That said, here’s some nice food for thought on the Chicago market over the past year. The good news off the bat is that absorption rates are almost universally better as 2011 winds down than they were in 2010. Kudos to the savvy agents and hungry buyers out there.

Seems appropriate here to call out that every county saw an increase in 2011 for single family homes, except Cook. Kane county saw a close to 8% increase in single family closings:

Cook = -1.44%
Dupage = 5.61%
Kane =  7.94%
Lake = 5.07%
McHenry = 7.38%
Will =  0.82%

Whats more interesting though, is that transaction volume is on par with last year’s numbers, despite there being an decrease in the amount of listings practically across the board. This could be a positive sign that sellers are not willing to sell at the current price and more sellers are staying on the sideline waiting for pricing rebounds. This signals a potential shift the pricing momentum, and bodes well for 2012 upcoming.  The role of shadow inventory remains to be seen, but only time will tell.

Click the link for our full aggregation of closed and active listings by county and property type.

Rather than terminology, this time we take a look at the number of photo’s a real estate agent includes in their MLS listing. The percentage breakdown is in the graph below.

While Chicago Agent Magazine focused on the startling statistic that the largest percentage of realtors (38%) have only 1 photo included, we find it interesting that the next greatest amount of pictures agents include is 16. It seems agents choose to do either the bare minimum or the absolute maximum, more often than not.

Why do you think that may be? And is either number an effective amount of photos?

Judging by a few comments at the Chicago Agent Magazine post, neither one nor sixteen is the best amount. One picture doesn’t convey a sense of the home at all; while sixteen is just too many to click through. As a best practice, a photo set should be based on the number of photos to needed to showcase a property not the arbitrary maximum or the lazy minimum.  If a floor plan is included, users will get a much better idea of the property. Homes with floor plans and high quality digital photos achieve both a sense of the space and its arrangement, as well as convey its condition and/or  noteworthy amenities.

Next time you’re adding listing photos, consider how much effort it takes to give a buyer a good, truthful impression of the listing, and what is overkill. Better yet, go the progressive route and have high quality photos shot for you. We’re willing to bet buyers will appreciate it.

You can see that Edgewater, West Town, and North Center all top the list, indicating the hottest and most frequent acquisitions of recently built homes. The bottom part of the list particularly suffered in the numbers due to the inclusion of 2007 statistics. 2007 of course was the last year the market saw upswings in new construction, and the Near South Side was one neighborhood in which numerous properties were created but went unsold in the subsequent market crash.

Remember that this information is available daily in the Leap Scheduling System but is posted to the blog monthly.

Before you say ‘no’, allow us to explain. In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. More commonly this is known as the 80/20 rule and is summarized that 20% of actions/causes /inputs, etc. will lead to 80% of consequences/effects/outputs. Sound familiar now? We thought so.

Recently, we had heard many theories circulating that this was the case in the Chicago agent community. Whether it was a 5/95, 40/60, or 80/20 we weren’t sure, but we decided to take a look.

For this pull we took total transaction volume per active agent (one with a transaction in the period)- both buyer and seller side – and compared that to overall transaction volume in market. We also compared their percentage as one agent out of the total in Chicagoland, and ran those numbers comparatively. What we found ran directly inline with the Pareto Principle – a substantial amount of business is being done by a relatively small number of agents.

Take market leader Mario Greco, for instance. While Mr. Greco makes up just .005 percent of the total active agents out there, he accounts for a .35 percent of business transactions. Continuing down the list until we get to the 1000th agent, we see that Michael Zapart and the 999 agents before him make up only 5.02 percent of all agents, yet a staggering 39.6 percent of business volume. Keying in on original principle more accurately, we have to look at the 80 percentile of business volume. Sure enough, we find that 80 percent of business transactions are completed by just 27.74 percent of total agent.

While the disparity can feel a bit frustrating, the principle does not mean that agents do not move into smaller percentiles/greater transaction volumes. Instead, it reiterates the fact that many agents that are doing the “same old thing” and failing to use new marketing techniques and technologies will likely stay in the same 80% percent group with their peers. Those who use progressive tactics are likely to stand out from the pack, and therefore increase transactions and their percentage of the market.

The log in page, pictured above, is available at http://m.leapre.com. After logging in you have a scheduling screen which allows you quick access to the popular functions of the Scheduling system. The mobile site is straight forward and ready to use right now, so if you’re a current user go ahead and give it a try. If you still have yet to join the hundreds of agents using Leap solutions, learn more here.

After the click are instructions on bookmarking the mobile site as an icon for your iPhone.

Here’s a quick way to access and bookmark the mobile site on your iPhone:

1. Go to http://m.leapre.com on your mobile device.
2. Click the lower center button:  3. Click “add to home screen”: 4. This will add LeapRE to your Home Screen, making it easily accessible for scheduling on the fly.

Due to the great response from last month’s webinar, we’ll be holding another this Wednesday, August 24th from 1pm – 2pm. Click the link above to register and we hope to see you there!

Showing Volume for Chicagoland during the month of July: Market showing activity is following in line with historical averages, but still outperforming those correlations. This activity from July’s spike jumped higher than even June’s. Did you find this to be true with your own listings?

Remember that this information is available daily in the Leap Scheduling System but is posted to the blog monthly.

If you have any further questions about square footage, or would like to learn more about what you’ve read here, please feel free to email bfp@bestfloorplans.com and ask away

Does the deck or patio count as square footage?  What about the garage?

• Neither attached nor unattached garages are counted in the calculation of either the EGA or CGA. However, BOMA’s square footage reports require the garage area be noted. The EGA is the BOMA equivalent to what has been commonly referred to by real estate agents as the livable square footage. The EGA is the number we recommend using when reporting your listing’s square footage in the MLS. Traditionally in the Chicago market, the attached outdoor spaces included in the CGA are not reported as part of the square footage in the MLS.

Do unfinished basements count as square footage?

• According to BOMA, any area below grade is still considered part of the EGA. BOMA makes no attempt at qualifying unfinished vs. finished space. Those are not relevant to the gross area of the building as they require certain subjective properties of what is considered to be “finished” or “livable.”

When the MLS asks about “square feet source,” what do I choose for Best Floorplans?

• Since our service is not quantified by the MLS, we recommend: Option G – Plans

• We create the most accurate as-is floor plans in residential, commercial and industrial Chicago real estate, measured with the top of the line laser technology accurate up to 1/16th of an inch. Since we provide you with the plans as a reference, as well as our calculations of square footage, we feel this is the best way to represent your method of acquiring the square footage in the MLS.

Why is there a difference between the previous reported square footage and the Best Floorplans square footage results?

• We get this one all the time. It’s natural that different numbers will come from different sources. Many appraisers, general contractors, architects and other services that provide agents with square footage calculations use a number of different techniques for both measuring and calculating the square footage of their listings. It’s well known that most appraisers give VERY general square footage estimations and generally only use a tape measure or wheel when estimating. General contractors and architects usually operate from drawings created BEFORE the building was built, which may differ from the final build out. Other services might use a laser distance meter to take measurements, but few focus on the details needed for accurate square footage calculations. BOMA / ANSI have created the only accredited set of standards in any industry for calculating the square footage for your listings, and not every service complies with their standards. Best Floorplans takes the best measurements, employs quality assurance processes to ensure it’s done right the first time, and complies with the national and international standards set for square footage calculation to ensure all of our agents can put their best foot forward in representing their listings.

If you have any further questions about square footage, or would like to learn more about what you’ve read here, please feel free to email bfp@bestfloorplans.com and ask away.

·         When talking about square footage, why are there always so many acronyms?  What do they all mean?

o   ASF – Approximate Square Footage

-  This is what you’re required to enter into the MLS when you set up a new listing.  You can calculate this data a number of ways and through a number of resources available to real estate agents.

o   EGA – Exterior Gross Area

-  This is the standard for interior residential space, which has been set by the dominant organizations in standards conformity (BOMA / ANSI).  This is the most widely accepted measure for calculating the ASF required by our MLS.  It is calculated by drawing a line around the exterior perimeter of each floor, and then subtracting any spaces within that line which are not considered valid in the EGA.  Though there is a set of very specific exclusions, the most important to mention are vertical penetrations (ie. open to below areas), attic space below a specific height, garages, attached and unattached outdoor spaces.  All floors are totaled for the final EGA of the home.

o   CGA – Construction Gross Area

-  The CGA is the same as the EGA, except that it includes any attached outdoor spaces.  If you have a deck that off the master bedroom, that’s included in the CGA.  If you have a walk-out patio off the basement, that’s included in the CGA.  As long as it has an enclosure around it AND is attached to the home, it is included in the CGA.

o   ANSI – American National Standards Institute

-  Since 1916, engineers, manufacturers, and scientists in the United States have sought after creating standards that would strengthen and protect our country.  The outcome was ANSI and they set standards in every field of business, including real estate.

o   BOMA – Building Owners and Managers Association

-  Aside from doing great work in Chicago aligning building owners and managers with the best services for their buildings, their international wing has paired with ANSI to create standards for calculating the gross area of EVERY type of building and breaking it down into components useful for doing business.  They have huge regulatory board to make sure that these standards make the most sense based on the usage of the space.

·