The sky is falling, the sky is falling!! as many of us remember Chicken Little yelling. This seems to be the same thing the media is saying in their own way today. If I were in the financial services arena, I’d be yelling back - sell sky, sell sky! But I’m in the business of helping people buy & sell real estate and I have to tell you that, in the Chicago market, it is an exellent time to buy or sell.

The key here is for sellers to be reasonable in their asking prioces and their expectations. If they base the asking price on what has sold in their neighborhood, there is a good chance that they might get multiple offers…I know, I had 3 buyers experience that. If they get ambitous and want to push the price, there is a good chance that the buyers will realize this and not see correlation between the price, condition, and value and not be inclined to make an offer. The home will languish on the market and that seller might end up chasing a downward market, since homes that come on the market after them will be priced lower. Not a great position for a seller to be in!

It’s also an excellant time to be buying. The market is pretty well balanced. Home prices are stable to declining and interest rates are stable with nomninal variations over the past weeks. There also seems to be a fairly sizeable number of vacant homes for sale because the sellers have already moved on to their new homes. Many of the buyers I am working with are hearing from their friends that they should wait until…December, Feburary, or some other later date…and they will be the only buyer out there. I tell them it’s better “the market that we know.” We don’t know where interest rates will be in the spring. But if they rise by any significant amount, there will be a downward push on the housing prices. While on the surface this sounds great, keep in mind that you’ll be spending around the same amount of money you would today, only more of it will be going to the lender and instead of the seller.

All that being said, if sellers price their homes fairly, and both buyers and sellers have reasonable expectations, the local market will continue to do just fine.