After plenty of rumors and speculation, the details of the government’s economic stimulus package have finally been released.  I have read the real estate portion, and would like to give you a summary. There is now an $8,000 tax credit (or 10% of the sale price, whichever is less) for first-time homebuyers.  You might have heard about the $7,500 tax credit, which is basically an interest-free loan paid back over 15 years at $500 per year.  That credit still applies if you purchased your home between April 9 and December 31, 2008. This new $8,000 tax credit is for home purchases between January 1, and December 1, 2009, and you do not have to pay any of it back (yourself, individually… all of us ultimately will have to pay back the entire $787B… the housing portion is $6.638B).

To qualify for the $8,000 credit, you must meet ALL of the following criteria: (read more)

I was looking through the home search history that people have done on my website, and noticed that today was the day of the 2,000th home search! This is truly exciting, because it was only 1 month ago that the 1,000th home search was done!
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Many of the people that contact me about homes in Champaign are also concerned about the area’s schools. As your Realtor, my job is to stay on top of these important issues. This morning I had the opportunity to have breakfast with the Superintendent of Unit 4 schools and his staff. Among the many issues that we discussed, I would like to share some information about several changes that will be taking place in the near future that will affect Unit 4 schools. (read more)

When you are looking for a new home to buy, do you care how old it is?  Some people do.  Some people only want homes that are virtually new.  Others might like the rustic charm that comes from owning a home that has been around for a century.

I’ve mentioned before that the home search feature on my website is quite popular.  As I talk to people who are interested in buying homes, one of the questions that I always ask is, "What can I do to make my website more useful to you?".  One of the answers that I’ve heard recently is that people have wanted a way to limit their results according to how old the homes are.  So, I’ve been working on an addition to my home search that lets users "pick their age" and today I’m releasing it to the public.

From the search page on my website, there is now an option for ‘Age:’. If you don’t care about the age of the homes you are looking for, just leave the option in its default position. But, if you want to restrict your search to homes that are newer, you can choose one of the options in the drop-down box. The ‘New Construction’ option is special. Realtors typically use it to refer to a house that hasn’t yet been lived in. If this is the particular type of home that you are looking for, choose that option. If you really enjoy older homes, choose the option for homes that are older than 75 years.

I want to be your Realtor. Features like this are just one of the services that I provide. Are you thinking about selling your home? I have a well-visited website. Why not have your home featured here? More "eyes" on your home means that it will sell quicker, for more money.

Leave me a comment if you like this feature, or if you have suggestions for other things that I should add to my site!

My Home Search is a very popular part of my website. In fact, I’ve had over a thousand searches performed in just the last couple of months. Sometimes, I have a person that might do the same search several days in a row. I don’t want you to have to take your valuable time doing this, day after day! My best suggestion is to just let me set you up using my automated system. It constantly checks for new or updated homes in the area, and will send you an email as soon as anything occurs.

Some people enjoy doing the web searches themselves, though. That’s great, and I don’t mind at all! But, I want to make your life a little bit easier. No longer will you have to come to my website and select all of your criteria each time that you want to do a search. Now, my website will automatically remember the recent searches that you have done. As you can see in the picture (click it for a larger view), your recent searches are listed, and you can easily perform the same search as before by just clicking a single button. Check out my Home Search to start building your own list of recent searches.

I hope that you enjoy this feature, and I often add things to make my website more useful based on your feedback. Please let me know what you think!

Note: You might think that features like this only help out home buyers. But, if you are thinking about selling your home, see me! Features like this bring more home buyers to my website. Why not have your own home featured on a website that buyers like to use?

As I take potential home buyers around to look at properties, one of the questions that often comes up is "How Long Has This Home Been On The Market?". I just added a feature to my website that makes it easier for you to answer this question.

When you do a home search, you will now be automatically told how long a home has been on the market. On both the search result page, as well as the details for an individual home, there will be a bullet item indicating the number of days that a home has been on the market.

You might wonder why the answer to the question even matters. It can actually make a lot of difference! Here are a few reasons why:
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When a lot of my clients start looking for a home, location is very important. Not only is the neighborhood important (contact me for information about neighborhoods in the Champaign-Urbana area that you might be interested in), but people also care about how close a home is to things they care about.

For instance, a very common question is, "How far from work is this place?", or "How far is it to little Johnny’s school?". I have found that clients who are moving to the area are very concerned about this, as well as those of us who care about how much gas we use. I have just added a new feature to my website that will make answering this question much easier for you.

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You might have noticed on my mortgage calculator page after you’ve done a calculation that it has a paragraph at the bottom that looks like:

Did You Know…
If you paid just $40 a month more, you would have your mortgage paid off 54 months earlier? You’d save $20,797.14 in interest and your total payments would be $195,735.89.

I sometime get told that the above paragraph doesn’t make any sense (after all, if you owe $100,000, you owe $100,000, right?), so I thought I would explain what is happening.
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Did you know that 55% of all homes for sale do not have a virtual tour?  I found this statistic as I was working on my brand-new home-search page, http://aroundcu.com/search.  Give it a try and let me know what you think of it!

The virtual tours that you will find when you search for homes are simply links to external sites that have more than the maximum 9 photos that are in the multiple listing service (MLS), the main real estate database that Realtors use.  This database is what you can access through my website.  

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You have probably heard the news about the housing slump, and the “buyer’s market” that we are currently experiencing. A buyer’s market occurs when supply and demand factors shift to cause a drop in price. Due to the increased supply of homes from excess building and foreclosures, with demand remaining constant, prices of homes drop. The Champaign-Urbana market does not experience the large fluctuations that other areas do, but it is not completely immune. This buyer’s market is a great time to buy. Although this seems to be bad news if you are wanting to sell, it is really not bad news if you have been thinking about purchasing a larger home.
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