Michael Hobbs's (michaelhobbs) Blog

How often do you think about the potential impact of Fido the dog or Whiskers the kitten?   As a real estate professional, we are in and out of houses every day with pets of all kinds.  On a regular basis,  6 out of 10 people in the United States come in contact with cats or dogs every day.  Curr...

  For those of us who have grown up around the Boy Scouts of America program, there was a motto often times repeated: "Be Prepared". As the Spring market continues to heat up through the United States, there's definitely one action that many Realtors can take to insure the best outcome for their ...

  How low can Chicago real estate prices go?  Based on the Case-Shiller index, a Standard & Poor's affiliate, the index dropped another 2.5% to end the first quarter 2012 and has hit its lowest level in 12 years.  On an annual basis, Chicago housing prices are 7.1% lower than a year prior.   Thes...

For so many reasons, some noble and some quite far from it, our country and it's economy are still struggling with the financial morass that has ensued since the great recession of 2008.  Similar, but far less grand, than the bust that occurred around Y2K, things are not good and are not showing ...

You probably heard it hundreds or thousands of times growing up, "Clean up your room".  Yet, now that you are an adult and you own your residence, who says you have to clean up?  In this case, it is probably going to be your Realtor because tidy, de-cluttered, and open spaces generate more money ...

You get ready to go visit the property, possibly for a listing appointment, an appraisal, or even a showing request for your buyer.  You are going to an area you know of but likely don't know as well as your own neighborhood.  Upon arriving where you believe you are supposed to be based on your d...

For anyone who thinks employment doesn't matter, take a look at the graph below from Calculated Risk. In the following graph, the loss of jobs in recessions since World War II is mapped out.  Depending on what you focus on, the recession of 2001 was the longest to date (not counting our current s...

Don McLean had it right when he sang that soulful reminiscent song about life that used to be. But did Don McLean have the foresight to contemplate Realtors would go the same way as those yester-years?  Probably not, but surely it can be applied. In an article by Eric Wolff, published in the New ...

  If you like numbers, here's one for you: 928.  928 is the number of banks on the FDIC unofficial 'watch list'.  The OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) released its recent report which indicated that unofficially there are 928 institutions with assets of $361.9 billion that are at r...

  According to Marcus & Millichap, investment specialist,  there is positive net absorption of apartment units and there is not enough supply of housing units yet to meet increasing demand.This is a far cry from just three to four years ago when apartments and multi-family housing were being badl...