Townhouses started gaining popularity more than a century ago in urban areas, where open land was still largely available. But today, modern variations are sprouting in cities and suburbs to prove that townhouses have a future in the real estate market and provide a great way of life.

Townhouses are built side by side and connected by common walls, typically two or more stories tall. Usually owners share the cost of maintaining common areas, but hold the title to their unit.

Here’s the layout of a typical Chicago townhouse: the alley is eliminated, reducing by half the paved space of the block. The car is moved out of a separate garage and into an open air car-port under the townhouse. Each townhouse is connected to a newly liberated green space; the salvaged area is developed as large scale recreational amenities for the residents. The structure is constructed of prefabricated and poured-in-place concrete, while the facades are different combinations of glass and prefabricated insulated panels. By combining open and contemporary floor plans with timeless Queenslander or Colonial facades, design projects create a seamless harmonious union of yesterday and tomorrow.

To maximize a small space, the town home design should feature light colors and proper proportions, height, angles and repetition of items throughout the room. Having a good time when putting a space together is a must, since then both you and your friends will be comfortable in it. Finally, give a room a quick makeover with fresh paint on the ceiling. A crisp white ceiling with crown molding will give the feeling of more volume, making up for lack of floor space.

When you are considering the design of your townhouse in Chicago, keep the following things in mind: security, building shape, public open space, building layout, landscaping, and parking. Parking is one of the most difficult issues to resolve in affordable housing development projects. It can overwhelm the best designed buildings and open spaces, so its overall impact must be considered very carefully. You should not let the parking space dominate the property or the streetscape. Security is another important consideration, and parking areas should allow easy access and surveillance from the housing units.

The overall shape of the new building has a huge impact on the surrounding neighborhood and on how a development is perceived by the community where it is located. The height of a new building is extremely important. If it is too high it can overwhelm its neighbors, if its too low it can create a gap in the physical “fabric” of a neighborhood. So you have to be extremely careful and consider the whole of the surrounding buildings. Creating a building whose size and shape generally complements the size and shape of surrounding buildings will make the new development more acceptable to its neighbors.

Sensitively designed public open space can turn a good development into a great one, providing a lasting amenity for residents and neighbors alike.

The whole layout of the building and they way it looks is critical to its acceptance within a community. The windows, facade, roof shape, size of openings, trim and details, and materials and color should be generally compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and should not vary widely from that of its neighbors or from that of good quality middle class housing nearby.

[tags]Chicago Townhouses, Chicago Condos, Chicago Real Estate[/tags]

Abbreviated from the word condominium, the term condo stands for a type of joint property ownership falling somewhere between renting an apartment and owning a home. In a condo, owners share the expenses to maintain the common areas. The benefits of this concept include: tax savings, stable monthly housing costs, forced savings, freedom and individuality and additional space, and most of all – the amenities that come with it. Where else can a buyer get a security guard, swimming pool, or an exercise gym only steps from their front door. The price for those conveniences and more is sharing. A condominium means shared walls, shared amenities.

Buying a Chicago condo depends on your finances and credit history. First, you should ask yourself can you really afford to buy it or should you rent it? Of course, if you have the money it is much better to go ahead and buy instead of rent. In that way, you will be building equity instead of throwing away rent fees. On top of that, condos are a well worth investment in the Chicago area as the prices are expected to continue to increase, plus most part of your mortgage payments and real estate taxes will be tax deductible.

The process of buying a Chicago condo is not as complicated as it most people think, and it can be made much easier by enlisting the help you need along the way. Using a realtor or other guide to locate the condo, hiring a real estate lawyer to help with documentation and hiring a qualified inspector to guarantee the property condition will make the process both easier and more successful.

The first step of course is choosing the condo that suits your needs. Several things should be taken into account here: location, price, included amenities, financial condition of the condominium association, maintenance obligations and security. The best way to search for condos in Chicago is online.

Once you have chosen the condo, your realtor should work with you to come up an offer on the property. In that state, your realtor should show you a few other properties in the given area of interest that are for sale or have been sold at similar prices. This will help you estimate the real value of the condo you are interested in. Your offer will include the price you are willing to pay, a time frame for an owner response, and another time frame during which you will bring an inspector to the condo.

A condo inspection must be carried out when buying a condo in Chicago. This inspection should be done by a highly qualified inspector that will everything, item by item, from the foundation to the roof of the building, including careful examination of things like plumbing, heating, sinks, tubs and practically all items that will be passed to you as part of the deal. Each problem spotted by the inspector can be used as a negotiation point in an attempt to lower the price.

Working with your real estate lawyer, read carefully your closing documentation which will include payment plans, liens and all other details contained in your contract. Be sure to fully understand what you are signing. Once you are comfortable with the contract and sure of the property and the condition of all of the items in it, you need only sign the papers and the keys are yours.

[tags]Chicago condos, Chicago real estate, Chicago realtors[/tags]

According to Chicago real estate agents, market analysts, and consumers, the local housing market has been stalled by a standoff between home and condo buyers and sellers.

Sellers are still clinging to last year’s dreams of making big profits on the sale of their properties. Meanwhile buyers, sensing that the market has changed, are on the lookout for bargains – and won’t settle for anything less.

“The market is irrational right now,” said Stephen Baird, chief executive of Baird & Warner Real Estate in Chicago.

Rational or not, it’s clear that Chicago real estate is already in a full-blown buyer’s market . . . and this is only the beginning.  To take advantage of the buyer’s market now, Search the Chicago MLS.
Illinois home and condo sales in October were down 9.7% compared to last year, and there’s no reason to expect improvement. Fitch Ratings said recently that housing is in a major multi-year contraction that’s being driven more by consumer perception than interest-rate spikes and a plodding economy.

Fitch reported this December that “A negative buyer psychology seems to have become pervasive . . . The expectation or fear is that home prices have peaked and buying now would be a mistake.”

According to The National Association of Realtors, “most of the correction in home prices is behind us.” The NAR recently announced that buyers were beginning to re-enter the market and would begin nudging sales upward in the first quarter of 2007.

If you’ve been paying attention to realtors’ other rosy predictions over the past few months, you might think this is overly optimistic. If so, James Merrion of Re/Max Northern Illinois agrees with you.

“I’m more of a second-quarter, third-quarter guy,” Merrion said. “We’ve had too strong a market. When you’ve had prices go up in Illinois as much as they have in the past five years, people’s salaries haven’t increased that fast. I think we need to see some price moderation [via sellers lowering their asking prices] in order to get back to a healthy market.”

Naperville real estate agent Ellen Landau thinks that the enormous backlog of unsold Chicago homes and condos needs to clear out before sales bounce back. “[It] could take 18 months for the market to normalize,” she said.

A survey by ZipRealty showed that Chicago’s housing inventory fell about 6 percent between October and November, painting a slightly brighter picture for the future. This decline was mirrored in many cities nationwide over the same period.

A year ago, Chicago had a 3.7 months’ supply of single-family homes listed-about 28,000. By the end of September 2006, inventory had ballooned to a 6.8 months’ supply of 48,000.

That number dipped to about 43,000 in mid-November, a 6.5 months’ supply.

Real-estate activity jumped slightly around Thanksgiving, surprising experts who are used to this being a very quiet time of year.

“It is odd,” said Merrion. “We think it’s people getting used to rates and prices.”

Coldwell Banker agent Karrie Lange, on the other hand, thinks that inventory is down due to profit-seeking sellers taking their homes and condos off the market out of frustration. “[They] are in denial,” she said. “I don’t think they realize how much inventory is out there. If the buyer doesn’t think a house is a value, he will skip it.”

Some say it may not be greed that’s keeping sellers from lowering their prices. The ones who bought in at the market’s peak may not have much room to accommodate bargain-hunters.

One thing that real estate agents agree on is that, when a home or condo is correctly priced, it gets snapped up quickly.

Mohammed Mahmoud had been expecting to find a bargain is suburban Shorewood, but was beaten to several homes by eager buyers who topped his offer. He was surprised to find that the houses he was interested in were going for within 1 to 2 points of the asking price.

“Right now,” said Naperville agent Landau, “the majority of properties in Naperville, for example, are selling at 96 percent of list price. But that’s not accurate because the list-to-sell is based on the latest price.” Looking at the original asking price for a property-before any cuts were made by the seller-would paint a very different picture.

And, no matter what the prices are of the homes that are actually selling, there is still an enormous glut of homes and condos that are not.

Predictably enough, David Lereah, chief economist for the NAR, says that home prices will be 1 percent higher than current levels by late 2007.

Moody’s Economy.com, on the other hand, is predicting that the median price nationally for existing homes will drop 3.6 percent next year.

[tags]Chicago condos, Chicago real estate, Chicago buyer’s market[/tags]

[dels]Chicago condos, Chicago real estate, Chicago buyer’s market[/dels]