judyo's Blog: Oak Lawn Real Estate

Now I've heard it all!  I have a cash buyer that wants to view an Oak Lawn home for sale today although the foreclosure-only listing office is closed (today is Sunday) so I can't get the lockbox combo.  He isn't going to be too happy when I tell him that even as a cash buyer his offer will need to be accompanied by a pre-approval from a specific mortgage broker.

WHY???????  Who is benefitting from this?  I've got updated proof of funds - why a pre-approval?

OK, I've had supposed cash offers when they were really home equity lines of credit.  I get that not all cash offers might be good without proof of funds.  I understand that what is showing on last month's statement might not be what is actually in the bank right now.  But is a quick pre-qual going to…

When my husband and I drove up to our current house during our house hunting phase 7 years ago we both knew this was the one.  I love old houses and although this is certainly not a landmark (it was built in the 1940's), it has a lot of charming features.  The wood walk-in pantry sealed the deal and we were up against another buyer so had to offer full price plus waive my portion of the commission. 

When we got married my youngest son was still living with me and my daughter lost her roommate and couldn't afford to rent the nice house she was in on her own.  She also had a new baby and couldn't handle it all so asked if she could move back home - after 11 years on her own!  Hubby and I talked it over and said yes. 

Our Beloved Home Fits Us Like OJ's…

There's a first time for everything.  I had a pre-approved conventional (10% down) buyer who had the best offer on a forclosed Oak Lawn home out of 8 offers.  She really wanted the home and was quite happy. 

As the financing process progressed, we needed to ask for an extension because the file was in underwriting for a very long time.  My buyer was no longer happy, even when I explained the ever-changing mortgage rules and regulations.  In fact, she blamed everything on the loan officer.

Thank goodness the buyer's attorney struck up a good rapport with the foreclosure seller's attorney since we needed an extension and it was granted without any fees.  Then the bad news hit.

The PMI company did not approve the financing because they had just changed…

Active Rain is currently giving away points (it was posted that 1000 points would be given for every hyper-local content post made - up to 7000 points - 1 post a day for the next 7 days).  I still post on AR (although I stopped paying attention to points a long time ago) and try to post on both REW and AR as much as I can (I have a list of all of my blogs and go down the list for each post to make sure they're evened out).  Sometimes it comes to once a week, sometimes less. 

I Wrote a Post That I Thought Followed the Recommendation

I posted about Orland Park Homes For Sale Under $200,000.  But I was told I should have dug deeper and posted about a more local and specific neighborhood or subdivision.  In my opinion, that was a niche in itself that would…

OK, I'm finally calming down after taking a break to watch the end of Judge Judy and eat a Fiber One version of a Pop Tart.  Ahhh, my blood pressure is coming down.  I was driving this afternoon for what seemed like hours, and I suppose it was close to it - well, at least more than an hour.

I sold a foreclosure located much closer to my home than the listing office.  But I had to hand deliver the earnest money and originals of the contract and the addendums.  I did not have time to Fed Ex them because the buyer was too busy since we got the go ahead that our offer would be accepted and was only able to get certified funds today.

I hate to drive

I had never stepped foot in the town I needed to travel to but I did kind of know where it was.  And I knew…

It's that time to go through statistics for 2008.  Actually, I guess I'm a little late, but with the many towns I work in it takes a while to get all the stats updated.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my hometown of Oak Lawn, Illinois, held up better than I would have thought.  Yes, everything is down, but as far as price, I expected a bigger decrease.

Single Family Oak Lawn homes only decreased in amount of sales by 11.6% and by average sales price 11.9%.  With all the doom and gloom going around I expected the value to have been worse.  I guess I'm reading too much data for areas harder hit like Florida, Las Vegas, California, Phoenix, etc.

Oak Lawn Condos and Townhomes had a larger decrease as far as units sold, down 34.6%, but the average…