About Peoria County, IL

Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois State Treasurer, has a link off his website for the Illinois' Lost and Found Cash Dash. You can search to see if you are among the millions of people, businesses, and heirs who have cash or valuables owed to you in the State of Illinois.

To find out if you have money out there, go to: http://www.treasurer.il.gov/programs/cash-dash/Owner/Owner.aspx

REMEMBER: Type your LAST NAME FIRST in the Name field.

There are tons of applications out there for the iPhone, and it seems that everyday there are millions more being created. Most of them are for fun or entertainment. However, Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams created applications for the iPhone to capture the color of something and be able to assign one of their paint colors to it.

Benjamin Moore's application is called the Ben app and is able to help users sort through 3,300 hues to match those in their iPhone photos. Sherwin-Williams' applicaiton is called ColorSnap which is an app that feeds off more than 1,500 available colors. Both applications off the same result with different levels of functionality.

Some additional features to the applicaiton are a mix and match capability. Once the main color is chosen, each app provides different approaches to finding a complementary color or colors.

They also offer some tips and suggestions as well as the ability to add a color as a "favorite". If you are a designer, photographer, or color enthusiasts, you are probably already aware that the colors that show up on your iPhone are not guaranteed to be exact matches to real-life colors. So if you choose a color palette through one of these apps, plesae make sure to look at the actual paint swatches too and make sure the swatches work in different lighting levels in the room where they will be applied.

Sherwin Williams App - ColorSnap

Benjamin Moore - Ben app

I just finished going through April's market numbers (I know... it's a little late since we are almost done with May, but better late than never!) and it looks like there is still a lot of opportunities in the market! Here is a recap:

For market activity in April, here are the numbers. The stats are YTD, compared to the YTD numbers for April of last year:

Number of New Listings are down over 20%
Number of Pending Sales are down over 30%
Number of Closed Sales are down over 27%

Average Days on Market have increased almost 10% to 89 days

The Median Home Price has decreased 6% = $108,000, which is still above the Median Home price for 2007 = $106,250

The List Price to Sale Price Percentage has dropped to 91.2%, which is the lowest it has been in over 6 years!

The Housing Affordability Index is 215, which is up over 12%, and it is a great indicator of just how affordable it is to live in the Peoria area! The baseline is 100...

Here is the supply of single famile, pre-owned homes, in terms of months of inventory, in the market:

Overall - 6.2 months
Up to $75,000 - 4.5 months -- A seller's market!!
$75,001 to $125,000 - 5.7 months
$125,001 to $225,000 - 6.0 months
$225,001 to $500,000 - 10 months
$500,001 and Up - 20.4 months

So depending on what price range you are looking at, the market is in a different level of activity. And it will mean something different for a buyer or a seller as well. If you have any questions about any of this information or would like to know more about this market please let me know. It would be my pleasure to help in any way that I can!

Thanks,

Brian Rule
Realtor - The Rule Team
Keller Williams Premier Realty
309-303-0557
brian@TheRuleTeam.com
www.TheRuleTeam.com
http://DigitalCompass.acnrep.com

Don't have the internet on your phone to find a business or phone number?  or maybe you do, but you don't use it, so you dial 411 and get charged a fee?

Well, google has come up with yet another great invention - google 411!  Well, it's technically goog411.

This is a great new service from Google, and it's FREE!! Don't waste money on calls to 411. 

If you are driving down the road and want the number to reserve a tee time at Golf Course ABC, then dial the number (recommend putting it in your address book) 1-800-goog411 or 1-800-466-4411.  The voice on the other end says "City & State".  You say "Peoria IL" (or wherever). He says "Business, Name or Type of Service." You say "Golf Course ABC". He says "Connecting" and Golf Course ABC answers the phone. 

How cool is this!!?!?!?!

It is nationwide and absolutely free!

Check out the video clip below for a more detail demonstration of the service.