Case Schiller is a common Home price index used by real estate professionals to help determine trends in home Pricing .   I saw one today that i thought was pretty interesting. Red line represents the historic average since 1999 and blue line represents CS index.

there is a couple points of interests to point out 1) from 2000-20007 we were increasing homes beyond there historical average(2007 was peak) 2)2009 case-schiller index came back to the historical average.  so what does this mean.   

Hopefully it means that homes pricing are finally getting back to where home prices belong. Does this means prices are done falling.  Probably not,  there is still a considerable amount of  inventory of Foreclosed and short sales homes out there, which will still drop the home prices.   

The good is, this is still an amazing time to buy or invest in real estate.  it may take a long time for the market to get back to where it was in 2007, but hopefully we are on the bottom half of this decline.

tell me your interpretation of the case-schiller index

Fall is quickly arriving, which means lots of fun is to be had in and near the DeKalb area. Some of the activities are listed below;

September 11 is the castle challenge; football game between sycamore and DeKalb,

September 25-27th is the Septemberfest.  St. Mary’s host a 3 day festivity of music, carnival rides and good times.

October 25th is the Pumpkin parade in Sycamore.

Tis also the season for apples and corn mazes here are some local ones.

Jonomac Orchard opened Aug 19th and the corn maze opened sept 4th

The other orchard I like is Edwards’s apple orchard, it’s not in DeKalb County but it’s worth the drive to poplar grove.

There is more fall events, more apple orchards in the area, and more corn mazes in the area.  i will continue to update this post, but if you would like to help, please comment on your favorites in these categories.

Holy Cow,   Kane County has increased their Homestead exemption from $5000 to $5500(this is for owner occupied homes).  the best thing about this is the fact that will increase again in 2009 from $5500 to $6000.  What this correlates to in bills may not be much but something is definitely better than nothing.

 The Senior exemption will increase from $3000 to $4000 in 2009 as well

Why am I telling you this in a Dekalb area blog? Firstly, I am hoping like everything else does, it travels from Chicago to the outlying areas then to us.   Secondly I do have Clients that currently live, want to live, or travel to/through Kane county and I thought this information was worth repeating to the masses.

Just read a great article about social media and the need for it business.

article was written by the Real Estate Phoenix guy. this blog.

this article in short talks about the fact to run a business you do not need a social media, but you understand about.  i would encourage to go this blog post to review the video, and make your own decision

In the news you will hear the markets up, the markets down,  housing sales have inclined or housing has declined.  So the question becomes what is the answer, how is the real estate market doing? The answer is it depends(yeah i know the perfect politically correct answer), it depends on your local market.  For Instance if you are living in Nevada  home sales have increased from last year,  the homes there have finally reached the appropriate price levels for investors and home buyers to buy back into the market. 

So why do I tell you this,  I am encouraging you to come here to check on our local stats in the Dekalb Sycamore area.

In the DeKalb,  the last three months the average sales price $141,000, the average time on the market was 116 days, and the housing supply is at 12.66 months(this means it would take over 12 months for all the homes to sell, if no other home came on the market.) from 3 months ago prices were at $165000, 143 days of market time, and a housing supply of 22 months.

In sycamore, the last three months, the average was $181,250, with an average market time of 106 days and a housing supply of over 15 months. the previous 3 months had an average sale price of $177,250 with an average market time of 200 days and a housing supply of over 29 months.

So what does all this mean?  means that we are still in a buyers market(anything over 10 months is considering a buyers market and a declining market.  both Dekalb and sycamore have improved their market by selling more these past 3 months than in the previous 3 months.   Dekalb average price dropped where sycamores rose a little, this doesn't mean much considering that summer months are typically the highest selling months in our market(Feb-Sept).   with programs like the $8000 tax credit it should prove interesting to see if this help maintain the incline in the market we have seen the last 3 months.   either way we can watch together cause i will update these stats monthly.