microphone.

Here’s a video clip from a couple of esteemed colleagues in Vancouver, Canada, showing to what great lengths we go in this economy to make ends meet.

We here at 60646 Blog hope that you had a wonderful holiday season, and are ready to tackle the challenges coming your way in the new year.

Photo credit: Môsieur J.
Fourth quarter 2008, as well as total 2008 sales figures for Edgebrook and Sauganash are still a few days away, as I want to make sure that all year-end closings are properly accounted for and recorded in the MLS, prior to publishing them.

2008 was a challenging year in many respects, and one of the major lessons that we learned was that neighborhoods previously thought of as recession-proof, are not immune from the forces that determine the market value of homes. In Edgebrook and Sauganash, we experienced that for the first time – in a long time – in the second quarter of 2008. I remember in the mid 1990′s, when I first started my real estate career in Chicago, our training instructor who was teaching us the art of composing a property market analysis, would always emphasize the importance of including only closed transactions in our analyses that were at “arm’s length”, or else the analysis would be “diluted”. What a difference 13 years make. With the staggering amount of distressed and bank-owned properties on the market today, it seems as though less than arm’s length is the order of the day. REO’s and short sales are the new relevant comps; ask any appraiser.

Although the parameters for selling a home in today’s market have changed considerably, compared to only a few short years ago, the process itself has not. Successful home sellers are successful in selling their residences because they understand the importance of two things: Pricing their property correctly, and having their Realtor expose (market) it efficiently. With relatively fewer bona-fide home buyers in the market today, the challenge is on for you to compete even harder with your selling neighbor, two streets down. Carpe diem. 2009 is your year. Don’t forget to call us before though, to give yourself an unfair advantage. Happy new year to our entire readership.

P.S.: If you own a residence in Old Edgebrook (and Old Edgebrook only), and are contemplating selling it in the near future, please give me a call at (773) 230-4104. I have someone who is interested in buying a home there, as soon as something becomes available.

Welcome to the 114^th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate which is brought to you today from the Windy City. For those of you who are not familiar with the Carnival of Real Estate (CoRE), every week, a CoRE host acknowledges a number of blog posts,  recently authored by primarily real estate and mortgage industry bloggers. Today, 60646 Blog gets to pick the goodies, and we are truly honored to be your host for this week’s edition of the Carnival.

But first things first. In the last few weeks, Chicago baseball fans had been secretly hoping that the Cubs and White Sox would battle each other in the 2008 World Series. The postseason baseball grim reaper had other plans though, and decided to prematurely put an end to our dreams, on both the north and south sides of town. What agony, you might think, but appropriate nonetheless, not only because our two MLB teams choked underachieved when push came to shove, but mainly because we’re only four short days away from Halloween … oh wait, … I think I found our theme for this week’s CoRE.

When it comes to spooky stories, particularly around this time of the year, I am perfectly content getting goosebumps while listening to my young daughter read Harry Potter’s “Prisoner of Azkaban” to me. On the other hand, if bone-chilling topics are more your speed, might I direct your attention to this gigantic conspiracy theory about our financial system by Mr. Jim Willie [via Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs fame]. Of course, I am neither qualified nor inclined to comment on Mr. Willie’s assertions, but like I said, if you’re into “really scary”, by all means, go ahead and read it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Needless to mention, that article was not one of the submissions to CoRE this week.

Actually, it wasn’t the number of entries this week that was frightening, rather the above-average quality/originality/substance of the content of several submissions that I decided to present today. Out of a total of twenty entries, six stood out, in my opinion.

In “Trick or Treat, Give Me Something Good To Buy?“, Ro Troia, the good real estate sorceress from the Rockies, encourages home buyers lovingly, but with a stern tone:

… Buyers, wake up, get your butts out there and look at all the fantastic homes that are at bargain basement prices.   Wah wah, you don’t have the down payment, think FHA…

Unless you were referring to single family residences, in which case there is no argument, I’ve gotta tell you Ro, here in Chitown, we sell an awful lot of condos, many of which are ruled by HOAs that reserve a right-of-first-refusal in their declarations/by-laws. That right there, disqualifies these condos from FHA loan eligibilty. Even spot-approvals are a horror to come by, these days. Regardless, I am awarding Ro Troia the “Moontrimmer Broomstick“, for stressing FHA loans as a viable alternative for a mortgage with a reasonable downpayment requirement.

From Burnaby, BC Canada (that’s Vancouver’s backyard), real estate investor, Julie Broad, reminds us that no matter how bad the market is, “Forget The Market – Focus On The Deal“. Sounds like a useful mantra, especially when Julie candidly shares with us:

…I lost money on a condo in Toronto in the hottest condo market phase in history… and it was a good little unit to live in. It’s just as possible to lose money in an up market as it is to make money in a down one…

For offering an upbeat perspective in a business climate in which many real estate investors have been hesitant, if not downright spooked lately, I am awarding Julie Broad the “Golden British Columbia Scythe”. Or is that a hockey stick?

We’ve all heard or read about the government’s recent takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, tightened lending guidelines, and slowly but surely vanishing non-conforming loans. So, what are a current home buyer’s borrowing options in this market? In “What sort of loan can I get?” Dan Melson (searchlightcrusade.net) out of San Diego provides a comprehensive answer to exactly that question. Dan confirms what many of my own buyer clients are being challenged with these days:

…Credit Score has tightened up considerably, particularly in conjunction with Loan to Value Ratio. When three years ago, a 620 credit score was good enough to get you 100% financing on a stated income loan (subprime), these days the lenders want to see decently high credit scores. A-paper lenders are wanting to see 680 or 700 credit scores from anything over 80% financing…

Alas, seller financing and “Articles of Agreement” which used to be part of the standard repertoire of RE sales in the 80′s when mortgage interest rates were in double-digit territory, are not the saviors this time around, with so many sellers having dismal equity in their properties. Dan tells us how it is out there in mortgageland, and what you can do to obtain a mortgage in today’s market. For shining a light into the current dark mortgage maze, I’m awarding Dan Melson the “Magic Jack-O-Lantern”.

On a recent road trip through the Northwest, Whitney Tyner with Zillow, encountered some nostalgia. She’ll tell you all about it in “Rare Find: A Sears Roebuck Mail Order House”.

…Sears claimed that their homes would save men 40% of construction time, and promised that a man of “average abilities” could assemble the homes in 90 days. Sears produced over 370 pre-designed home blueprints styles, ranging in price from $500-$3,000. Or, if a family was especially ambitious, they could design the home themselves and Sears would ship off the appropriate materials. Talk about service!…

Now, here’s the thing Whitney, I consider myself to be a man of at least “average abilities” in a number of disciplines, but trust me on this: Sears could not possibly have had me in mind for their target audience when they worded that sales brochure. As proof, I submit the most recent pumpkin that I butchered during “Family pumpkin carving night”. In any event, for taking us all back to a simpler time, Whitney Tyner receives the “Equity-rich Haunted House” award.

“Home Buyers & Purchase Offers” by Sacramento Real Estate Gal Purva Brown, is a meticulous dissection of purchase offer strategy.

…Buyers are usually caught wondering if they should offer full price, or over asking price, if they should try a lowball offer or actually listen to the advice of their Realtor® and send in a reasonable offer which allows room for negotiation and ensures both parties some wiggle room on the negotiation table…

Only three or four short years ago, during the height of the sellers market in Chicago, offer strategy consisted of rushing over to the car right after a showing, and writing up a sales contract on top of the trunk. Then, running back to the listing agent and begging him/her to have the sellers kindly consider “our offer” among the twenty other offers they had already received. Purva methodically lays out the various strategies, along with their pros and cons, for drafting real estate purchase offers. This week’s “Candy Apple” award goes to Purva Brown, for bringing us a real treat.

If you’re familiar with Ardell DellaLoggia’s writing, then you know that Ardell does not pull any punches dealing with controversial topics. You thought you had read every publication about short sales and foreclosures there was under the full moon? Here comes Ardell, knocking on our doors and bringing us “Leave the gun, take the cannoli“. This remarkable post, is a call to short sale and REO practitioners, imploring them to stay in touch with their humanity, even though it’s business (Ardell’s words).

…So when you take out the gun and put it to someone’s head so that you can leave with the cannoli, at least look them in the eye when you’re doing it. Maybe talking someone into doing a short sale is like pulling the plug on someone that was just about to be saved. Think about that before telling people a short sale is their only or best choice…

Precisely because a short sale is not a transaction that could be described as a “piece of cake”, I suppose that most real estate agents haven’t exactly been rushing out in droves to persuade distressed sellers to sell their properties short. But that’s probably something worth discussing with Ardell on Rain City Guide. The last time I checked, that post had already 81 comments. As I hinted earlier, Ardell doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, and I totally dig that, because that’s what transparency is all about: The issues must be debated in a civilized manner, and at the end, hopefully no one returns home, suffering from the onset of a nasty ulcer. For confronting us with “Leave the gun, take the cannoli”, I am declaring Ardell DellaLoggia the “Queen of Halloween”, and this week’s winner of Carnival of Real Estate #114. Chapeau, Ardell.

I thank everyone for their submission, and especially Drew Meyers for the opportunity to be your CoRE host for this week. Be sure to join the Carnival of Real Estate again next week on Monday, November 3, 2008, over at Minnesota Investment Property.
P.S.: Don’t forget to hug your kids, and take them out trick-or-treating on Friday. Happy Halloween.

Image Credits/Attribution (top to bottom):
· Trick or Treat: Jane M. Sawyer, licensed via morguefile.com
· Flying broomstick: Anna Dickie, licensed via morguefile.com
· Halloween cat: John Grunert / Seven Oaks Consulting, licensed via morguefile.com
· Corn maze: eob via flickr.com, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0
· Sears & Roebuck catalog house: dbking via flickr.com, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0
· Office meeting: sectionz via flickr.com, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0
· Queen Charlotte: dbking via flickr.com, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0
· My daughter and her friend who had the bejebeez scared out of them because they had never seen a live/decapitated butler serving candy, prior to last year’s trick-or-treating field trip. Me neither.

This week, CNN reported that 80% of Americans are stressed about their personal finances and the economy, according to the annual survey conducted by the American Psychological Association. And, the most recent series of televised presidential and vice-presidential debates may or may not have made you feel better about the outlook for the housing market, the economy in general, or your personal finances.

Here now comes Ramit Sethi, a recent technology and psychology graduate from Stanford University who offers some straight talk about your money. Ramit’s blog is called www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com, which sounds a bit like a get-rich-quick type of scheme to me, but Ramit is quick to point out that “No, it’s not a scam, I’m featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR and CNBC”. Well, alright then, I’m sold. Moving right along, Ramit offers some “politically incorrect” (his words) thoughts on “The Truth: What Obama and McCain won’t tell you about your money”.

I’m not sure, but after reading Ramit’s article, that 80% figure cited by the American Psychological Association might inch closer to 95% territory. Don’t take my word for it though, head on over to Ramit’s post, and decide for yourself, whether or not his observations hit the nail right on the head.

[via Lifehacker] [image courtesy Nauris]

Yep, we got a little bored with the old look, so we decided to change our WordPress blog theme. We’re still not quite done yet, because there are a few cosmetic changes that we’ll have to make here and there, but this theme provides us with a bit more functionality under the hood than the last one.
We hope that it works for you, and we look forward to any questions or comments that you may have about 60646 Blog.

Last night, I came home from a listing appointment and found this email in my inbox:

My first reaction was: Cool. There are actually people in Sauganash that read my blog? In case you missed it, this is about the sub-divided lot at 6232 N Keating Ave, that was “re-improved” (I believe, I just coined this term) with two new single family homes. In the past, I have written about it on 60646 Blog here, here, and here.

My second reaction was to respond to Ms. Witek’s email. I wrote that it wasn’t my intention to come across as cavalier, and apologized to her, in case she perceived it as such in my latest post about this topic. In fact, I completely empathize with her, as I myself am no stranger to the ordeals and the nuisances of new construction, having lived in Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood myself for many years. I also wrote that I wished she had commented on 60646 Blog rather than communicate her concerns by email, because this is the forum where we can all participate, exchange ideas, and discuss topics that matter to us residents of the community. In closing, I asked her permission to publish her email on 60646 Blog, and offered to keep her name anonymous, if she so wished.

This afternoon, my cell phone rang. To my utter surprise, it was Ms. Witek. Ms. Witek is a very sweet lady who isn’t familiar yet with the mechanics of a weblog and the new social media that we call Web 2.0. Who can blame her for that? Heck, I didn’t even know what a blog was up until 2 years ago. Anyway, we had a delightful conversation on the phone for about 45 minutes, during which I learned quite a few things that I didn’t know before. But I’m not done learning, yet. Joan and I agreed to meet for lunch in a couple of weeks to continue our conversation which was unfortunately cut short because I was in a hurry to rush to a showing appointment.

Joan, if you’re reading this, here’s how we can all enter into a conversation, right here on 60646 Blog. At the bottom right hand side of each blog post, there is a field that displays the number of comments on the post.

Click on that field and you’ll be presented with a comment box. All that’s required to comment is a name (it can be anonymous), and a valid email address (which won’t be displayed). Upon completion of your comment, there is a security word that you’re required to type in which is to discourage comment spam from automated scripts. You even have an opportunity to preview your comment and make corrections if you wish. Finally, you can check a box that enables you to receive an email, every time someone leaves a comment on that particular post that you have subscribed to (this is by the way the reason we’re asking for a valid email address). Hence, you don’t have to constantly check the post for new comment entries. This is really convenient to the T.

Can’t wait to meet with Joan Witek for lunch, in a couple of weeks. But until then, I’m hoping that other Saugansh residents who are impacted by the issue on Keating Ave. voice their opinions. Right here on 60646 Blog.