JHill's Blog: All Categories

There are several people from the Chicago area that have already invested in the Rockford area. If you haven’t yet, consider what you are missing.   There are plenty of opportunities for buying properties with tremendous potential at very low prices. With a little rehab work, you can produce a positive cash flow property for as little as $35,000! In case you don’t already know, Rockford is changing as well.   The city has major plans to revitalize its downtown area into a river walk. The city council has been looking to communities like Naperville for inspiration on their plans. The city has also been encouraging commercial revitalization; they are lowing the unemployment rates and bringing in big businesses like Lowes and UPS. The Rockford… Read Full Post

Last night I was working at our local park district for “safe night”. Safe Night, which runs 3 or 4 times a year, is a Friday night event for our local children where parents do not have to worry about things like drugs and alcohol, weapons, or violence.  Our safe nights are open to any child in 6th, 7th or 8th grade. There are a few major contributors to safe night and they include:   The Belvidere Police Department The Belvidere Park District Belvidere Cosmopolitan Club   To promote the event, fliers were handed out at the schools to each child, fliers were posted at several places throughout town, newspaper ads were run, and signage was placed out the week of the event.   Last night, the park district had several things for the kids to… Read Full Post

Anyone that is in the real estate industry or has looked for homes on-line recently certainly has heard of Zillow. For those of you that are not familiar, Zillow, a Seattle based Internet home search company, offers quick over the net "Zestimates" that will give consumers a quick glance as to what their estimated property value is.

Zillow has been in many heated debates among Realtors that feel their Zestimates are not as accurate as they should be. Some agents tell their horror stories about deals that have gone bad because of a buyer and/or seller that has gone in and looked at an estimate and received an inaccurate value, which has prompted them to back out of a transaction.

I read blog a while back from another Realtor that had some great points on…

Being in the real estate business doesn’t ever get old. Each and every client I’ve worked with, each and every deal I’ve had, each and every house, is all different. Every time a contract is written, the favorite part of my job kicks in……the negotiations.   Representing a buyer in today’s market in Northern Illinois is golden. Unlike a few years ago, the buyers now have all of the power in their real estate transaction and in the negotiations, power is king. I’m currently representing a very powerful buyer and we had a deal fall through over $2200.00. $2200.00! The listing agent had the nerve to tell me “Why don’t you take it out of your commissions and we have a deal”. Excuse me? Why can’t his seller dish out the $2200 so they can unload their… Read Full Post

That ranch down the street sold for $185,000.  But c’mon, it’s nowhere near as nice as your 2-story, right?  You could get at least $15,000 more since you remodeled that kitchen a few years ago.  Plus you need to get $200,000 in order to afford the down payment on that Victorian you always wanted.  And while you’re at it, you better pad that price another five grand to cover the buyer’s eventual offer…so go ahead….list it at $205,000.

Now days, too many home sellers follow this concept when setting the selling price on their home, and they all suffer the same consequence.  An overpriced listing that rides the market wave only to eventually sell for less than it would have in the first place if it was priced accordingly.

Simply put, the…

In Illinois, radon is becoming a very hot topic in our Realtor general membership meetings. For those of you that may not know, Radon is naturally occurring, odorless, and colorless gas produced by the breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water. Because radon is a gas, it can enter buildings through openings or cracks in the foundation. The radon gas itself decays into radioactive solids, called radon daughters. The radon daughters attach to dust particles in the air, and can be inhaled. The inhalation of radon daughters has been linked to lung cancer.

After listening to several different speakers about this killer, I'm much more concerned myself about it. In fact, I'm having a radon test done on my own home early next week. How many times…

The time is near for Ghosts, Ghouls, and Goblins.  When the Northern Illinois weather starts taking the dive into the 50’s that means the best time of the year is approaching……HALLOWEEN!

Halloween is my personal favorite holiday of the year.  We get to dress up and go to parties, decorate our homes with all sorts of crazy things, and best of all, take the family trick-or-treating!  I just love the look on my kids faces when they’re standing there in the threshold of some strangers house and much to their surprise, a hand full of candy gets dropped into their bags. 

October also means Pumpkin Patch!  After moving from the luxurious suburb of DuPage County and into Boone County, there were certain things I thought would not be the same but thanks to…

It’s bad enough that agents have to battle the constant friction we receive from the media to “justify our fees” but there are bigger problems in the Northern Illinois market that agents here deal with on a constant basis……Out of area lenders!  

Now before you fly off your handle and start warming up your fingers to tell me how great of a lender you are, please let me elaborate.  Yes, there are several out of area lenders that are not only reputable but reliable however, everyone in the business knows that a miracle piece of paper that says pre-approval is worth about as much as the paper it’s printed on.  I’ve seen more and more buyers that come in with a letter from Joe’s Mortgage, which is over 600 miles away from me, saying everything is good as…