When Karen Yarbrough became the Cook County recorder of deeds in 2012, she brought with her a unique set of skills and experiences. An entrepreneur and Realtor, Yarbrough was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 2000, where

  There are fewer homeowners in Chicago than there were last year, and the year before that. Homeownership in the city is at a 16-year low. Nationwide, it hasn’t been lower since 1967. You wouldn’t know it from how

When President Obama entered office, he inherited a fractured economy. The housing market’s crash and gradual recovery affected millions, and were key issues in national political discourse. While the massive wave of mortgage defaults and foreclosures has passed, the

With more than 1.2 million members as of Aug. 2016, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is the largest trade association in the U.S. Its strength is in its numbers, as its collective voice is heard by government at

The real estate industry is no stranger to tech revolutions. The Internet forever changed how people buy and sell real estate, while the advent of high-resolution photography changed the art of listing a home. Listing homes on the Web

It was an experiment straight out of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In an effort to gauge the accuracy of AI technology, researchers presented real estate journalist John Rebchook with several recommended listings. The recommendations, which were based on a

What apps do you recommend to your clients to help them with any part of the homebuying or selling process? A few agents indicated that they do not have have any: “None. They usually have a favorite they are

Real estate, like just about every other industry, has seen massive changes over the past decade with the introduction of new technologies. New services, devices and tools have changed agents’ relationships with their clients and colleagues, the way they

The agent-client relationship gets a lot of lip service, as it should. But developing productive relationships with other real estate professionals is just as important as fostering trust with clients, and perhaps no relationship is more important for the

In use for more than 25 years and the preferred credit scoring system for 90 percent of top lenders, the FICO Score has long been the dominant metric of creditworthiness for auto lending, credit card decisioning and, of course,

We invited local agents to answer a few questions and give us their perspective on the financing process. Here’s what they said: “Being asked to continually update info they have already provided.” “The various loans at their disposal based

When TRID came into effect in Oct. 2015, the big fear was a consumer-facing one. “TRID is going to delay loan closings,” the industry said. But it hasn’t – at least not for the majority. In Ellie Mae’s most

When Britain voted to leave the European Union back in June, many Americans saw the pound tumble and were left wondering how Brexit could affect them. So what effect did Brexit have on American real estate? In a nutshell,

We reached out to our many homebuilder contacts to get an idea of what developments are happening in Chicagoland. Here’s a look at the new homes that are available or coming soon in the city and the suburbs. Chicagoland