Chicagoland real estate purchases, real estate sales, short sales, foreclosures, first-time buyer representation, Illinois condominium association representation, estate planning for everyone, powers of attorney, quit claim deeds and more...

I have the pleasure of doing some work with Fran Bailey who is a real estate agent for Baird and Warner out in Arlington Heights. She has an award-winning real estate blog and I had the pleasure of being mentioned in her article titled "A Good Example of Why Bringing a Home Purchase to Closing is a Team Effort." You can click here to see her blog and website but I have reprinted the article below:

"Yesterday I had a closing for a Lakeview condo that wouldn’t have happened for a few more days, if it weren’t for the extraordinary efforts of the buyer’s mortgage consultant, Michael Polera and real estate attorney, Rachell Horbenko.

Condo financing is challenging in this market and even more so when a jumbo loan is involved. When the first approach at financing hit a snag, Michael quickly reacted and restructured the financing to make it work. That presented new challenges one of which was warranting the condo project for the second loan which could take up to 10 more business days.

With my buyers needing to be out of their rental by the end of the month, the 10 day delay threatened to leave the buyers without a home for a few days. Michael escalated the issue to Baird & Warner’s VP of Financial Services who agreed that Baird & Warner would assume liability for warranting the condo project for the second loan.

Once financing was in place, Rachell discovered that the seller’s attorney didn’t have the title ready and that there was an issue with the parcel identification number (PIN). Rachell worked with the seller’s attorney and the issues were resolved.

Rachell was already booked with closings yesterday, but squeezed in this one before the others. When the closing ran long and Rachell needed to leave for her next closing, she stayed in contact via texting.

Michael and Rachell worked as a team and through all of this constantly kept each other, the buyers and I informed. Bringing a real estate purchase to closing is truly a team effort with the numerous steps and organizations that are involved. When numerous difficulties are encountered as with this sale, working with experienced and service driven professionals makes a world of difference. Thank you Michael and Rachell for all you did for my buyers!"

Thanks to Fran for the kudos! She also didn't mention all the hard work she did for the buyers as well!!!

I've been writing a lot about improving your credit score because my girlfriend is buying a home and needed to improve her score. She came to me and asked how she could do it. That got me thinking about improving my own score. My score isn't bad, it's in the low 700's, but it could be better. I started looking at my credit cards (the many that I have!) and the balances that I'm carrying. I'm so jealous of those people who don't carry a balance!

Lenders are even more demanding about credit scores. In the yesteryear of lending, you needed about a 720 in order to get the best rates. Now that number is up to 740 or higher. It's a similar deal with car loans. Now a 700 score may cost you up to 1.5% in your rate - if only your credit were 20 or 40 points higher!

How can you do it? Reduce the ratio of credit card debt tot he total amount of credit available to you. If you owe $2,000 to a $15,000 credit limit, your ratio would be about 13%. Pay off enough to get below 10%, and you could boost a 707 credit score as much as 50 points!

Also avoid using your cards in a month where you'll be applying for the loan. Even if you pay your balances at the end of the month, it takes time for the credit bureaus to update, and it may still look like you have those balances on the cards when the lender pulls your credit.

If you can't pay off the debt you can also ask the issuer of the card to raise your limit to decrease your ratios. For example, the $1,500 balance on the $12,000 card is about 12.5%. Raise the limit to $15,000 and suddenly you're in the 10% zone. Even though you've been hearing in the news that credit card issuers are cutting credit, they are still offering it to the good select few.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just announced yesterday that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is going to permit lenders to allow home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit they are receiving as a down payment.

Until this, most buyers weren't going to receive the money until they filed their tax return which kept some buyers from taking advantage of the credit. 

First time buyers or buyers who have owned a principal residence in the last 3 years are eligible for this benefit and they must close between January 1, 2009 and November 30, 2009. As long as you remain in the purchased home or three years, the credit does not have to be paid back. The credit is reduced or eliminated for higher-income taxpayers. Joint filers must have a gross income of $149,999 or below; single filer must not realize more than $74,999 in gross income to receive the credit.

So another sign of the times is finally here. The developers at Museum Park (which includes a total of 823 units between 1600 Museum Park, 1400 Museum Park and One Museum Park) have started filing suit against about 100 homeowners who have failed to close on contracts in the development overlooking Grant Park. These suits are seeking retention of earnest money and half of the cost of any upgrades that were selected by the buyer. They have seen about 25% of their deals fall apart, up from about 10-15% last spring.

I have represented a couple of buyers who walked away from their deals for a variety of reasons: market decrease, job loss, inability to get financing, etc. and all of them have come to a settlement with the developer.

The developer has already won about half the cases through settlements or court rulings.

I want to preface this blog by saying this is just my personal opinion based on what I am seeing in the market. I don't have a crystal ball as to the future, but I do have a very strong opinion about what I am writing about here:

I have a client who sold his condo in the suburbs and moved to the city. He's a wonderful single guy who I've known for a long time, and I'm all for his relocation to the city. However, he moved here, from home ownership and started to rent. I've been trying to convince him for the past six months that it's time to buy. Yet he gives me excuses, like "The bottom hasn't fallen out yet." or "I'm afraid of job security."

Look, I'm not saying in these times, that these are not legitimate concerns....BUT. Can you live you life on the "what if's"? I'm all for being cautious. But the longer you put things on hold, the better the market is going to get - FOR SELLERS. The higher prices and rates are going to be. If you sit around and wait for job security or the "right time", guess what? You are going to be missing out on the best time to buy probably in many people's lifetimes, and that big fat tax credit that the Federal Government is offering.

Do what is right for you, but keep in mind that life is best lived in the present. And as always, hire competent people to work with you!

For the first time in a year, foreclosure numbers in Chicago dropped 8%, but home foreclosures surged in the suburbs of Chicago. Foreclosure cases in DuPage, Will, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties jumped between 25% and 70% from the fourth quarter, according to numbers provided by the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based housing advocacy group.

Across the six-county Chicago metro area, foreclosure filings rose 6% in the first quarter to 17,819, the highest one-quarter total since the housing crisis first began in mid-2006.

While the first wave of foreclosures hit the poorer neighborhoods drowning in high-interest adjustable rate loans, the ripple effect is extending to middle-class neighborhoods where people qualified for standard rate mortgages.

Nearly one in five homes along the Fox River from North Aurora to Elgin is listed for sale as a foreclosure or short sale. 

I've been doing a lot of short sale representation lately, for both buyer and seller. The question always comes up as to when the offer is accepted. The term "pre-foreclosure" is very deceiving, and frankly, there's really no such thing. You're either in the foreclosure process, or you're not.

When a short sale occurs, the Seller is still the owner of the property, so when the owner as the Seller signs the Contract, it is considered accepted. The Contract is simply subject to bank approval. The Contract can be written, or a Rider can be attached to state that the deadlines in the Contract don't begin to toll until the offer is approved by the lender, but the Contract is still "accepted."