Edwardsville and Glen Carbon Real Estate Chat: July 2009

Once apon a time, Glen Carbon, Illinois was just a small coal-mining village on the east side of the Mississippi River near St. Louis. 

But today the thriving town is ranked as one of Money magazine's 2009 Top 100 Places to Live. Learn more about Money's ranking here.

The village's children attend schools in the Edwardsville School District or a variety of private institutions. The award-winning Glen Carbon Centennial Library is one of the country's top small libraries and Glen Carbon's covered bridge is a well-known symbol of the village.

This is one of a series of blog posts that will take a look at the neighborhoods of Glen Carbon.

The popular Savannah Crossing neighborhood is located along Old Troy Road on the southeast side of the village. Homes in Savannah Crossing are noted for their charming Craftsman-style details, including stonework, pillars, porches and high-end features both inside and out.

A variety of new and existing homes are currently for sale in Savannah Crossing, including 3111 Alexandria, pictured to the left. It's a four-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot charmer with great features including nine-foot ceilings throughout and a family room finished on the lower level. It's the only four-bedroom home currently for sale in the neighborhood.

The neighborhood is conveniently located for commuters who need access to IL-159 and Interstates 55/70, 270 and 255. Shopping -- from Wal-Mart and Target to Best Buy and Borders -- is nearby and dining options in Glen Carbon and neighboring Edwardsville have exploded recently, much to the delight of foodies in the village.

For a complete list of current homes for sale in the Savannah Crossing neighborhood or addition information about the Village of Glen Carbon, Illinois, send me an e-mail at Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com

Want to drive by for a look? Here's a map to the Savannah Crossing neighborhood.

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About the Author: Nancy Milton, GRI, is a Realtor with the Just Ducky Homes team at Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors in Edwardsville, Illinois. She and Kristina Pratt help their customers buy and sell homes and investment properties in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs of Madison and St. Clair counties with special emphasis on real estate in the communities of Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Collinsville and Troy. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.JustDuckyHomes.com or e-mail Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com. 

As regular readers of this blog know, one of my favorite things to do here in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs is to drive along the Great River Road from Alton, Illinois to the towns of Elsah and Grafton, Pere Marquette State Park and beyond. The combination of the mighty Mississippi River flowing alongside the soaring limestone bluffs is magical.

Today we'll take a closer look at Elsah, a charming enclave tucked among the limestone bluffs on the Mississippi River. The entire village was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s.

Elsah's site along the Mississippi River north of Alton, Illinois was first settled in the mid-1840s as a riverboat landing and the village was officially founded in 1853. Many of the area's historic residences are built of limestone quarried nearby. 

Today between 600 and 700 residents live in the village's historic area, contemporary subdivisions and rural roads. Midwest Living magazine has called Elsah, "The town that time forgot." 

Active visitors can reach Elsah via the bike trail that follows the Great River Road. Bed and breakfast inns provide cozy shelter for travelers who would like to get to know the town. Advance reservations can be made online at the Maple Leaf Cottage Inn, the Green Tree Inn.

Elsah is also home to Principia College, a liberal arts college for Christian Scientists. The institution, perched on the bluffs above the town, began as a home school in St. Louis in 1897 and the higher education campus at Elsah dates to the 1930s. The beautiful site has been named a National Historic Landmark.

If you would like to live in or near the historic village of Elsah or if you would like to find a weekend getaway house along the river, get in touch with me at Just Ducky Homes. We can keep track of listings that are new to the market and make sure you are informed as soon as homes become available. 

Because Elsah is so small, there aren't always active listings available, but right now two homes are active in the village and two are pending. The active listings include a bi-level on the market for $84,900 and a raised ranch listed for $274,900.

The pending listings are for an historic stone home built in 1860 with one bedroom that had been priced at $129,900 before going under contract and a 1970s ranch foreclosure listed for $33,600.

Commercial property is also available on the village's main drive.

If you'd like to call Elsah home, send an e-mail to me at Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com for an appointment to discuss available listings. 

View Larger Map

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About the Author: Nancy Milton, GRI, is a Realtor with the Just Ducky Homes team at Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors in Edwardsville, Illinois. She and Kristina Pratt help their customers buy and sell homes and investment properties in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs of Madison and St. Clair counties with special emphasis on real estate in the communities of Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Collinsville and Troy. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.JustDuckyHomes.com or e-mail Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com. 

 

If you've read anything about purchasing a home in Macomb County MI over the last few months then you've certainly come across many articles detailing the difficulty in getting the mortgage loans through the processing end of things. 


Some of the areas in which your buyers agent (you do have one don't you?) needs to provide their expertise and help to ease the stress are with the inspections that you will have, and the appraisal & appraisal review process:

Your home inspection:  As a buyers agent in Macomb County MI , I will provide to you a list of home inspectors that I would personally choose to inspect the homes of family members or my own home.  However the last 2 buyer clients that I have worked with have asked family members, co-workers and friends for recommendations and hired wonderful professionals for their inspections.  You may use anyone you wish as long as they are insured.   Both of these home inspectors did fabulous jobs for their clients and one of them had a recommendation for an environmental inspector that also did a great job. 

Your buyers agent should also pay close attention to the contract dates for the inspection time  period  and ask for an extension should you need any follow-up inspections or time to clarify something before you make your final decision on whether to proceed or not with the home purchase.

The appraisal and appraisal review process:   Before you sign the offer to purchase the home your buyers agent should provide you with the last 90 days of sales for similar homes within a one mile radius as well as within the same school district.  I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of this prior to writing your offer.   The home you chose may seem worth the asking price, but with the declining values in Macomb County as well as the high number of bank owned homes that have sold, that "asking price" may be tens of thousands of dollars higher than it should be.    If your buyers agent does their homework you should have made an offer on the home that was well within the recent (less than 90 days) snapshot of the real estate sales in your target area.

If you have made a fair offer to purchase the home that was based upon an accurate view of the recent
market and similar homes that have sold then you should have no problems when it comes to the appraisal.
Of course we can never be certain how an appraiser will view the home and how much value he or she will place on it, but we can certainly try to analyze the market and get a good feel for what the market value is for that particular home prior to you placing an offer on it.

You don't have a buyers agent to help you and represent your interests?    Get one.  You absolutely need your own advocate throughout this process. 


~Kris Wales~  A partner for your real estate needs in Macomb County MI

 

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One of the best real estate sales weapons in our arsenal at Just Ducky Homes is the common suburban Storage Unit.

It's amazing how much clutter can accumulate in a home over the years. Before you know it, you and your family are outnumbered by the toys, clothes, furniture and other household items that are just part of life.

We have a solution that has worked wonders for our sellers: Just temporarily rent a storage unit until your home sells. To this day, our customer, and now friend, Meaghan says it was the best decision ever.

This tactic gives you the opportunity to clear some wide open spaces and show buyers how great your home's floorplan is. 

And it takes a lot of pressure off you as a seller.

By using a storage unit, you can go through your possessions more slowly and carefully when it is time to move them into your new home. You won't accidentally throw away a family heirloom that you're trying to get out of the way and you can make the important Three D decisions -- Do Move it, Dump it or Donate it -- much more easily from the unit instead of from your house.

Make sure you're renting in a facility that offers you 24-hour access and that has good security procedures so your possessions remain safe.

One of the best units in our Edwardsville, Illinois area offers units starting at 5 x 5 and continuing all the way up to 10 x 30.  The deposit is just $25 and the unit costs are pro-rated based on which day of the month you move in. Prices begin at $31/month for the smallest units and run to $111/month for the largest.

Outside parking spaces also are offered at many rental facilities. Think about using them if you have a few too many cars or perhaps a boat or RV that isn't exactly enhancing the view of your home during the sales process.

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About the Author: Nancy Milton, GRI, is a Realtor with the Just Ducky Homes team at Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors in Edwardsville, Illinois. She and Kristina Pratt help their customers buy and sell homes and investment properties in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs of Madison and St. Clair counties with special emphasis on real estate in the communities of Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Collinsville and Troy. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.JustDuckyHomes.com or e-mail Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com.

The rush is on.  The deadline for purchasing a home using the $8000 tax credit is November 30, 2009.   You might be surprised to find out how quickly the remaining days left to take advantage of the "free" money from the government will click away.

Let's take a look at how you might use up your time remaining.

Before you even head out the door to look at houses you need to have made contact with a lender and start the pre-approval process.  The further you get along in this process before you get in a car to look at a home the better.  For timing we will say that this process will take you a week because you are super organized and have all of the documents on hand that your lender needs.  (7 Days Gone)

Now you are ready to actually head out and look.  With lower inventory (below $250,000) than a year ago, it would be realistic to think that it will take you 30 days to find a house.   Then there is the contract ratification process.  If you are lucky and you have focused on seller owned properties you may be able to get a ratified within 7 days.  (37 Days Gone)

With the new appraisal rules (HVCC) and the new lender rules (HERA) going into effect you can expect that getting your final loan approval will be 30-45 days.  For our calendar we will take the longest number just to be safe. (45 days Gone).

How are we doing so far?  Looks like we have knocked 89 days off the calendar leaving 49 days left until the deadline.  Whew looks like you have plenty of time to get this done.

Wait we forgot to add in the days that FHA is going to require for a second appraisal (it is happening more and more) or the processing time at the settlement company.  So let's pad those 89 days with an extra 7 to be on the safe side.  Now we have taken a total 96 days off the calendar.  Leaving you 42 days to move in and enjoy your new home. 

If you take longer to find a home, if the lender takes longer to approve your loan or you think you want to buy a short sale....then you may have waited to long!

Are you still thinking about whether the market might decline a bit more making your dream home just a bit more affordable?  Or are you waiting for the interest rates to come down to 4.5% again?   If you are then every day you wait is one less day that you have to deal with any issues in your schedule.  If you are serious about buying a new home this year and are eligible for the $8000 tax credit then time is of the essence.  Don't sit on the fence much longer or you may find yourself looking at the calendar on December 1st and wondering what you were waiting for.

We knew it all along, of course, but it's nice to hear someone else say it:  Glen Carbon, Illinois has been named among Money Magazine's Top 100 Places to Live. 

The publication's researchers fanned out across the country this year to find America's top small towns. They looked at housing, school districts, employment figures, crime and a variety of other indicators to come out with the Top 100 list.

Glen Carbon began life as a 19th-century coal mining village here in southwestern Illinois. Today the vibrant community is close to Southern Illinois University at Edwardsvillle and is a commuter's dream with easy access to I-270, I-55, I-70 and I-255. As one of St. Louis' Illinois suburbs, Glen Carbon also serves as a place to live for employees who work throughout the Missouri and Illinois bi-state area.

Housing choices range from ready-to-rehab investment properties and Old Town starter homes to elegant estates, horse farmettes and leafy subdivisions such as Ginger Creek, Timberwolf, Somerset, Field's Crossing and many others.

Shopping and dining options have expanded tremendously in Glen Carbon and its sister community, Edwardsville, in recent years. Now it's just a quick drive down the street to reach Borders, Old Navy, Kohls, Wal-Mart, several supermarkets and a variety of local and chain restaurants.

If you would like to include Glen Carbon in your home search, visit us online at Just Ducky Homes to learn more about the village's neighborhoods, the Edwardsville School District, the history of Glen Carbon and the homes available in the area.  We've love Money magazine's top place to live to become your top place to live too.

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About the Author: Nancy Milton, GRI, is a Realtor with the Just Ducky Homes team at Coldwell Banker Brown Realtors in Edwardsville, Illinois. She and Kristina Pratt help their customers buy and sell homes and investment properties in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs of Madison and St. Clair counties with special emphasis on real estate in the communities of Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Collinsville and Troy. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.JustDuckyHomes.com or e-mail Nancy@JustDuckyHomes.com.

Thirty-three home sales closed in June 2009 in Edwardsville, Illinois. Thirty of those properties sold were existing homes and just three were new construction. Sales showed a surprising dip from a high of 39 sold in May.

The existing homes that sold during the month ranged in price from a low of $67,000 to a high of $325,000. The average existing home sold for $178,187 and had been on the market an average of 119 days.

New construction homes ranged in price from $265,000 to $510,000 and had been on the market an average of 322 days prior to closing.

As of today, 238 residential properties (both existing and new) are for sale in Edwardsville, a 7.2-month supply of inventory at the June sales pace.