The housing market has changed substantially in the last 40 years, and first-time homebuyers have changed with it Since the 1970s, the U.S. housing market has changed in numerous ways. The square footage of homes, for instance, has risen to all-time

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in August rose one point to a level of 61 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). That is the highest reading since November

In October, we reported on a budding legal battle between Zillow and Top Agent Network (TAN).  Tan claimed the popular syndication portal had stolen proprietary trade secrets under the guise of investor interest to create its “Coming Soon” feature. Today, a

Square footage is growing faster now than it did during the housing boom, but the culture of the McMansion may be changing. After being scared away by the 2008 financial and housing crisis, the McMansion is slowly returning to the

Rising rents, new research shows, are not an incentive to buy a house Renters in the Chicagoland metro area are spending substantially more money on their monthly rent than is historically the case. That was the finding of a

New research shows home flipping remains very profitable in Chicagoland According to the 2015 U.S. Home Flipping Report by RealtyTrac, home flippers in the Chicagoland area receive the highest return on investment (ROI) in the nation. Among markets with at

The J.D. Power 2015 Home Buyer/Seller Satisfaction Study ranked Century 21 as the real estate brokerage with the highest customer satisfaction across all home buyer/seller segments. This annual study calculates the top-ranking companies by separating customer satisfaction into four

Recent study shows national increase in average down payments In 2015’s second quarter, the average down payment in Illinois was 17.02 percent, which was a decrease from the first quarter’s 17.32 percent, according to a recent study by online

Technology has drastically improved the efficacy of searching for the right home. Prior to enlisting the services of an agent, buyers, who in all likelihood have a pre-established criterion for their ideal neighborhood and home, are scoping out concerns

Chicagoland joins nationwide trend of rising home prices Home prices, including distressed sales, increased by 3.3 percent year-over-year in June 2015 in the Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights area, according CoreLogic’s June 2015 Home Price Index (HPI). Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices

The House Financial Services Committee passed two bills to help ease TRID worries On Oct. 3, the new TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure (TRID) rule will come into affect, and the industry is struggling in preparation, despite the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Institutional investors leaving real estate, but Americans still confident housing is a good investment In the immediate wake of the economic downturn, the housing market took a plunge that was devastating for homeowners but ideal for the opportunistic. In the years

Contract signings declined for the first time in 2015, according to new research Pending home sales declined 1.8 percent from May to June, according to new analysis from the National Association of Realtors. Although the Pending Home Sales Index,

Home prices were positive for the Chicagoland housing market in May’s Case-Shiller Home prices in the Chicagoland housing market rose 1.3 percent from April to May, and 2.2 percent from May 2014, according to the latest Case-Shiller Home Price

With rising home prices pushing more loans out of conforming range and into jumbo range, could the jumbo loan cap increase? With the national median home price at a historic high, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has begun to reach

The news for new home sales was much better than the Census Bureau’s report led on Sales of new homes in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 482,000, a 21.2 percent year-to-date increase from 2014 that