Foreclosures, Short Sales and Bankruptcies: Navigating Today's Housing Market

Facing a foreclosure, short sale or bankruptcy can feel like the end of the road. In reality, each of these programs was designed to help those in tough financial straits to get back up their feet. The chart below shows you what you can expect when confronting one of these personal fiscal challenges.

 If you or someone you know is having difficulty or is unable to pay their monthly mortgage payments please call Katie Oakes with Keller Williams Premiere Properties at 630.545.9860 . Our real estate team closed over 40 short sales in 2011 and has helped hundreds of clients back up on their feet.

Visit the WheatonHomes4Sale.com for more information.

New Listing! 860 Malibu in Carol Stream

8 6 0    M A L I B U    C O U R T    I N    C A R O L    S T R E A M

Updated and move-in ready large family home in desirable Western Trails Subdivision of Carol Stream. This home includes many updates including: exterior siding/soffets and fascia, roof, premium Pella windows with internal blinds, carpet, 2 Stage furnace with a warranty and a central humidifier! Don't miss the vaulted ceilings, fenced yard with a playset, 2 car garage, skylights, bay window, and a charming finished lower level with a cozy fireplace. This home is much larger than it looks! Don't miss out on this amazing deal, check out the property details and view today!

Pictures and Property Details 860 Malibu Court

For more questions on this or other properties for sale please contact Katie Oakes with Keller Williams Premiere Properties at 630-545-9860 or by email at KatieOakes@WheatonHomes4Sale.com .

Looking for homes for sale somewhere else? Visit WheatonHomes4Sale.com and take advantage of the free and extensive property search, listing all the homes for sale in NW Illinois including parts of IN and WI.

Wheaton Housing Market Trends: January 2012

For more accurate and detailed information on the housing market and trends in your area visit Wheaton Homes For Sale and then click on Market Insider and just input the desired areas zip code!

The median listing price for a home and/or condo in Wheaton (60187 and 60189) is just over $405,000 with homes actually selling around $292,000 (from sold data calculated up to Nov 2011). As these homes are listed for sale it is taking about 124 days on the market in order to sell these homes.  There are currently 367 active listings in the Wheaton area with a just about 19% of those listings being distressed properties (foreclosures and short sales).

Price Trends Sold vs Listed in Wheaton 2011-2012

Provided By: Katie Oakes; Keller Williams Premiere Properties

Take Advantage of New Year Mortgage Rates

Average fixed mortgage rates in the U.S. over the past week finished the year near all-time lows, with the 30-year home loan at 3.95%.

According Freddie Mac's weekly survey of mortgage rates, the rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has been at or below 4% for the past nine consecutive weeks and only twice in 2011 did it average above 5%.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.95% for the week ended Thursday, up from 3.91% the previous week and below 4.86% a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.24%, up from 3.21% last week and below 4.20% a year earlier.

Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARM, averaged 2.88%, up from 2.85% yet below 3.77% of a year ago. One-year Treasury-indexed ARM rates averaged 2.78%, up from 2.77% in the prior week and below 3.26% last year.

To obtain the rates, 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages required payments of 0.7 percentage point and 0.8 percentage point, respectively. Five-year and one-year adjustable rate mortgages required an average payment of 0.6 percentage point. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged as prepaid interest.

To take advantage of these historic low interest rates visit WheatonHomes4Sale.com to view available homes and investment properties for sale in your area for free!



Article Provided by Mia Lamar
Taken from WSJ.com
Mortgage Rates End Year Under 4%

Wheaton Residents Pay a Higher Price for Water in 2012

It seems like the City of Wheaton is keeping with the general trend sweeping over Illinois in increasing the cost of living for its' residents. This year the prices of City water and sewer will be getting more expensive.

Those residing in Wheaton can expect to see a 30 percent increase to their water bills this upcoming month. This past Monday the City Council of Wheaton voted to up the water rate from $2.65 to $3.45 per 100 cubic feet of water.  So what does this translate to on your monthly bills? Based on the average water use per household, Wheaton residents can expect to see an estimated $9.60 more go out the window to cover their water bills each month.

"This year’s rate hike from the DuPage Water Commission is not the last. The commission is expected to increase its rates by 20 percent in 2013, 18 percent in 2014, and 17 percent in 2015, to pay off a $70 million debt."

"Wheaton Approves Water Rate Increase"
By: Alex Keown

To learn more about how and why the Wheaton City Council member's made this decision visit The Wheaton Patch .




Visit WheatonHomes4Sale.com to learn more about real estate and community trends in Wheaton and other surrounding areas, or to browse homes for sale for free!

Cautioning Consumers on Websites' Online Home Estimates

Over 90% of today's consumers are beginning their home search online. Many of these consumers find themselves on sites like Zillow.com or Trulia.com using the information provided like "home value estimates" to directly influence their home purchase. Perhaps it would be helpful to learn more about these home valuations that so many view as accurate as an official home appraisal. Take a look at this information taken from a recent Wall Street Journal article, "How to Figure the Fuzzy Math of Internet Home Values" by Alyssa Abkowitz.
 
"They're the numbers millions of consumers are clamoring for. After years of real-estate pros holding all the informational cards in the home-sale game, Web-driven companies like Zillow, Homes.com and Realtor.com are reshuffling the deck, giving home shoppers and owners estimates of what almost any home is worth. People have flocked to the data in startling numbers: Together, four of the biggest sites that offer home-value estimates get 100 million visits a month, with web surfers using them to determine what to ask or bid for a home, or whether to refinance.

 

Zillow, Trulia and other websites post estimates of home values. But as Alyssa Abkowitz explains on Lunch Break, these popular sites can be -- by their own admission -- wildly inaccurate.

But for figures that can carry such weight, critics say, the estimates can be far rougher than most people realize. Valuations that are 20% or even 50% higher or lower than a property's eventual sale price are not uncommon, as the sites themselves acknowledge. The estimates frequently change, too—sometimes by hundreds of thousands of dollars—as sites plug new data into their algorithms.

All of the competitors make it clear their numbers are guesstimates, not gospel. "A Trulia estimate is just that—an estimate," says a disclaimer on that site's new home-value tool. Zillow goes a step further, publishing precise numbers about how imprecise its estimates can be. And every major site urges home-price hunters to consult appraisers or real-estate agents to refine their results.

But despite the disclaimers, homeowners and real-estate agents say, many Web surfers put enough faith in the estimates to sway the way they shop and sell."

To read the complete article visit  How to Figure the Fuzzy Math of Internet Home Values 

Want to browse homes for sale in your area? Visit WheatonHomes4Sale.com to view properties in your area for free!

Email Katie Oakes with The Synergy Team at KatieOakes@WheatonHomes4Sale.com for information on how much your home is worth