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

By Peter Ricci We all get a kick out of walking around our neighborhoods and surveying everyone’s holiday decorations, and indeed, few things looks nicer than a brightly-lit, tastefully-decorated home in the wintry months. But what about homes you

By Peter Ricci National home values rose 1.1 percent from September to October in the latest Zillow Home Value Index, which is the largest monthly increase since August 2005 and the 12th consecutive month of value increases for the

By Peter Ricci Well, it’s here – after gorging on delicious helpings of turkey and potatoes on Thanksgiving, it’s now time to splurge on televisions, clothing, DVDs and various home furnishings on Black Friday, the official start of the

By Peter Ricci So, today is Thanksgiving, the notorious Turkey Day when we satisfy our prodigious appetites with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, casseroles of the corn and green bean variety, and rolls – not to mention ice cream, pies,

By Peter Ricci Real estate has undergone a radical change in the last 15 years, but perhaps no area of the industry has changed more dramatically than that of how prospective homebuyers search for properties. What used to be

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, the nation’s most reputable measure of homebuilder confidence, rose five points in November, increasing the overall index to 46, its highest point since May of 2006. The