With active listings as of April 2, 68 percent of agents do not provide virtual video tours of their listings. The remaining 25 percent use one of the major companies for virtual tours, while 7 percent of agents use other means to create their virtual tours.

Out of all the non-land, non-commercial properties listed for sale in MRED during 2011, how many are canceled, then relisted? The top chart shows that out of all the listings, 79 percent were never canceled or relisted, while 21 percent were canceled and/or relisted at least once, which usually signifies a price change. The bottom chart shows the breakdown of the 21 percent of properties that had at least one cancel/relist, and breaks down, by percentage, the number of times that cancel/relists occurred.

Not all new construction gets listed in Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), but according to LeapRE, 0.9 percent of the listings in MRED in 2011 are new construction listings, and 41.9 percent of those have sold or gone under contract up until press time. Not bad compared to the 50.5 percent of all resales listed in 2011 that have sold or gone under contract during the same time period.

In terms of all types of residential, non-land and non-rental listings, which city neighborhoods and which suburbs have been selling the most so far this year, as of Feb. 29?
Here, the first chart shows the top five Chicago neighborhoods by total units sold within the first two months of 2012. The Near North Side beat out every other neighborhood with 226 units sold. The next few neighborhoods that were close were Lakeview, with 147 units sold and West Town, with 126 sold. Near West Side just barely sold more units …

Do real estate’s top 1 percent of agents sell faster? LeapRE researched which agents had the highest amount of list-side transaction volume during 2011. The top 1 percent of agents listed 27.7 percent of all listings closed in 2011. But what’s really worth noticing is the top 1 percent of agents’ properties sold 24 days earlier, on average, than agents’ outside the top 1 percent.

LeapRE referenced Alexa.com to pull the following infographics to see which site gets the most traffic. At press time, among the “big three,” Zillow wins in terms of traffic; Realtor.com and Trulia are neck and neck for second place. The line graph shows the percentage of page views for December 2011 until present, and the bar graph shows the percent of total Internet traffic each site gets from users, as a daily destination.

Both buyers and sellers should be made aware that buying a home is often not a quick process. LeapRE found that last year, the average time taken from the contract to the closing was 53 days. The chart below shows which percentage of closed transactions went from contract to close within the specified ranges of number of days. Good news, though – after receiving a contract, most transactions still closed in under 45 days.

As we look back at 2011 and forward to 2012, it makes sense to plan out the year according to the rhythms of the industry. Year over year, it seems that the busiest months for each phase of the business follow a logical order. According to LeapRE’s data, showings spike early on in the year, contracts spike shortly thereafter, and closings spike in late summer – just in time to finance a family vacation. The year 2011 ended with an uptick in closings in December…is that a good omen for …

In the first 11 months of 2011, compared to the same period in 2010, more than 58 percent of offices had less list-side transaction volume. About 20 percent of offices gained more than 50 percent of their previous list-side transaction volume; some managed this through mergers and acquisitions, and some got on the list after successfully recovering from a rough 2010.

Leap Real Estate Systems is the leading provider of online solutions for Chicagoland’s progressive agents. With over 20 years of software development experience and a keen understanding of the real …

With decreased volume and shrinking paychecks, even the best offices are having trouble keeping and growing their agent base. Across Chicagoland, only 9.8 percent of offices with more than 10 agents in the fourth quarter of 2010 have managed to maintain or grow their agent workforce. This leaves 90.2 percent of offices that have lost agents and gained more empty desks.