Random Chicago iPhone Pix

Architecturally, Chicago is a classic Doric order with a touch of Graham Anderson and a splash of Daniel Burnham; i.e. the Shedd Aquarium, the Chicago skyline to Navy Pier looking north from the Field Museum, and the main lobby of Union Station on Adams Street.

Geno Petro

follow me on twitter@genopetro

Chicago Real Estate Market Reports

We're halfway there Windy City buyers, sellers, and short sale shoppers. Below are the Year-to-Date Chicago Real Estate Market Charts hot off the WordPress for June. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...in July.

btw...Dear Santa, I want a Segway (pictured).

CHICAGO SINGLE FAMILY HOUSES



CHICAGO CONDOMINIUMS




NORTH SIDE CHICAGO REAL ESTATE SNAPSHOT

Geno Petro

follow me on twitter@genopetro

Chicago Fun Days

I took a break from Chicago Real Estate for a few days and hooked up with the Familia downtown; Segways on the Lakefront, traffic dodging in Chinatown, and finally---the Wiener's Circle in Lincoln Park for a few Chicago Style Red Hots and of course, verbal abuse. (Do Not Ask For Any Kind Of Shake. Period)



CHILLIN' ON THE FRONT PORCH LIKE THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW




FOREST GLEN METRA TEXTING




CHICAGO CHINATOWN CAT CHOW FUN


silhouette by AbbEy V
iPhone shots all by myself


Geno Petro

follow me on twitter@genopetro

Chicago Bleacher Bum

If there was ever a man who could find a way to alienate himself in a crowd of 40,000 it's Chicago Cub, Milton Bradley. I was sitting in the bleachers yesterday when the gravity of the right fielder's contrarian attitude caught my eyePhone. Actually, I kind of like this guy just because he doesn't play nice (or particularly well ) while still finding a way to also get paid $7 million. (I just may start being a smartass to the lady who sells me my Lotto tickets.) 'So sue me...'

Truthfully, I pretty much bat .500 when it comes to our city's baseball teams. I'm equally disappointed in the White Sox half the time, as well. It's the game of baseball that I love---the noblest of all summer pastimes to enjoy at the end of an otherwise routine Chicago real estate Sunday.

Geno Petro

follow me on twitter@genopetro

Chicago's Top Ten Real Estate Deals

Click here to a PRWeb Press Release so kindly posted by Jason Wakefield at TopTenRealEstateDeals.com. My July Top Ten Luxury Real Estate Picks are featured here and here. You can also check out a thumbnail version in bright yellow on my sidebar to the right. >>>>

btw...I try to interject a little humor in these pieces. Example: "Was smoking crack at $969,000. Now clean and sober at $674,000." Stuff like that. And my mother insists I might be too 'irreverent' to be a Realtor.

Come on, Mom!

Geno Petro

follow me on twitter@genopetro

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (shelter)

A Real Estate contract is generally not enforceable in the great state of Illinois unless it is a) Written, b) 'Signed-off ' on by competent parties (Acceptance), and c) Some form of Consideration ($$$) is placed in an escrow account to show 'Good Faith' on the Buyer's part. Think of it as the Holy Trinity of the home buying experience.

It's the 'Good Faith' part of the experience I wish to address here. The truth is, most of the negotiation process in this North Side Chicago market takes place verbally. Once a written Offer is submitted to the Seller's side of the deal, the details usually get hammered out by the respective Realtors involved via cell phone, text messages and email. Sometimes we are The Negotiators, other times, mere Messengers. Either way, there are at least four channels of emotion, rationality and objectivity that need to be successfully navigated--the Seller, the Listing Agent, the Buyer, and the Buyer's Agent-- not to mention the chorus, and supporting cast of Attorneys, Home Inspectors, Lenders, Appraisers, and Blood Relations waiting in the wings for Act II to begin. Once there is signed Agreement the 'experience' as it were, takes off in another direction altogether. Another story for another day.

So here's the scenario: A potential Client sits at her computer, Googles 'Search Chicago Real Estate' and of course, lands on Page One. After surveying the first 10 choices she decides to click on ChicagoHomeEstates.com because...well, it just sounds so right. Chicago...Home, no...even better... Estates. She then decides to choose an Agent so she can Register on the site for greater access, picks the best looking one and Voila!...she arrives at my Home Page. Once registered, she is free to search the Chicagoland area for a home or rather...an estate of her dreams. She requests a showing for a Condominium that piques her interest. I respond.

Now this is where the afore mentioned 'Good Faith' begins. Our website Features our own Listings while at the same time providing a Search Engine for the entire MLS of Northern Illinois. This is provided under under the guidelines of Broker Reciprocity and is about as clear as clear can be, in my opinionated opinion. Every Listing that is not in the Chicago Home Estates personal inventory has a clearly marked icon (a little house button to click for more info) stating so.

There is a question asked and a response box to be checked: Working with a Realtor? YES or NO.

Check NO, and I'm her guy.

Check YES, and her own Realtor will need to show her the requested property (and should probably also invest in his own website with advanced Search Engine capability). Just so you know, there are only two sides of any Real Estate transaction as far as Realtors are concerned--the List side and the Buy Side. There really isn't any more room in a deal for a third Realtor. We have a name in the business for such a soul. We call him 'The Unpaid One.'

It is at this point in the experience that I make it crystal clear to my potential Client that her Request For Showing either is or is not my own Listing (I have no intention of ever being The Unpaid One) and I proceed from there.

Now let's just say that we meet at the property, introduce ourselves to the Listing Agent, and take the tour. Thirty minutes later she decides the place is perfect and wishes to make an Offer. Whether I write the deal or not I have established what is called Procuring Cause on that particular property, thus avoiding any possibility of becoming The Unpaid One. We soon thereafter fill out an approved Board of Realtors contract, sign and initial all the appropriate spaces, forward it on the the other side of the deal, and wait for a counter-offer.

It is at this point that the verbiage begins. Several phone calls back and forth between all parties involved and hopefully, a middle ground can be found. Let me walk you through the dialogue of a recent negotiation attempt that mirrors my example above. The gender has been changed to protect the idiot...I mean innocent..

"The List Price is $639,000," I said. "I suggest we come in around $605,000 and hopefully get this deal done under $620,000. " Just so you know, while aggressive in negotiations I am not a bush league 'low baller.' If the List Price is ridiculous then that's another story but even in this somewhat flat North Side Chicago market, most properties still sell within 5% of the Asking Price in less than 180 days.

"We are obviously not on the same page," says my Client. "I will not consider offering anything with a 'six' in it. Tell them $550,000 and we'll close in three weeks." (In case math wasn't your best subject in grade school, that's $89,000 under List Price.) I put on my Messenger outfit and prepare to deliver the news.

"Good news is...we have an Offer for you!" I say to the happy, happy Listing Agent. "Bad news is we are coming in 15% under List." Actually, I don't really say any of this. Instead, I just let the ink on paper speak for itself.

As expected, our opening Offer was met with dead silence by the other side. After 10 minutes of verbal resuscitation and another 3 or 4 minutes of 'point and counterpoint' with the Listing Agent I was finally able to persuade him to just give us a counter-offer. He called back an hour later. "$625,000. March 30th Close." This was good.

"Not good enough," was my Client's response. "$565,000 and we want our February Close date..."


FAST FORWARD ...

THREE MORE COUNTERS AND 72 HOURS LATER...

"They are willing to spilt the middle and come down below their 'Drop Dead Number,' I inform my Client. "$600,o00." I deliver the news feeling more like The Negotiator than the Messenger for the first time in a couple of days. I know that I am but $1 away from getting a deal done with no 'six' in it. I am indeed, the man.

"Okay, but I want $10,000 more back in the form of a Closing Cost Credit paid to me at the settlement table," demands my Client. "Net sale price of $590,000. It's my final Offer. Make it happen Geno!" Grabbing with both hands from the candy dish. (Gimme Gimmee Gimmee)

'Bad Faith Bad Faith Bad Faith,' I think... but I do as directed.

And I do get it done, feeling a little uneasy about throwing in a Closing Credit curve ball so late in the negotiation (poor form, to be sure). The Sellers however, eventually agree after several more hours of persuasion, and I forward the good news to my Client.

And then within a matter of hours my Client bails out of the deal totally. The reasons and excuses were numerous but the real reason (and thus the point of this sad but true essay) is she could. The original contract was written over the phone and faxed to all parties (not unusual for people with busy schedules and allowable by law), no Initial Earnest Money check was ever collected (again, the initial check is but a token gesture and is not needed until Signed Agreement occurs), and the motivation to Sell was greater than the motivation to Buy in this case. My internet Client was just fishing around the bottom of the lake seeing what she could snag on the cheap. Looking back, it was just a lot of words accompanied by very little action, not the least important of which was the Seller's signature. Lots of talk with no accompanying walk.

Postscript: As it turns out the Buyer (no longer my Client at this point) tried to go around me and cut a deal with the other side on her own shortly before this all even started. When that didn't fly she then tried to persuade me to take my commission out of the Listing Agent's portion hoping to keep the Buy-Side Co-op for herself. Again, failure to launch.

In the end, she had just agreed to use my proffered services as the great Negotiator/Messenger I am, and waste my time for half a week ultimately doing what she felt was in her own best interest. And I'm actually cool with that. Thus is the nature of the beast we call the internet.

The other three deals I'm presently working on (all internet Registrants on our site) are as sweet as blueberry pie--the people couldn't be nicer. Half of my annual business comes from a mixture of the ChicagoHomeEstates.com website and the Blog you are presently reading. The other half is made up of past Clients and referrals. And only a few deals a year come from people who can't talk and walk at the same time. C'est la Vie, say I.


Geno Petro


image clearly courtesy of weirdthings.org

That's a Wrap...

To Chicago, the free world, and beyond:

I just posted my final 2008 piece on Bloodhound Blog for the year. Check it out with your morning coffee. It's a little strong so you may need some sugar. They don't call me 'Doppio' for nothing...or at least that's how I think they've been spelling it. And as an added bonus, I actually make mention of 'real estate' in this one.

Simple Peace, if not true and everlasting Love, to you all in 2009,

Geno


image is Chicago through a dirty windshield on LSD

Yikes Stripes!

So I was standing on the sidewalk in front of my 33 E. 26th Street Chicago real estate listing watching the tow truck yank a late model Crown Victoria from the front patio of my client's residence. The vehicle (driver?) somehow (drinking?) managed to leave the roadway, jump the curb, carom across the sidewalk and crash through the iron fence before coming to rest a few feet from the sliding glass door, the gas guzzling beast left teetering above the sunken patio. My showing appointment was due in 15 minutes and I was hoping (praying) that at least the car would be gone by then. From what I was told it had been dangling there for hours. Passersby couldn't help stopping for a gander. Unbelievable, really.

A man and a woman walked up to me and announced that they lived in the next building (same project) and that they too, may want to go on the market in the Spring; or so I think I understood them to say. I could barely interpret their broken (shattered) English. My guess, if I had to put money on it (from all my dining experience), would be Mainland Chinese. Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood, after all, is only a few blocks away.

"Ours on top floor. No car." They smile very wide. "Joke."

"Yes, it is very funny," I say. "I get it." And it is. Funny. Sort of. If you don't actually own the condo. And if it's not your Listing. And if you didn't have a showing in 15 minutes.

I ponder my options and decide to keep the showing appointment as I wave goodbye to my new friends next door. They wave back animately. I wait for 30 minutes. I get blown off. Yet again. So much for advertising on Craigslist.

(On a side note, check out my latest post on Bloodhound Blog.)


Geno Petro


pix by mike drury and me.

God F.S.B.O. in Chicago

I suppose it's how one defines 'Good News' (or even God, for that matter). Personally, I'm getting mixed messages here. As I snapped these shots I couldn't help but feel a little put off that The Owner chose not to use a realtor or more critically, that He didn't see this whole economic downturn thing coming in the first place. And what's more, He's trying to save a few points on the commission by selling it Himself. Good luck with that Master Plan, Big Guy.

Also, since He created everything to begin with, one would think He'd have picked a better location to set up shop but maybe this is just sour grapes on my part. I haven't been feeling the Love lately even though people have mentioned to me from time to time that I am a 'miracle' although quite possibly, tongue in cheek. I gave the number on the F.S.B.O. sign a call just for the hell of it (pun) and some guy named Peter picked up. Hmmm...

For Sale By Owner. Makes perfect sense to me. As I've mentioned many times over the years, I was a real estate consumer long before I was ever a real estate professional. And since moving to Chicago 13 years ago (OMG...I mean OMF.S.B.O., has it been that long already?) I've negotiated more than my mortal share of deals on both sides of the property fence so I don't begrudge Someone trying to save a buck or two by selling it Himself. Just be careful. There are a lot of unsavory characters walking around this Earth but then again, I suppose that would be preaching to the Choir, telling Noah about the flood, Jonah about the whale, et al...

Geno Petro


ps... Happy Birthday Dad. There's a UPS box on your front porch. I hope.

Bad to da Chicago bone

This gray, primed beast can usually be found parked in front of Suzie China's on Lincoln Ave in the West Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago at around high noon. It's 'chopped and channeled and lowered and louvered' and...well, it pretty much follows along with the rest of the lines of that old Tom Waits song, too. The machine may be out of time and place with the rest of the BMW condo set in this bustling upwardly mobile phoned community but one thing is for sure; it is definitely not 'cookie cutter.'

In the last 10 years this offbeat Ashland/Belmont/Lincoln enclave has moved from a double row of gritty storefronts and 1920s apartment rentals to an upscale, walk around 'hood along the lines of Lincoln Square, Roscoe Village, and even Bucktown. Only Suzie C and a handful of other old mainstays remain. In this way, the old gray beast is a metaphor of yesteryear Chicago.

They don't build cars with chrome teeth anymore. And while it may take a fairly frugal owner to shun a two-tone emerald powdercoat for an Earl Sheibs coupon special, it takes an even out-of-the-boxier individual to keep the paint job primer gray with a cobwebbed pinstripe applique. But above all, I think, it takes a truly singular soul, with an iron clad constitution (and colon), to eat at Suzie China's everyday.

Geno Petro

i snapped the shot (but as always, I did not shoot the deputy...)

No Crying in Baseball

It's one of my favorite Tom Hanks lines..."There's no crying in baseball." How could there be? In Chicago, with both teams currently at the top of their respective divisions in early August, only tears of joy are permitted. Those, and perhaps the kind that come from too much hot pepper and gardinara on the sausage, if you know what I'm sayin'. Can you tell....I just came back from a game?

The two Pinto brothers, Joe and Carmen, took me down to the old neighborhood at 32nd Street to see the White Sox chase the Tigers out of town last night. I hadn't been to 'The Cell' since...well, since its been 'The Cell' (U.S. Cellular Field for all of you outta towners and anyone trying to use AT&T service on the premises), and I have to say it's a wonderful ball park; great sight lines, good food, and lots of fanfare. And a shot of Southside Chicago revelry too; a couple of old rat pack dudes in tuxedos and bad toupees doing Frank and Deano at the front gate stage, three more fat dudes, also in tuxedos, singing The Star Spangled Banner in opera, and the lovely Dina Martin (Dean's daughter) singing Amore! on the 1st Base dugout during the 7th inning 'Stretch. Hey, it was Italian night....whacanIsay?

A few more sausages, a cup of lemon ice, and a giant pretzel with mustard later, I was drinking Alka Seltzer and chewing Extra Strength Tums like Christmas candy just to make it into dreamland where I, too, can imagine myself at the hot corner, wearing black and white pin stripes before a cheering crowd of 35,000. After all, Crede is on minor league rehabilitation assignment and Uribe is now playing third. He's batting .216 which is only .216 more than me...and I'm not even on a team.

Geno Petro

Don't pee in the alley, Sally

When you staggger out of one those few remaining Chicago beer gardens in Ukrainian Village after a night of too much 'zimne piwo' (go ahead, Google it) and start the slow crawl home to your graystone garden hovel, be careful where you relieve yourself, water the flowers, see a man about a horse...Or more specifically, don't pee in the alley behind the 1007-1015 block of N. Wolcott Ave. It is a designated urban art district of sorts. 'Tres cool,' as they used to say at the forever hip but now disinterred, Lava Lounge on Damen (most recently morphed into a place called Piccolo that serves gelato and bruschette---HUH?). Sorry, gelato is a lot of things but 'hip' isn't one of them. (Same with the 1200 block of Milwaukee Ave as compared to the 800 block of Damen back in the day. Go ahead, Google it too.)

An excerpt from the most recent issue of TimeOut Chicago's Art & Design section explains the West Town neighborhood phenom to which I refer, in further detail:

The buildings belong to sculptor Jerzy Kenar, who began commissioning alley art in 2003. And by commissioning, we mean he gave neighborhood teens $100, a can of paint and some Coca-Cola and had them go to town on his garage doors. Since then, the alley has been filled with cartoons or graffitiesque letters. Teenage boys work on the garage with their girlfriends in tow, “smoking and passing cans of paint...”

In other words, it's art. Try not to piss on it. Zimne Piwo!

(Also... Greg Whelan just sent me this link. Like I said earlier, tres cool. He lives in the UK Village.)

Geno Petro

i took the pix

Anachronic Chicago Storefronts

It ain't Mayberry...R.F.D. or otherwise

Check out the above random photos I snapped on my way into the office yesterday. The architecture is purely turn of the century (1890s to 1910 Chicago) but the actual establishments housed in each are anything but. (Notice the names and services; tattoos, piercings, manscaping...) This is one of the very cool things about living in modern day Chicago; appreciating the uber hip, small business nexus that occupies space in what was once our great grandparents' storefronts.

Floyd, the beloved barber of Mayberry repute, would more than likely need to know how to pierce a tongue and dye a Mohawk purple to help cover the $4,000 per month triple net lease in 2008 dollars were he just simply cutting hair today. Even our own ChicagoHomeEstates.com real estate office on Diversey Parkway occupies the first floor of a 1920's walk-up. It's definitely an eclectic blend of big city lights and Main Street America. And to quote our man Floyd as he gently tugged on the sleeve of Barney's new sportcoat, twirling the herringbone fabric with his delicate fingertips:

"Oohh...Just goes to show. If you want a good suit, you gotta go to Raleigh..."


Geno Petro

Chicago's Home Outsource

Click on either of the hyperlinks below to visit the latest news sources that have posted my Chicago's Home Weblog articles on their websites. The referenced real estate piece is from a few weeks back but the news wires just picked it up yesterday. I was noticing an unusually high traffic volume day on my site Statcounter when a Blogburst link directed me in the direction of ChicagoSunTimes.com and Reuters. And just when I thought no one was listening... "Hooray for the internet!" say I. And while you're at it, check out my latest post (and join the commenting fun) over at BloodhoundBlog.


Geno Petro

pix lifted from darienlibrary.org (I'm sure they won't mind)

Chicago Real Estate: 26.2 miles of red hot cinder

Carter Suggs and the rest of us slugs

In case you haven't been observing from the sidelines dear readers, this whole Chicago real estate diversion I've been a party to these past several years is a marathon--not a sprint. And while I don't recall ever actually running 26.2 miles consecutively or even un-consecutively (I was a sprinter when I last set foot on a track 35 very long years ago as you'll soon learn) I have been involved in some marathon-like negotiations as of late. And I'm telling you straight up, with St. Joseph as my witness, it's the last 2 /10ths (.2), that ubiquitous straw of camel back-breaking fame, that can tip the scales in either direction, for the better or worse. And it is this very, constantly shrinking margin between what makes and breaks a real estate transaction these days, that has me taking a short 'breather' to wax poetic before I re-double my efforts tomorrow and try to put together a deal that might actually involve a trip to a title company in the near future. Soooo....., allow me to digress...

My last heat

It was a blistering afternoon in the late Spring of 1974. The graduating members of our high school relay team, the mighty Mustangs of Myers Park, were slowly disembarking the un-air conditoned 1950's green and white diesel beast (our ancient, beloved, mascot emblemed school bus) for the final time, somewhere in the boondocks of eastern North Carolina, when we were suddenly struck motionless in our proverbial track shoes. We gazed in wonderment at the rural venue. Compared to our own hallowed stadium grounds of green and gold composite track surfaces, Booster Club sponsored electric scoreboard, and manicured white chalked and numbered playing field fescue back in Charlotte, the vision was almost other wordly. And myself, having recently relocated south from the great urban sprawl of northeast Philadelphia where one could definitely see the air one breathed, I was all the more intrigued by the Nature of it all. I decided it was, indeed, time to take off my leather jacket and Ray Bans and get serious. People were jogging through the woods, warming up barefoot, for crissakes.

The burnt colored, coarsely raked, 440 yard oval cut-out that encircled the overgrown football/baseball/tobacco field we looked onto was a Milky Way of sooty glass specks and finely crushed gravel--cinder, to be exact. The infield, 120 patchy yards, elbow to elbow with other multicolored warm-up suited runners in different stretched positions alongside their own painted diesel transports; The Demons, The Eagles, The Orangemen--was a base of red, hard Carolina clay. Bushels of unharvested dandelion weeds lined the outer perimeter of the back country school grounds.

The air smelled of pine tar and lumber from a nearby saw mill. An uninterrupted trickle of sulphuric well water leaked from an old fashioned hand pump in the far end zone. The Home side bleachers boasted two separate, half dozen row sections of gray splintered wooden planks attached to a common bent, rusty metal skeleton. The Visitors side sitting area was cracked earth. We looked at each other with young, overprivileged, suburban eyes. No world records would be set on this May day we joked half-heartedly. What none of us knew at that moment was that we were only correct by a mere fraction of a second.

9.3 (seconds, that is)

In 1974, Track and Field events were measured in yards and timed in minutes and seconds. The Men's World Record for the 100 Yard Dash was 9.0 seconds and had stood, unchallenged, for years. I was blessed enough to be among a handful of other sprinters to break the 10.0 second barrier that day--9.9 to be exact, finishing fifth out of a field of 6 in my heat. A young, Tarboro, NC high school student named Carter Suggs ran a 9.5 in the same race. The memory is a blur as was the image of his posterior, all ass and elbows, 30 feet ahead of me from jump street. I almost gave up smoking right then and there. Twenty minutes later in the final heat, (as I looked on from the cracked earth Visitors area with the rest of the slugs) he blazed a 9.3 on the cinder track--.3 seconds off the world mark.

Just so you know, the difference betwwen a 9.9 and a 9.3 is about a city block spread at the finish line, or in less urban terms--from grill to tail pipe--the entire length of an old green and white painted school bus, diesel, unleaded, or otherwise. It is most certainly the difference between a shot at a professional athletic career and one that entails slinging residential property for a living. At the very least, it provides a margin of posterity for all to ponder. (I've been Googling myself off and on for the past 3 years and while I can't find any virtual proof of my personal 9.9 second sprinting effort back in the glory days of 1974, I have no trouble unearthing almost every residential listing I've ever advertised during my Chicago real estate career--good, bad, or indifferent.)

I think I missed the Google "High School Track and Field Statistics" long tail search engine cut-off by considerably more than a few tenths of a second (bus lengths, city blocks, whatever...) in the same manner my last buy-side deal died over a couple thousand dollar closing credit and a furnace tune-up. It would probably be in the same manner I'd collapse at the 26 mile mark, just .2 miles shy of the golden ring, should I ever be daring enough to enter a marathon in the first place---which of course, is what this whole real estate business is---isn't it? Or shall I digress...

Geno Petro

image by billingsgazette

O'er the ramparts we watched the Chicago Fourth

Mark Rodriguez of WCBS-TV.com in New York posted this story yesterday:

Have you ever wondered why our national anthem ends with a question -- "Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"...

(click above hyperlink to read the entire article )

Anyway, the rocket's red glare was certainly bursting in the northwest Chicago air over our own Forest Glen house last evening--cat under the bedspread, dog under the bed, wife and I on the rooftop terrace hootin' and hollerin' along with the rest of the neighborhood--as the streaming, popping bursts of color lit the sky on every horizon and the familiar smell of burnt silver powder lingered in the summer breeze until well past the midnight hour. What a country!

Geno Petro

(pix not by me...)

Oh, THAT Sears...

I don't believe I'm all that different from most people who live in Chicago proper (i.e. not the 'burbs) in that I rarely take in the downtown sights except in accidental passing or escorting the occasional out of town visitor. My relocation referrals and I are usually zooming by each landmark, three minutes behind schedule, taking a 'pass' on the touristy stuff in lieu of a Starbucks stop.

"Was that the Sears Tower?" They ask.

"No. Hancock Building," I answer.

"It looks smaller," They say.

"That's because we're going 72 MPH down a one way side street." I kid. I look down at my speedometer, an even steven 60 (hyperbole, still).

'Were you ever a taxi driver?' They wonder, I'm sure...

Chicago is a settlement of over 200 unique and cloistered neighborhoods (with Madison Street being the great divide betweeen north and south 'hoods and State Street sundering the east and west communities) and we Midwesterners don't like to stray to0 far from the homestead unless we really have to. Chicago was originally a city of parishes; Saint Gert's (Edgewater), Saint Mike's (Old Town), and Saint Pat's (West Loop) being but a few examples and historically, people socialize and procreate where they pray (I am told). But as usual, I digress.

So I am walking out of the Sears Roebuck store (shopping for appliances, not clothes, thank you) on State Street last Sunday when a group of foreign visitors approached me. I could tell they were foreign by their attire and I knew they were visitors by their cameras.

"Sears?" The tallest one asked me

"Yes." I answered.

"Sears?" A little more emphatically this time,

"Yes. Sears." I say again. I turn around and point up to the sign in the window. "See...Sears."

And in an instant flash of flashes; like a rapid spray of friendly fire, or a Tiger Woods 18th hole gallery, or a Lindsay Lohan papparazzi locust swarm--a half-dozen smiling, second city visitors turned their cameras upward and let loose a digital stream of gigs and pixels onto the side of the unassuming 4 story building.

They thanked me very much. I told them they were very welcome before attempting to explain for 5 unsuccessful minutes in my own broken English (I don't know why I always end up assuming the accent of the misdirected foreigner I'm speaking with) how to get to Navy Pier. They turned in unison and headed in the opposite direction. What can I say?

Mona and I had taken the Metra in from Forest Glen for a late Father's Day lunch and a little downtown Chicago shopping. As we strolled west down Adams Street on the way back to Union Station we stopped for a few minutes to check out the Rookery before approaching South Wacker Drive. There they stood, the whole group of them, heads tilted back at 45 degree angles, clicking their digital cameras 110 stories into the clouds above.

"I think they meant that Sears tower," said my wife.

The tallest one caught my eye and shot me a dirty glance. I pointed toward the exit ramp down to Lower Wacker, home of the homeless and the cardboard box Abandominium...

"Navy Pier," I mouth with an animated whisper.

Mona punches me in the arm for being a smartass as we run across Wacker, over the Chicago River bridge, and down into the diesel fumed catacombs with 3 minutes to spare before the 5:55 heads north.


Geno Petro

A Realtor's Story (the end)

The pink elephant has left the building (see previous post below). He's wandering around the Northside Chicago streets perhaps, looking for another piece of real estate on which to poach. So I hereby declare on this 16th day June, (with much less fanfare or notice than the James Joyce protagonist, Leopold Bloom experienced on this very date 104 long years ago in Ulysses):

I got the deal done at $227,950 last Tuesday. Inspection was completed on Friday. Buyers backed out today, Monday, June 16th. End of story.

And if I really wanted you to experience my pain, I could, in the fashion of Mr. Joyce, pretend I'm Irish and spend the next 24 pages describing my morning shaving ritual like our fellow, Bloom. But I'll spare you the pain. I'm more of a Hemingway man, anyway--just trying to keep away from the Bay Rum and the belt around the neck, as it were.

Geno Petro

A Realtor's Story (part one)

The seller thinks she's being robbed. She hasn't actually come out and said it but I can tell. I can always tell. The Chicago real estate market has not responded well to her little corner of Uptown these last 365 days and the MLS listed 2 bedroom, 1 bath condominium she is trying to sell is now hovering close to the price she bought it for in 2004. She reminds me again that it's already priced below the last 'closed comparable' in the neighborhood. I gently remind her that I represent my buyers and that the 'market' ultimately determines what things sell for--not her or me.

She has also dropped the original list price $40,000 (in three spaced out increments) over the past several months. The Cook County tax records indicate that indeed, even at her present asking price, once commissions are paid, closing costs covered, present mortgages satisfied (there are two) and tax pro-rations escrowed---a flat-line, break-even, zero-margin net-sum-gain scenario is almost certainly in the woman's future. I advise my clients to make a move.

We come in low and hard. The seller tosses back a cookie the following day. Two days later we toss it back with two big bites taken out of it. The seller waits a day then reluctantly slips below the net-zero-sum line she's been stradding for the last 90 days and into the realm of capital losses and cookie crumbs as she goes directly to her absolute bottom number--a little below, actually.

My buyers, however, feel we can still get a better deal--after all, we are, in essence, the Chicago real estate market on this particular property in this particular point in time. In other words, we have the only bona fide offer on the table. Everybody involved is very nice but there's a pink elephant in the sunroom and at this stage of the process, no one cares to empathize with the other side or acknowledge the squatting beast in the corner. Money is involved--big, fat, pink, sunroom money. We all want the deal to happen but no one wants to say as much. Not just yet.

Final counter offers have been exchanged and presented. We stand $3,000 apart on a $250,000 property. We are now going entire days without talking, each side waiting for the elephant to make his move toward foyer, down the hallway, and out of the building forever. I imagine the pink pachyderm trouncing past the motorists on Montrose Avenue, across six lanes of traffic on Lake Shore Drive, and into the depths of Lake Michigan to swim away like Puff the Magic Elephant, freeing up all of our futures in this Northside real estate allegory.

It just so happens that the seller is also the realtor and is representing herself in the transaction. At this particular point in the pink elephant game, I am merely the messenger working on behalf of my buyers. It's not my job to spend my clients' money. My job is to guide this deal to the closing table with their best interest in mind. I ponder big Pinky in the sunroom...

A wise man once posed the question to me, "How do you eat an elephant, Geno?"

"Huh? I dunno." Big, dumb me.

"One bite at a time," said the wise man. "You eat an elephant one... bite... at...a...time." A wise man, indeed.

to be continued...

Geno Petro

On the 7th Day a house got sold

Our Managing Broker is a big proponent of the Sunday Open House, as am I. Yes, even still. Tens of thousands of people visit our real estate company website on a monthly basis and there's never a day that goes by when a potential client doesn't register as a new user at ChicagoHomeEstates.com. But week in and week out its the open house aspect of Chicago real estate we talk about at our Monday morning meetings. The open house is still the listing agent's bread and butter (if no longer his meat and potatoes).

To use a sports metaphor, Sunday is game day. Its the one day of the week (although many of our associates host Saturday opens as well) where we are almost guaranteed to have face to face contact with the public. Needless to say, we strive to be our most polished and shiniest selves on these days. Even after nearly eight years in the business, I still get up early to prepare for this three to four hour afternoon commitment: E-mails to people I've been in contact with that week reminding them where I'll be that day; double check brochure and sign-in card counts as well as my supply of business cards; go over all comparable properties and other open houses in the immediate area--(ours as well as other brokerages); make sure the agents covering my other open houses (can only be one place at a time, you know) have what they need for the day; and finally, putting out my signs in strategic places at least an hour prior to the scheduled start time.

I played organized team sports from grade school all through my college years. Growing up it seemed like I was always at an afternoon practice of one sport or another while my less commited friends were off rollicking in more pleasurable activities. And later on as a Theatre major, if it wasn't practice it was rehearsal. Many days it was both. So when I prepared to join the world of the gainfully employed I was certain of one thing--I wanted a job with weekends off. I was willing to put in 50 or 60 hours a week, just not on Saturday or Sunday. I did not become a Realtor earlier in my life for this reason alone. I knew I'd be great at it but I also knew that weekends meant 'lost forever' hours of open houses and clients in the car--no golfing, no tailgating, no pool parties.

Once into my forties though, my thinking changed along with some other newly established priorities. I made the decision that I wanted to sell real estate more than I wanted two days a week off. Today I work almost everyday, often times for months in a row before a break. But when I do break I travel the world with my wife. (see sidebar, Mona,Mona,Mona!)

Its a wonderful gig to be sure, this life as a Realtor. Throughout my real estate career I've met and the majority of my clients through our company's open house system (although these days, that percentage has started to tip toward the internet side of our marketing plan). Contrary to the findings of most studies on the subject, I still often times sell the actual property I'm hosting--too many to even mention in this writing.

And while I'm deeply immersed in the internet during the week and lost without my PDA at anytime, its those hours I spend at the weekly open house that a) keep me connected to the business at a grass roots level--and b) keep the owners of my listings satisfied that I'm doing all I can to represent their properties. And more than a few times a year its on this final day of the week, when the rest of the free world is resting or rollicking, that the house gets sold and the real estate deal gets done.

Geno Petro
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