Nick Curtis's blog

Video tour of 818 S. Johnson St., Macomb, IL

2012-01-05T21:40:00.001-06:00

Just released -- my newest video tour:

This house, located at 818 S. Johnson St. in Macomb, has two bedrooms, one bathroom, a full basement, and two garages -- with enough space for three vehicles.

Video tour of 60 Richmond Road, Macomb, IL

2011-09-25T18:19:00.005-05:00

I recently learned how to shoot and edit videos tours of listings. Here's my latest effort:

Though still very much a novice, I'm hoping this is one more tool I can use to help sellers.

Full-time real estate agents

2010-09-02T22:31:00.011-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned some pretty funny real estate videos I saw at a recent RE/MAX conference.

I may need to track down the director of those videos and buy him a drink. Because here’s another one of his savvy creations that I just discovered:

Did I mention that we have four agents in our office – and that all of us practice real estate full time? No? Hmm. Maybe next post.

RE/MAX at the movies

2010-08-14T16:22:00.006-05:00

I spent the first couple days of this week out in Denver, attending the 2010 RE/MAX Broker Owner Conference. (My dad is the owner of our office, but because he was tied up doing deals, he allowed me to fill in for him and make the trip.)

As you might expect, a lot of the conference focused on rah-rah stuff: why RE/MAX is a powerful brand name, how its agents tend to sell quite a few more houses than agents affiliated with other franchises, etc. It was good to hear that, but I consider myself a pretty tough audience. Though no Debbie Downer, I have little stomach for saccharine-flavored messages that consist only of hype.

So I was encouraged when the RE/MAX corporate staff showed us a couple videos that had some wit, humor, and -- best of all -- a point. The first one was about how some non-RE/MAX franchises set up their agents in a pyramid structure:

Not bad, eh? Not quite up there with the legendary Alec Baldwin scene in Glengarry Glen Ross (the grand champion of movies about real estate, in the opinion of this modest Realtor talking in the third person), but definitely better than I was expecting.

The other video they showed us was about how consumers see the RE/MAX name everywhere these days:

After this second video ended, they brought the director up on stage. Turns out he's a real estate agent who's always loved filmmaking, so he just shot what he knows. I think that's why these videos work.

New Little Swan Lake page on our website

2010-01-25T19:09:00.005-06:00

If you're interested in Little Swan Lake -- a 250-acre lake located five miles west of Avon, Illinois -- you'll definitely want to check out this brand-new page of our office website, macombland.com:

http://www.remax-unified-macomb-il.com/display.php?cat=12

The page, which we launched yesterday, includes

* All of our current Little Swan Lake listings.

* A basic description of the lake and what it offers.

* A Little Swan Lake map, linked up to Google Maps.

* A downloadable PDF with current Little Swan Lake rules and regulations.

* A link to littleswanlake.net, which features news, community activities, photos, and the history of Little Swan Lake.

We're pretty excited about the page and hope visitors find the information useful. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any feedback (positive or negative).

Homebuyer tax credit gets extended, expanded

2009-11-27T18:00:00.009-06:00

As you might have heard, the federal government recently extended and expanded the homebuyer tax credit it's been offering.

A first-time buyer can get a tax credit worth $8,000 or 10% of the home's purchase price -- whichever is less. The government defines a "first-time buyer" as anyone who hasn't owned a home in the last three years.

A repeat buyer can get a tax credit worth $6,500 or 10% of the home's purchase price -- whichever is less. The buyer must have owned a home for at least five consecutive years out of the last eight years. And the purchased home must be a new primary residence, not a vacation home or rental property.

Here's a great, concise overview of all this, straight from the IRS itself:

If you'd like something animated and a bit more entertaining, you'll want to check out this:

Created by Washington state's association of Realtors (that's why you see their website listed at the end), it features characters who sound like they could be relatives of Ned Flanders. But gosh-a-rooney -- the whole thing's pretty darn clever.

Home show at WIU on March 15th

2008-03-11T18:10:00.003-05:00

WIU's Western Hall is hosting the WJEQ Home and Lifestyle Show this Saturday, March 15th. Like the Ag Mech Show, held in the same building last month, the event features dozens of exhibitors. A complete list of them can be found here.

The Home and Lifestyle Show usually runs all weekend. This year, however, it will be held only on Saturday -- from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (I'm not sure if the one-day approach will be a permanent change for the show or just occur this year.)

Our RE/MAX office will be there, as always, and we'll have free magnets, pens, flower seeds, and other giveaways. And we'll be holding a drawing for a free microwave. Who doesn't need one of those?

Farm show at WIU on Feb. 9th and 10th

2008-02-04T16:02:00.000-06:00

Macomb's Western Hall will host the 38th annual Farm Expo and Ag Mech Show this weekend, February 9 and 10. The show runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Open free to the public, the show features over 250 exhibitors -- on topics such as agricultural equipment, technology, and services -- as well as guest speakers, a craft show, and a kiddie tractor pull. If you care anything about stuff that's ag-related (or just want to grab a bunch of free pens, rulers, candy, and other giveaways), this is your event.

Our office will be there with our real estate booth, just as we are every year. Stop by and say hello. You can also register for a tool set we'll hold a drawing for at the end of the show; you don't need to be present to win.

You can read more about the show here or here.

Ethanol plant goes bust

2008-01-29T13:53:00.000-06:00

A lot of farmers in west-central Illinois just lost a grain cart-load of money.

Hype about anticipated ethanol production has played a significant role in the run-up in farm prices in west-central Illinois over the past few years. Hoping to capitalize on this hype, many local farmers made considerable investments in a new ethanol plant outside of Canton.

But the $40 million plant just went bust.

Brenda Rothert of the Peoria Journal Star has the story:

The minimum lost by the farmers who spoke with the Journal Star was $29,000 each for investing in just one share, not including the value of the corn they delivered. Farmers who purchased more than one share lost much more, and some farmers say they might lose their farms.

"It makes us all look so stupid," said one. "I'm trying to explain to my wife and son why I did this, and it doesn't make any sense."

A group of farmers from Fulton and McDonough counties who invested in the project recently talked to the Journal Star on the condition that their names not be used.

A good idea

When they were first approached in 2001 about the plan to build a $40 million ethanol plant, the farmers said it seemed to be a good idea.

"The community's been good to us," said one. "It would create some jobs."

They had to invest the money by March 2002, and projections from project planners called for the plant to be making alcohol by July 2003. Farmers had to commit $5,000 per share, plus pledge in writing to deliver 5,000 bushels of corn annually for five years.

One farmer said he supported the idea but was unsure about whether he could afford it.

"I really didn't have the $5,000 to put in," he said. "But I came up with it and put it in."

Since his farm lacks storage facilities for his corn, he figured it was a good decision, because he's close to the plant and would be delivering corn there.

But then board members came back to the farmers and asked them to double their investments: $10,000 and 10,000 bushels of corn annually for five years. Not all of the farmers agreed to double their investments. Those that did lost twice as much, plus the value of the corn.

"I swallowed hard," said the farmer who had struggled to invest the initial $5,000. But again, he did it.

Then board members came to the farmers again and asked them to sign letters of credit for the project. For each $5,000 share, they wanted a $24,000 letter of credit. Farmers went to their banks and signed paperwork for a $24,000 loan to the plant. The farmers would have to personally repay the loans if the company called them in.

"They kept saying that the creditors wanted to make sure we as investors delivered the corn," one farmer said.

"There was pressure put on," another said.

"I didn't want to be the one guy who messed things up," a third farmer said. "Almost all of us signed this thing."

The farmers' troubles may continue. Many fear that they'll be forced to honor their contracts and deliver corn to the ethanol plant for several more years.

New housing underway for WIU students

2008-01-27T17:58:00.000-06:00

There's been a lot of dirt getting pushed around lately at the corner of South Ward and West Grant streets in Macomb. A company called O.C. Communities is creating a new complex of WIU student housing with 100 homes, each with two, three or four bedrooms. If all goes as planned, the new units should be fully constructed and ready to rent by the start of the fall 2008 semester.

As of Tuesday, January 22, the scene at South Ward and West Grant looked like this:

What will the finished units look like? The company recently set up a model home in a lot over at the 500-block of West Jackson Street:

The Macomb Eagle's Laura Black reports that a major component of the new housing complex will be its community feel. Students will have access to an on-site computer lab and exercise facility; there will even be advisers available to help with things like resume writing.

United Campus Housing, the company planning to handle the day-to-day management of the complex, has already launched a new website with floor plans and other information. No word yet on how many students have already signed leases for next school year.

More about the new radon law

2008-01-20T19:16:00.000-06:00

Time to continue the discussion about radon from my last post.

Shortly before Christmas, I wrote about the new radon-related law set to take effect January 1, 2008. I lamented how I hadn't found a single article in the mainstream press about the law -- just a brief mention on one agent's blog.

But I should have dug deeper. Mere hours after my post went live, I got a message from Mr. Calvin Murphy of Allied Radon Services in Mt. Vernon, down in southern Illinois. He directed me to his blog, which has an impressive chronicle of how the new radon requirements went from bill to law as they wound through the state legislature last year, before finally being signed by the governor. Murphy's detail is more thorough than the stuff you find on most Congressional members' websites. Through Murphy's postings, I learned that the bill made it through both chambers of the statehouse without a single "nay" vote. That's the sort of bipartisanship you don't see much in Springfield, especially the way Illinois state politics have been this past year.

So the legislature obviously made itself clear regarding radon. What does the real estate community need to do? There are a couple things, required of anyone who sells "residential real property" (a housing structure with one to four units):

1.) A seller must give a buyer a special pamphlet/fact sheet called "Radon Testing Guidelines for Real Estate Transactions," published by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. This pamphlet/fact sheet explains how to test for radon and notes that the IEMA "strongly recommends ALL homebuyers have an indoor radon test performed prior to purchase or taking occupancy" of a property.

2.) A seller also must fill out a special radon disclosure form, indicating whether the property ever has been tested for radon. (This disclosure form looks a lot like the lead paint disclosure, a form that's already been in use in real estate for a number of years.)

I should probably pause here if (like I did, until I took a helpful continuing ed course a couple years ago) you need a quick chemistry lesson on radon.

Practically all soil on the planet has at least trace amounts of the element uranium, and when this decays, it gives off gas in the form of radon. Normally this isn't a problem, because the radon gas disperses into the atmosphere, where it's greatly outnumbered by other, benign elements. But when you put a manmade structure -- say, a house or office building -- over a spot with high radon levels, the gas no longer has a direct route to the atmosphere. The radon now has to travel through the building first, and depending on how well or poorly insulated this structure is, that could take a while. The longer the radon gas stays in the building, the more the humans who breathe that air are at risk.

The risks are real. The gas is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. (Smoking, of course, is still #1.) Researchers think radon probably kills, or helps kill, about 21,000 Americans a year.

You might reasonably conclude that if we know where the uranium is in the first place, we can expect to sleuth out that the radon should be in that same area, too. And that's true, to a certain extent. Researchers have developed extensive radon "maps," taking into account soil types, geology, and other factors. As this map shows, Illinois has a range of radon levels, with high levels throughout central and northern Illinois, average levels in Chicagoland and much of southern Illinois, and low levels at the southernmost tip of the state.

But of course these are simply averages. In McDonough County (where our RE/MAX office is located), 41% of the homes that were tested had high radon levels, according to a pamphlet I picked up at the local health department. Meanwhile, the town of Chillicothe (north of Peoria) is alleged to have high radon levels in nearly 100% of its homes. And then there stories any inspector will tell you about how he's seen a house on one side of the street test high for radon and a house across the street test low. There's that much variation.

At our monthly Lamoine Valley Board of Realtors meeting in December, we had two guest speakers: Randy Stufflebeem, owner and operator of B-Sure Home Inspection and Environmental, and Jere Paradis, owner and licensed radon mitigator for Midwest Radon Reduction. Stufflebeem talked about how to test for radon; Paradis focused on how to solve a radon problem once you've identified it. (Because it's an obvious conflict of interest for the same person to perform the test and mitigation on the same property, dividing up the tasks ensures a check-and-balance system that protects consumers from dishonest radon experts.)

Stufflebeem said that when he tests for radon, he places an electronic monitoring device in the lowest livable space in the house. (Crawl spaces don't count, but a basement with the potential to be finished does.) This device remains in place for a period of time, usually at least 48 hours, and monitors the radon level over an hour-to-hour period. Some individual hours might see a spike in the radon level, but the inspector cares most about the 48-hour average. If that average is higher than the magic number of 4.0 picoCuries/liter, the inspector must recommend that the problem be treated. (Apparently, this 4.0 pCi/L has been documented by health researchers as the threshold level for a human's risk to radon gas.)

Fixing a radon problem is pretty simple, said Paradis. The homeowner simply installs a ventilation system (I think of it like a bathroom vent for your whole house) that sucks the air from the lower level and disperses it outside. The cost for a system like this in west-central Illinois is usually around $1,000, said Paradis. That covers the equipment and installation.

Stufflebeem and Paradis also noted something I found surprising: Radon can be found in water and rocks, too -- not just soil. Granite countertops can be sources of radon. Paradis even told a story about a school in his home state of Massachusetts that had radon pouring out of granite walls located inside the building.

Failing to address a radon problem -- or failing to know you have a problem in the first place -- doesn't mean you'll immediately drop dead of lung cancer. Like most health-related dangers, mere exposure to this one doesn't guarantee you'll get sick at all. But it does increase your risk. As the state government has tried to make clear with this new radon law, Illinois residents who ignore that risk may be gambling with their lives.

New radon law starts Jan. 1

2007-12-19T19:42:00.000-06:00

Radon is about to be a much bigger deal in the world of real estate in Illinois.

Starting January 1, anyone who sells "residential real property" (defined as a housing structure with one to four units) in Illinois must give a prospective buyer two radon-related documents: (1) a disclosure form, in which the seller explains whether he/she is aware of high radon levels in the home and (2) a pamphlet that explains how to test for radon.

That's pretty important stuff -- certainly the most serious new policy I've seen at the statewide level since I became a real estate agent in 2004. Strangely, though, I've found no mention of it in the mainstream press. There was a press release sent out to agents last month by the Illinois Association of Realtors, and I spotted some information about it on a blog of a real estate agent in the Chicagoland area. But that's about it. Even the Google News archive, generally excellent at sniffing out a story, fails to turn up anything. Of course, when even Google can't find a story, you're probably correct in assuming nobody has written one.

So I'll try to fill in the gaps.

Tomorrow our local board of real estate agents, the Lamoine Valley Board of Realtors, is holding its monthly meeting, and the guest speakers will be talking exclusively about radon. I'll report back with what I learn.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a link to an excellent slideshow (http://www.radalink.com/illinois/presentation.htm) that gives an overview of the new radon law. Created by a company that specializes in radon testing, the slideshow even includes audio accompaniment.

Case closed on the missing steel

2007-11-09T15:48:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post, I wrote about the construction of a new Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Macomb -- and how the project had been in hiatus because of some missing steel.

That steel obviously must have arrived, because this was the scene at the work site yesterday:

From what I've been told, the construction crews involved with these restaurants can put up new buildings pretty quickly. No word yet on the expected completion date, but my guess is that Macomb may be eating wings before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Vandalism in Macomb

2007-11-04T14:56:00.000-06:00

In one of my first posts, I remarked that certain sections of Macomb could be considered the "front lines" of zoning battles in Macomb. I was referring to the always-ongoing verbal spats (as opposed to literal brawls in the streets) between single-family residents and students/landlords regarding multi-family housing in the city. Lately, however, the tensions have taken a different form.

At around 2:25 a.m. on Sunday, October 7, a group of college students ripped down a chain-link fence in front of a house at 120 W. Adams, owned by Macomb resident Barbara Martin, who lives there with her son. The property sits in the middle of the route from the downtown bars back to campus, so it's not surprising that Martin apparently has been having problems with late-night vandalism for some time.

What the students didn't know was that Martin recently installed security cameras to monitor her grounds. A few days after the incident, the Macomb Journal published this image of the crime, caught by Martin's equipment:

The police have been trying to enhance the image, but so far only have been able to identify clothing, not faces. Despite several articles in the local papers and condemnation by both Macomb Mayor Mick Wisslead and WIU President Al Goldfarb, the crime remains unsolved.

There's a second part to the story. On October 23, members of WIU's Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity and the Macomb Police Department's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 189 teamed up and rebuilt the fence. The Macomb Eagle, Macomb Journal, and Peoria Journal Star all covered the story.

Nevertheless, the neighborhood vandalism continues. The Macomb Journal ran a front-page story last Friday about a fence that was recently damaged at 541 N. McArthur Street.

But is vandalism actually on the rise in Macomb? Maybe not. From that same Journal article:

Macomb Police Detective Matt Gass said that since the Martin incident, the Police Department has been learning of previously unreported incidents of vandalism.

"Throughout the past few weeks we've had people say, 'Yeah we've had property damage all the time, just never reported it,'" Gass said. "The University Baptist Church has said they've pretty much had their fence destroyed, it's the same thing, that it's happened over a period of time."

One of the challenges with Macomb's town-gown geography is that the boundaries of where students are allowed to live haven't ever been truly defined. Students and local families are all mixed in together, with spotty results. If this were a different sort of college town (e.g., Champaign-Urbana) where the campus was largely separated from the rest of the community, students would vandalize properties belonging to other students (rather than the townies). In Macomb, students simply vandalize their neighbors -- who could be anyone.

The case of the missing steel

2007-10-31T15:04:00.001-05:00

Macomb likes its new restaurants. A couple years ago, the city got its first-ever Arby's and -- according to (possibly apocryphal) lore -- set a record for greatest opening-day sales for an Arby's in North America. You don't mess with Macomb when it comes to curly fries.

So locals had a lot of similar enthusiasm when, earlier this year, Buffalo Wild Wings announced that it would build a new restaurant in the highly coveted land right in front of Wal-Mart. Construction crews showed up and began prepping the foundation. And then things just . . . stopped. For the past month or so, the site has looked like this:

The Macomb rumor mill went into overdrive, with some locals speculating that the Macomb City Council had denied the restaurant a liquor license. (Wal-Mart sued the city a few years ago when its liquor request was shot down.) But as Nathan Woodside of the Macomb Eagle reported on October 15, liquor wasn't the problem:

Kim Pierce, Macomb Area Economic Development Corporation executive director, said construction has stopped because a batch of steel needed to be back-ordered before excavation could continue.

"When I talked to them a couple weeks ago, they thought the steel was just a couple weeks away, so that basically brings up to right now," Pierce said. "Hopefully that will get delivered in over the weekend and they can start next week."

No word yet on the missing steel. The restaurant was originally scheduled to open sometime in November, but Pierce is quoted later in the article as saying that date has been pushed back until the end of the year. A hungry Macomb stands ready.

Websites about road projects

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, the governor's office launched a new website to track the expansion/improvement of U.S. Route 67, which cuts through west-central Illinois, linking the Quad Cities to St. Louis.

http://www.dot.state.il.us/us67/index.html

One thing I learned is that the project will involve building a new four-lane bridge over the Illinois River at Beardstown; I'd figured that construction crews would expand the current bridge or simply whittle down traffic to two lanes for that section.

Anyway, the site gives a decent overview but is a little short on maps. Far more detailed ones can be found on the website for Illinois 336 -- the proposed four-lane linking Macomb to Peoria.

http://www.peoriatomacomb.com

A little recognition for our office

2007-10-20T17:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not very interested in self-promotion just for its own sake. There's way too much of that in real estate already, and I think most consumers are sick of it, too. The "look at me, please!" thing gets pretty old.

So I thought quite a bit about whether to post a link to this story -- about an award our office recently won for 2006 sales. Among all of the 89 RE/MAX offices in the St. Louis Region, an area encompassing Missouri and the southern half of Illinois, our office averaged the highest number of transactions per agent: 51. (We also won the award in 2005, when we averaged 55 transactions per agent.)

While an award in itself is a nice thing to have, I think the real point of this one is that it demonstrates just how much we've been helping our clients. I look at it this way: In any industry, the busy people are the ones considered to be knowledgeable and hardworking. If your car breaks down and you need to hire a mechanic, for example, you can guess that the person who's doing it full time probably has the necessary training and has fixed the same problem dozens of times for other people.

My automotive expertise may be lacking (though I did once, as a grad assistant, have a professor give me the assignment of refilling her car's windshield wiper fluid, for which I earned high marks), but I'm happy to be part of a team that knows a lot about real estate. And at a current average of 44 transactions per agent for 2007 sales, we're keeping pretty busy this year, too.

Zoning requests that prevailed

2007-10-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

One topic I haven't addressed much on here thus far (other than in a general overview I wrote last spring) is zoning in Macomb. That's not because I consider it irrelevant -- quite the opposite, actually -- but because there's so much occurring with it, often in apparently contradictory fashion, that keeping pace with the newest chapters of the story isn't easy. I could probably make zoning my sole topic of this site and still not prevent things from slipping through the gaps.

Last week, Macomb governing bodies made two somewhat surprising zoning decisions. I call them surprising because both involved changing (or at least bending) the zoning rules concerning multi-family housing -- and in Macomb, that almost never happens.

The first decision occurred last Monday, October 1, when the Macomb City Council agreed to change the zoning from single to multi-family for a piece of land at the corner of North Randolph Street and Hickory Grove Road. The owner of the land, the Macomb Country Club, requested the change in order to build two duplexes that would sit on the edge of the club's golf course.

The country club's request was granted by city aldermen, passing 8-1. The lone voice of dissent was from Alderman Ken Zahnle, who was quoted in a story by the Macomb Journal: "This is spot zoning, pure and simple."

Even if you disagree with Zahnle, it's easy to to understand his point. As this Macomb zoning map shows, there isn't any multi-family housing anywhere near this land; the closest multi-family units are some duplexes located on the east end of the country club, on Bayberry Lane.

The other zoning decision occurred two days later, when the Macomb Zoning Board of Appeals agreed to allow Scott Wisslead to construct twin duplexes on his property at 533 N. Randolph. From the Journal:

Developer Scott Wisslead sought a front yard setback variance of ten feet. The city code requires a setback of 25 feet, and Wisslead asked to be allowed to set it at 15 feet.

Community Development Coordinator Ed Basch said the fact that 533 is a corner lot gave Wisslead, in effect, two front yards. "For a duplex, this would be essentially an unbuildable lot if you required him to have two front entrances," he told the board.

Neighbor Cheryl Douglas, at 529 North Randolph, objected to the duplex design featuring second floor living quarters and garages on the first level. "It's going to look like a parking garage," she said. "This is a historic neighborhood. Four of these homes are in the David Badger architectural sketchbook."

Board chair Kevin Wiehardt expressed concern about a need for landscaping on the property. Board member A.J. Bourn moved to table any action until more detailed architectural drawings could be provided.

"This motion is indicative of the aesthetic concerns we all share about this design," said board member Sally Egler.

"The ranch home design provides the most useable living space," Wisslead responded.

But City Attorney Liz Wilhelm told the zoning board that action could not be postponed due to aesthetic considerations alone. Bourn then withdrew his motion, and board member Ron Runser moved to approve the variance.

The board cast a unanimous vote of approval. Basch assured board members that his office had successfully worked with Wisslead before on landscaping issues and that should not be of further concern.

(Runser, incidentally, is a new member of the zoning board. As a citizen, he appeared before the board a year or two ago on behalf of his employer, Schuyler State Bank, which requested permission to turn on an electronic sign located in front of the bank's new building on East Jackson Street. That request was granted, but only after a lot of back and forth between the bank and the zoning board.)

The zoning fights aren't over. Coming up soon is a request to build doctors' offices in a corn field along East Grant Street. The homeowners in that neighborhood have already spoken out against the project.

More on the water violation story

2007-10-06T14:05:00.000-05:00

Not long after I posted a link to a Macomb Journal story about water-quality violations at a Macomb mobile home park, I spotted a similar write-up in the Peoria Journal Star.

What struck me was the final paragraph in the Journal Star version:

A water line was run from Macomb to Colchester in 2005 and runs right in front of the mobile home park. But city officials said Thursday that Dresler chose not to tap into the line.

Also, the Journal Star version correctly spells the property owner's last name as "Dresler" (one s), rather than "Dressler."

State sues owner of local mobile home park

2007-10-05T15:55:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, the Macomb Journal reported that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed a lawsuit against Stanley Dressler, owner of a mobile home park located just west of Macomb. The lawsuit alleges that Dressler violated state regulations concerning water provided at his property, Country Aire Estates Mobile Home Park.

From the Journal article:

Water is supplied to Country Aire Estates residents from two drilled rock wells with depths of 320 and 323 feet, supplying an average of 6,580 gallons of water per day to 125 consumers through 51 service connections.

The seven counts detail a laundry list of items the state alleges the park's owner has violated in providing a public water supply: coliform sampling, lead and copper sampling, nitrate sampling, disinfectant sampling, reporting, failure to provide continuous chlorination and equipment installation.

The suit, filed by Madigan's office at the request of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, seeks correction of the items that allegedly have been violated, as well as maximum fines for each violation, which run up to $50,000 for each violation and up to $10,000 for each day the violation has occurred.

"It's a pretty straight-forward set of violations," Scott Mulford, a spokesman for Madigan's office said Wednesday. "Some people there may not be aware of the problems."

The first count in the suit deals with coliform sampling and indicates the IEPA discovered in 2005 that the park exceeded the maximum contaminant level for coliform bacteria and failed to submit sample results. The IEPA then conducted an engineering inspection on June 27, 2006, and observed that the park's chlorination pump was not operating properly and that records weren't maintained. The suit also indicates the system lacked shutoff valves and adequate flushing hydrants and that the owner failed to routinely collect required samples from the wells, treatment plant and distribution system.

In the lead and copper sampling complaint, the state claims Dressler failed to submit results, which is similar to the complaints about nitrate and disinfectant sampling at the park.

The suit's allegations on reporting claim the state reviewed records on July 22, 2005, and discovered Dressler failed to issue public notices and public notice certification forms for a styrene, ethylbenzene and xylene violation and failed to issue a public notice for a violation for maximum contaminant level of coliform. The suit also alleges Dressler failed to submit monthly operating reports from October 2003 to March 2007, with the exception of August through October 2006.

Dressler, of Hinsdale, said Wednesday that he had not seen the suit.

"I know nothing about that," he said. "I thought I was in compliance with everything."

So far the only online reference I've seen to all this is on the Journal website. No word yet if any other news outlets have picked up on the story.

New source for rental info

2007-10-02T12:43:00.000-05:00

As of this week, there's a new source to help in the search for Macomb rentals: rentmacomb.com. The site only launched yesterday but already has quite a few properties posted.

Rentmacomb.com offers a way for visitors to browse available rentals according to price, number of bedrooms, or name of the landlord. Each listing includes a small Google map, showing exactly where the rental property is located in town.

What impresses me about the site (aside from its Google-esque clean and minimalistic interface) is its thoroughness, even this early on in its existence. (Today I counted over 60 properties on the site, easily twice the number you'll find in a local newspaper's classified ads on an average day.) The site's owners, Jacob and Marcia Thurman, invite all Macomb landlords to list their rental properties for free, either by (1) creating a user account and performing the data entry themselves or (2) filling out a form with the necessary information and snail-mailing it back to the Thurmans. Landlords have nothing to lose, so they participate, and that only helps the database grow more complete. (Because even a "free" endeavor like this has to make some revenue, the Thurmans run ads on the right side of each page on the site.)

In a letter to landlords this summer -- asking for their participation in the project -- the Thurmans explained that they were motivated to create rentmacomb.com after spending several months stuck on their own frustrating rental search. "We did eventually find a house that we like," they wrote, "but we also found that despite the very high number of rental properties in Macomb, information about what is available is hard to come by.

"In short, finding a place to rent in Macomb is a lot more difficult than it needs to be."

Earlier this spring, I wrote about the rentals list our RE/MAX office keeps on file -- an informal list of every currently available rental we know about. That list has never been all-inclusive, and I'm always looking for ways to make it better. As soon as I saw rentmacomb.com go live yesterday, I typed it in bold and added it to the top of our list. Maybe our office will have some luck steering landlords and tenants the Thurmans' way.

Movement of Macomb's top homes, part II

2007-09-14T18:54:00.000-05:00

Since my last post (nearly three months ago), two of the high-end Macomb homes I described as under contract have since closed. An update:

1915 W. Adams, originally listed for $498,750 and then reduced to $478,000, finally ended up selling for $458,000 on July 6.

The 12.8-acre property had a lot to offer, including

* A separate 2,100-square-foot building with heat and air. Though most people would probably call it a shop, it was really more like a car dealership's showroom floor. (The owner had an impressive collection of vintage vehicles -- including a red convertible that looked like it had been driven straight off the set of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.)

* A real estate tax bill (in 2005) of just $7,410.02. While that figure is high compared to the average house in McDonough County, it's far lower than some other properties that have recently sold for less money. (A house at 1349 Woodland Trail, for example, sold for $360,000 this summer but had a 2005 tax bill of $10,040.60.)

There was another big sale this summer. 1206 Stacy Lane, originally listed for $289,900, closed for $279,900 on June 25.

What will be the next big sale in Macomb for more than $250,000? Maybe it'll simply be decided by whatever house has the lowest tax bill -- even if that figure is north of $6,000 a year.

Movement of Macomb's top homes

2007-06-23T15:27:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, I remember reading an article in the Chicago Tribune where Mary Umberger, a business reporter, interviewed a bunch of real estate agents scattered throughout Chicago and its suburbs. Umberger's purpose: Get a pulse on what was happening with real estate in different corners of Chicagoland. The story idea was a good one. And Umberger did an excellent job of finding credible sources in a lot of different communities and writing about them in an intelligent way.

But what I remember about Umberger's findings is how silly they seemed when applied to the Macomb market. One Chicagoland agent had a quote where she lamented that real estate had really slowed down in her neighborhood. Why, just the year before, most houses in this agent's neighborhood had taken two weeks to sell. Now -- sigh -- they took four! (My tears for her formed a dangerous flash flood that swept away from my desk, out into the hallway, and down the stairs to the first floor of our office building, carrying away any victims caught in the path.)

I invite this agent to come to Macomb, where a house typically sits on the market for about six months before selling. And if you're really lucky, you can have a listing last much longer than that. I'm talking years, not weeks or months.

Nowhere is this more evident than with Macomb's top-crust listings -- the sort that are priced over $250,000. Earlier this month, a house at 1349 Woodland Trail sold for $360,000.

The house was originally listed for $429,000, so the buyers got a great deal. But here's the more important info: April 17, 2004. That's the day the house went on the market. Over three years ago.

Other high-end houses are also showing some movement. 1915 W. Adams, listed for $478,000, currently has an accepted offer and is scheduled to close in a few weeks.

In contrast to 1349 Woodland Trail, 1915 W. Adams seems like it's only been on the market for an instant -- even though it was listed over a year ago (April 11, 2006).

1206 Stacey Lane, listed for $289,900, is also under contract and scheduled to close in July. It's been for sale since December 13 of last year.

No takers yet on the most expensive house for sale in Macomb, however -- 14550 N Highway 67 is still on the market, currently at $699,000. It's only been listed since March 1 of this year.

But because it just had a $25,000 price reduction, the place might as well qualify as a genuine fire-sale bargain now.

New grocery store for Macomb?

2007-06-03T17:17:00.000-05:00

Ever since Thompson Food Basket at 1600 W. Jackson, Macomb, closed in the late 1990s, this large commercial building has been sitting empty:

Macomb's west-side residents have been without a grocery store ever since. There was always talk that construction of some nearby apartment complexes would prove a tipping point for a grocery store to return to the building, but that never quite happened. Instead, a group called The Crossing bought the property for $755,000 in December 2006 and announced something completely unexpected: They plan to turn the place into a church. The first service is scheduled for later this fall.

Hopes for a grocery store in this part of town haven't died, however. A few weeks ago, this building across the street -- at 1601 W. Jackson -- sold for $565,000:

The seller, Brenner Furniture Company, had been a longtime fixture in Macomb. Now it's out of business. The new owner, S & W Real Estate Management, is currently looking for tenants. Will one of them be a grocery store? We'll probably know later this year.

Remax.com now posts local listings

2007-05-19T19:51:00.001-05:00

In one of my earliest posts, I mentioned some good real estate sites where you can find a complete list of every property on the market. I gave realtor.com top marks as the best site out there.

While that endorsement hasn't changed, there's another good site I can now recommend: remax.com.

A few weeks ago, remax.com began posting nearly all west-central Illinois properties currently for sale through agents. (I say "nearly all" with a twinge of regret, but more on that in a second.)

Visit remax.com and, at the main welcome page, you'll see several blank boxes that let you type in your search fields. Once you hit enter, you immediately can begin viewing properties.

The best thing about this system? You can easily email us about any property you see -- even if it's listed by another office! (Realtor.com doesn't allow things to work quite this way; an average email sent in that system is routed directly to the agent who has the listing.)

The downside to remax.com? You'll only see listings by real estate offices that have agreed to share their listings with third-party websites. In computer geek talk, we call this Internet Data Exchange (IDX), which means an office has granted legal permission for other companies to publish the information.

Our office is very pro-IDX. We give anyone with a website permission to publish our listings. Our reasoning is simple: Sellers hire us to market their homes, so the greater the number of websites where we publish our information, the greater the number of consumer eyes that'll see that information. To understand the power of this idea, consider the opposite approach: How happy would you be if all your real estate agent did was take your home's information and stick it in a desk drawer?

Right now there are six local offices that have agreed to IDX:
* Areawide Real Estate.
* Coldwell Banker Four Seasons-American Dream.
* Curtis Appraisal and Real Estate.
* Key Realtors.
* Nye Bouslog Agency.
* RE/MAX Unified Brokers (us).

You'll find listings by all six of these offices on remax.com.

Definitions, please

2007-05-15T19:47:00.000-05:00

One of the things I like about practicing real estate is that it lets me enjoy some of the best aspects of my old job -- as a teacher. Explaining things (and, with luck, being a little helpful in the process) can be a fun gig.

Say, for example, that you see some titles after an agent's name and wonder how qualified this person really is. So how about some definitions?

Some basics:

real estate agent - Simply means the person is licensed to sell real estate. Doesn't tell you anything more specific about how much training he or she has.

salesperson - In Illinois, this person has passed a 45-hour classroom course. But this person can't own a real estate office. (You need a broker's license for that.)

broker - In Illinois, this person has passed the 45-hour salesperson course and the 75-hour broker course. This person can own a real estate office.

Realtor - A real estate agent who has paid dues to join the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the largest trade group of real estate agents. Only agents who have paid NAR dues can call themselves Realtors. (That's why you'll often see the word "Realtor" accompanied by a symbol indicating a registered trademark; NAR owns the term.)

Links to school profiles, report cards

2007-05-01T21:16:00.000-05:00

If you're investigating school districts -- whether in west-central Illinois or anywhere else in the state -- you might want to visit some websites that compile school performance data.

Start by going here, where you can read a letter from our governor. The letter gives you overview of how the state organizes school district information, then provides you with two links.

The first, the Illinois School Profile, gives you just the highlights of a school -- the attendance rate, average class size, and district spending. You can also determine whether the school has been making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the guidelines set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act.

But if you want even more exhaustive analysis of a school -- and the link mentioned above doesn't satisfy you -- you can also check out the more thorough Report Cards. There, you can do extensive quantitative analysis of how students performed in different subject areas, as well as within different ethnic and socio-economic groups. (Call me cynical, but I have deep concerns about this ethnic and socio-economic data being included, largely because I think the people who care about this information the most are the same people most likely to exploit it for their own benefit.)

Just as universities don't use ACT scores as the sole measurements for deciding whether students should be admitted, parents shouldn't use these profiles and reports as the only means of choosing a school. The information in the reports gives a lot of data, but there's a lot missing, too. What about student evaluations of teachers, for example? Or feedback from parents? Or (best of all) how about some comments by veteran teachers, the sort forming the nucleus of any school's teaching staff, who have the best historical understanding of where the district's been and where it's headed?

Of course, you can't put some of that stuff down in numbers form, the way the profiles and reports do. But that's what I'd like to see, at least to complement the data already there. End of rant.

An increase in Macomb's housing inventory?

2007-04-29T18:07:00.000-05:00

Is Macomb's housing inventory finally beginning to improve? Maybe so.

Back when I first joined our office in late 2004, I didn't have many clients, so I spent most of my days poking around online, looking at real estate sites. I quickly realized the power of realtor.com (at the time, no one else was offering all listings by all real estate offices) and often browsed around on that site, as if I were someone looking for a house in Macomb. I wanted to see realtor.com as a typical consumer did.

On realtor.com's welcome screen, you can start your search by entering either the city/state or ZIP code. I always would opt for the latter -- much fewer keystrokes that way -- and leave all the search criteria (price range and bedroom/bathroom count) blank, so I'd be pulling up absolutely everything for sale. (We're a small town, so even if you pull up everything, you're still going to be looking at a relatively short list.)

Then I'd arrive at a second screen: the barometer of our market.

This second screen is pretty simple; it just tells how many properties match your search criteria. Because I'd keep my parameters open to include everything in Macomb, that number would give me a quick answer to the number of Macomb properties listed through real estate agents.

I'll admit that most people probably wouldn't care about this sort of statistic. But I had the geeky interest to be curious (I was an unofficial economics minor in college, with a desire to understand this stuff) and I certainly had the time (i.e., few clients). So I started keeping track of things.

In late 2004, there were around 135 to 145 Macomb listings showing up for sale on realtor.com. The total stayed around that level until the end of the year.

In early 2005, the number of listings began dropping -- and was soon under 100. The drought continued for over two years, with the low point coming in late 2006, when there were only about 70 listings for sale.

Things improved in early 2007, with the number trending upward a little bit, into the 80s and low 90s.

Then this month, we reached another signpost: The number broke 100. Two weeks ago, we were up to 105 listings.

I don't consider this recent increase in housing inventory an absolute turnaround. Call it a mini-bump. We're still not back to late-2004 levels.

And obviously, these figures only include properties listed through agents, and there have been many things listed "for sale by owner" (FSBO) during this time frame. But what matters, I think, is that we keep the comparisons over time consistent, and the discussion here is doing that -- this number is a true comparison of agent listings in 2004 to agent listings right now (and during all the time that passed in the interim).

Moreover -- and this is crucial -- while the number of agent listings has increased, it's done so in spite of a possible increase in FSBO properties.

Or, to phrase this idea in a different way: If the number of agent listings goes down, we could surmise that this could (maybe) have been caused by an increase in FSBOs. That is, more people are selling houses on their own, without agents involved, so the agents have fewer listings. But because the number of agent listings went up, the FSBO factor could only be (1) getting outpaced by the number of agent listings or (2) in a state of decline. (My vote's for the former.)

I'm not celebrating all this as some sort of triumphant Return of the Realtor. Instead, I'm more interested in figuring out what's happening and why. One thing I learned about economics a few years ago, from some great University of Illinois professors, is that macro-economics -- the study of entire markets or systems, not just individual companies or incidents -- can be complex and difficult to keep in focus. But if you have some actual data of what's occurring . . . well, that's at least a start.

Without my realtor.com statistics, I'd just be on my soapbox in the park talking about all this. With it, I'm confident I'm observing a real trend.

We now own macombland.com

2007-04-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

Our office website just got an easier-to-remember name. How's macombland.com sound? (Kind of like an amusement park, I suppose, but maybe Macomb could use one.)

A few weeks ago, I learned (via RE/MAX's corporate office) that our RE/MAX-approved domain name of remax-unified-macomb-il.com is allowed to have a secondary domain we can use to drive traffic over to our main site. We can name this secondary domain anything we want, provided that (1) we don't use the word "RE/MAX" and (2) the domain name is actually available.

We did some checking and found that macombrealestate.com, macombproperties.com, macombhomes.com, and macombhouses.com all have already been taken, some by people who don't even seem to be doing much with them. But macombland.com, surprisingly, was available. We quickly bought the rights.

Our old domain name of remax-unified-macomb-il.com is staying right where it is. But we'll start using macombland.com in all our print advertising from now on. And anytime we're telling someone -- either in person or over the phone -- our website address, we'll just say macombland.com. We won't even have to spell it out for them.

Good real estate websites, part 2

2007-04-07T15:41:00.001-05:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned some of the best real estate sites to visit if you're looking to find a house. What about the "for sale by owner" sites? Aren't they good, too?

Sure, and I encourage you to visit them.

But right now, the for sale by owner (FSBO) market is fragmented. There isn't one site where you can view all FSBO listings in a given city or ZIP code. (Not a surprise, really. Each FSBO website is run by a different company, and each one wants to make money off folks looking to sell their homes.)

I recommend starting with realtor.com if you're the sort of person who wants to visit one site and view as much real estate as possible. But if you're an inquisitive and thorough sort, you'll want to get a complete picture of everything by also visiting some FSBO sites.

There are some cities where FSBOs have a huge market share -- sometimes as much as 30% of all the houses for sale. That's not the case in west-central Illinois, and on most of the sites listed below, you'll be lucky to find one or two houses for sale in a given town.

One final note: I ran my estimates (included below) on what it would cost to run ads in west-central Illinois. These numbers may not hold true for bigger markets in more metropolitan areas of the U.S.

To the list!

Good FSBO sites:
forsalebyowner.com -- Definitely seems to be the most popular of the FSBO sites, and my Alexa toolbar ranks it 9,113 -- meaning that, at this moment in time, Alexa considers it the 9,113th most popular site on the Internet. (Alexa ranks yahoo.com #1, msn.com #2, and google.com #3.) Rankings aren't a flawless science, but I do think they matter; if you're going to sell your house on your own, you want it to be posted on a website people actually visit.

If you want to sell your house, paying $199 at forsalebyowner.com lets you post it on their site indefinitely; if you pay $249, they'll also give you a yard sign. They also offer an intriguing feature: For $349, they'll include the aforementioned stuff, plus allow you unlimited access to their toll-free real estate consultation line. (I'm not sure how great the advice on their consultation line actually is, but then again, I imagine some people would tell you that they've received rotten advice from real estate agents hired for a lot more than $349.) For $599, forsalebyowner.com will post your house on yahoo.com and some other websites, too.

owners.com -- Ranked 30,701 by Alexa. $49.95 lets you post your house on their site until it sells. $79.95 does the same thing, plus a yard sign. $179.95 is everything plus a virtual tour. They also offer a separate package: $377 lets you post your house in the local multiple listing service (MLS) -- the database of properties overseen by real estate agents in that area. (I like this idea of MLS a la carte, but it's been highly controversial in some parts of the U.S., and lawsuits have been filed because of it. I plan to write more about all this in a future post.)

homesbyowner.com -- Ranked 49,529 by Alexa. This site will give you a free (!) listing and one photo. $79.99 will give you a yard sign and allow you to post up to five photos. $129.99 allows you up to 20 photos and a virtual tour.

fsbo.com -- Ranked 58,620 by Alexa. $69.95 posts your house on their site for nine months, and for $10 more, they'll throw in a yard sign. Or, for $499, they'll post your house in the local MLS.

byowner.com -- Ranked 141,414 by Alexa. $249 to list your house (with six photos) until it sells. $49 extra for yard signs.

And then there are the folks who go the FSBO route and never do anything more than stick a sign in the front yard. Obviously, you won't find those houses on any websites, and often the only way to stumble onto them is by driving up and down streets in a given town. But maybe Google's team of experts can come up with a infrared-like map that can detect all yard signs (both the FSBO and real estate agent kind) from low-earth orbit, then post the results on an easy-to-navigate Google site. Why not?

New chief of Macomb zoning

2007-04-01T00:31:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, Macomb hired a new community development coordinator -- the public official who's consulted on all things zoning -- named Ed Basch. He comes to Macomb from Burlington, Iowa.

The Macomb Eagle ran a good story about Basch and his approach to the job. How will he handle the multi-family zoning imbroglio? The Eagle story gives some clues:

Basch is aware of the ongoing conflicts between single-family and multi-family residential areas. Having once worked as an administrator for the Village of Savoy, on the edge of Champaign, he said he has experience with student housing issues.

"One of the challenges is, 'How do we best blend and layer different land uses?" he said. "Part of that will be addressed in the comprehensive plan.

"Slowly, over time, I'd like to see less and less situations where an R-1 or R-2 area - single family homes - are directly up against multi-family," he said, cautioning, "That will take time."

I'm curious about Basch's specific proposals on all this. We'll see.

The rentals list

2007-03-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

At our office, I spend most of my time helping people who want to buy or sell real estate. But every week or so, I get a call about something else -- and the question I'm asked is always the same:

"Do you guys have any rentals?"

That's when I mention our list.

Our office doesn't actually own any rentals or perform property management for landlords. Nonetheless, we realize that many people, especially those new to the area, need places to rent and don't know the names of some of the local landlords to call. That's why we maintain and distribute a list of every currently available rental we know about. We give out the list free to anyone who wants it.

The list isn't exhaustive -- though we'd like it to be -- and doesn't rival the Chicago version of Craigslist. But for many people, the list provides a helpful start to the housing search. (Other good sources of rentals include the classified sections of the Macomb Eagle and Macomb Journal, our local newspapers.)

Because Macomb is by far the largest city in the area, most of the rentals on our list are located there. Occasionally we also get some rentals in the smaller towns nearby; Good Hope has frequently claimed a spot on the list with a rental or two. But you'd be surprised how often people call asking for rentals in specific towns (like Bushnell, Colchester, Table Grove, etc.), and we rarely have anything that specific. We hope to improve in that regard.

If you're a local landlord and looking for a tenant, call and tell us to put your name, phone number, and available rental address on the list. We'll do it for free. And we'll leave the information on the list indefinitely -- until you tell us otherwise.

Lately I've started getting more creative with the list. One client just bought a house and told me that he's looking for a roommate. No problem, I said. We added his info to the list. No word yet if he's had any leads, though I'm optimistic he'll get at least a few inquiries.

I can't claim credit for coming up with the original idea for the list; other agents started it long before I joined the office in 2004. But I'm happy to carry on the good work. After all, if we're not helping people, we're not doing our jobs.

A Macomb zoning primer

2007-03-05T20:48:00.000-06:00

You can't escape the zoning battles in Macomb, and that's true even if you don't practice real estate for a living.

Up until a few years ago, you could take any house in Macomb and rent it out to up to four unrelated college students. Didn't matter what the zoning was -- single-family, multi-family, whatever -- you could pretty much do whatever you wanted with your house, and there was little the city could do about it. (Loud underage parties at 2 a.m. were an exception, at least if such a house sat across the street from sleep-respecting locals.)

Then a few years ago (around 2002, I think), everything changed. A group called Project HANDS (Homeowners and Neighborhood Development Strategies) lobbied Macomb's city council to come up with new rules regarding how many college kids you could pack into a rental house.

The new zoning categories set the following standards:

R1 (single-family): No more than two unrelated tenants, no matter how many bedrooms the house may have.

R2 (single-family): Same as R1.

R3 (multi-family): Possibly up to six unrelated tenants, but only if the building's configured as some sort of duplex and has two kitchens.

R4 (multi-family): Up to six unrelated tenants, depending on the number of bedrooms. (Think of your typical college party house.)

Note: The City of Macomb considers "related" students to be students who are married, siblings, or first cousins. Second cousins or relations that stretch beyond that aren't allowed.

When this zoning change took effect, there were some R1 and R2 houses that were "grandfathered in" and allowed to continue being rented out to four college students. But these properties have to continue to be used as rentals in an ongoing fashion in order to retain their grandfathered-in status. If they go at least 12 months without doing so, they lose their grandfathered-in status forever and can't get it back. (I compare this to the extinction of the dinosaurs; grandfathered-in properties aren't being created, but they can be destroyed.)

How does the new zoning classification system work?

Let's say you have a four-bedroom house in the northwest quadrant of town, right across the street from Western Illinois University. The house is zoned single-family; it wasn't grandfathered in. How many college students can live there?

Only two, if they're unrelated.

There are exceptions, but they're rare. You might have two brothers who want to live together, and then they'd be allowed to have an unrelated friend as a third tenant. Or you could have a family of triplets who want to live together, and they'd be allowed to have an unrelated friend as a fourth tenant. But only in such exceptions could you hope to fill out and actually use all four bedrooms of a single-family house. That means most single-family houses (which constitute the majority of housing in Macomb) are off-limits to what college students want to do with them. This can be good or bad, depending on whether you're (1) a college student looking for a place to live or (2) a local who doesn't want college students trashing up the neighborhood.

As a result, anything with R3 or R4 zoning has had a premium placed on it. And there aren't many R3 or R4 properties in Macomb, as you can see on the city's zoning map:

http://www.cityofmacomb.com/pdf/zoning_A.pdf

(The file's pretty big, so give it a few seconds to load after you click the link.)

What's especially noteworthy are the colors in the northwest quadrant, near WIU. The dark brown color signifies R4 properties. A good percentage of this is land owned by the university and used for residence halls, but there are some privately owned R4 lots off to the south and east, such as a solid stretch along West Murray and West Pierce.

And then there's the island -- a pinkish R2 zone that encompasses mostly Chandler Boulevard, Orchard Street, and Stadium Drive. It's all zoned single-family. And it's completely surrounded by R4 properties.

If there are zoning battles in Macomb, that island's on the front lines.

Good real estate websites, part 1

2007-02-21T15:38:00.000-06:00

What's the best website to use when trying to find a house? I'm asked that quite a bit, and my answer's simple: realtor.com.

What makes realtor.com so great is that it's an all-in-one site, meaning that it has all houses for sale by all agents in a given market -- and every house has at least one photo. Right now there's nobody else doing this (though many companies are trying to join the game).

Real estate agents don't have to pay to post their listings to realtor.com -- it's completely free. That means you can go to realtor.com and search an entire town and see literally everything for sale through agents there. When you do, you'll find that some houses have special headlines and multiple photos; these are listed by agents who've paid realtor.com advertising fees to dress up things a bit.

Other good real estate sites:

homes.com -- Like realtor.com, they list everything on the market. The catch: Apparently, only agents who've paid to advertise with homes.com get photos on their listings. (All other listings have boxes with the words "photo not available."

Yahoo real estate -- Uses the same data as homes.com.

zillow.com -- Started allowing agents to post their listings, but only a few have done so at this point.

macomb.com/realestate -- This is actually a directory of real estate offices based in Macomb, Illinois, and operated by Infobahn Outfitters, a local Internet service company. Infobahn created and services our own office's website, so I'm a little biased, but what I like is how Infobahn doesn't discriminate. They list nearly every real estate office in the area -- as long as that office has an email address. This page also ranks highly in any Google search of "real estate Macomb IL." Many clients have told me how much they appreciate this page, especially if they're from outside the area and want a quick overview of the offices that serve the Macomb market.

historicproperties.com -- A specialty site for really old houses. I've been surprised to learn recently that there are many buyers out there looking for highly specific types of structures (e.g., 1890 Victorians), and that they're willing to move a considerable distance -- sometimes hundreds of miles -- to buy and live in them. The folks who run this site really seem to know what they're doing.

Chapter 1

2007-02-20T22:09:00.000-06:00

Is is really possible to write a blog about real estate in a small town in west-central Illinois? I'm about to find out, I guess.

What will be posted here? Real estate stuff, of course, but in a way that's specific to our market. You can find marketwide, macro-themed real estate stories (no doubt about how the real estate market has hit the skids) in The Wall Street Journal or some other national publication.

But for info about some other important things -- like the housing shortage in our area, Macomb's multi-family zoning imbroglio, or $5,000/acre patches of black dirt -- this is the place.

This site's designed to be interactive, so please feel free to leave me feedback.

Cheers,
Nick

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