Molly Sabatino

You have questions, we have answers.

The Fox Valley Baird&Warner office is hosting two Just the Facts Open Houses for the public to come to the office and get facts and ask questions about the local housing market. We will also have information about the $8000 First Time buyers credit, Foreclosure information, staging your home, appealing your property taxes, loan options.

Thursday, April 16
5:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 19
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Baird & Warner - Fox Valley
962 S. Randall Road
St. Charles, IL 60174

Call Molly (630-345-7486) if you are not able to attend the open house and have questions.

I have been doing some research for a "Just the Facts" open house my office is sponsoring to residents who want to get answers to their real estate related questions and I wanted to share it with everyone.

I am looking at the cities of Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles, IL.

As of April 1, 2009 there are 1063 Detached and 373 Attached homes for sale in these three cities. Below you can see the numbers broken out into price ranges.

I also compared all closed sales in 2007 with 2008 to see what the change was in median and average sales price.

All Three Cities
Number Sold Average Market Time Median Sales Price Average Sales Price
396 less units 26 more days Down 1.10% Down 1.13%

Batavia
Number Sold Average Market Time Median Sales Price Average Sales Price
102 more units 25 more days Down 1.93% Down 7.29%

Geneva
Number Sold Average Market Time Median Sales Price Average Sales Price
96 less units 21 more days Down 4.24% Down 2.84%

St. Charles
Number Sold Average Market Time Median Sales Price Average Sales Price
222 less units 31 more days Up 6.82% Up 2.40%

On Tuesday March 10, 2009 I traveled to Springfield, Illinois and joined over 500 other Realtors from all over the state to meet with our elected officials to discuss upcoming bills and legislation that affects me as a Realtor, a small business owner, a homeowner and a tax payer.

One of the issues I discussed with my elected officials was changes to the Real Estate License Act. A major change will be the licensing categories to Broker and Broker Manager. Under the new law everyone who wants to sell real estate will be required to become a Broker. The Salesperson category will disappear by April 2012. Those with a Salesperson license will move to a Brokers license by either passing a proficiency exam or by taking 30 hours of education and passing an exam.

Later that day the Illinois Association of Realtors hosted a reception at their new headquarters. It was great to finally be able to put faces to names I have talked to on the phone or had e-mail conversations with over the last year. Their office is a beautiful state of the art facility with a patio that looks over the Governor's Mansion. I enjoyed meeting Realtors from all over the state and seeing others I had meet at pervious IAR functions.