By Peter Ricci Falling housing prices during the housing downturn were, for prospective homebuyers and investors, a pretty smashing development. Housing affordability soared, and for those in the position to purchase a residence, deals could be had at nearly

By Natalie Terchek The National Association of Realtors (NAR) received a gold Best in Biz award for its forward-looking business practices. The independent business awards program honors companies and executives for their business successes. It is judged by industry

By Peter Ricci For the last two weeks, we’ve taken a detailed look at the homebuyers side of the National Association of Realtors’ 2012 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, analyzing demographics, the home search process, what kinds of

By Peter Ricci With few exceptions, home prices have been on the rise through most of 2012, and in noticeable ways – the most recent Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices, which Standard & Poor’s released on Tuesday, reported that home

By Melissa Swanner Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), Chicagoland’s multiple listing service, has announced that its MLS system, connectMLS, was rated the highest in the latest WAV Group MLS Technology Survey

By Natalie Terchek The National Association of Realtors (NAR) presented Terese (Terry) Penza, president and CEO of the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, the 2012 William R. Magel Award of Excellence on November 12. The award honors an individual

By Peter Ricci The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking measure of real estate activity from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that tracks contract signings, rose 13.2 percent year-over-year in October, hitting its highest mark since March 2007

By Peter Ricci Monthly mortgage payments in the Land of Lincoln are pretty average, according to an expansive study by Lending Tree of the various states’ mortgage payments in the last 12 months. As Lending Tree found, monthly mortgage payments

By Peter Ricci First-time homebuyers have always played an integral role in the housing market, but the latest HousingPulse Survey from Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance has found that they may be missing out on the housing recovery. After surveying 2,500

By Peter Ricci Now that the real estate markets have begun a slow, steady recovery, it’s become commonplace for analysts to debate what factors are holding back housing from the rollicking, surging recovery we all dream about. From negative

By Natalie Terchek The Roanoke Group, a California-based development group, plans to revive work on a failed 47-acre residential development in Lake Bluff it acquired last year. The group plans to push an even bigger project on the property

By Peter Ricci New single-family home sales increased 17.2 percent year-over-year in October, according to the latest joint report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Although sales were down 0.3 percent from September to October,

By Peter Ricci Referrals, it’s safe to say, are the lifeblood of a real estate agent’s career. Though networking and prospecting are invaluable for generating leads, it is through stellar service, and the referrals that such service generates, that

By Peter Ricci The 2013 Dodge Construction Green Outlook report, McGraw-Hill’s oft-cited study of the green building market, is predicting great things for green building in the U.S., estimating that the market will more than triple in the next

By Peter Ricci Chicago home prices continued their downward slope in the latter stages of 2012, falling 0.6 percent from August to September in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s. Additionally, Chicago home prices fell

By Peter Ricci Last week in our continuing series on NAR’s 2012 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, we looked at the demographics of 2012’s homebuyers and how they searched for their future homes, and now, in our next