Currently - a known methamphetamine lab in Illinois does not have to be disclosed...

I think disclosure should be required....

Thankfully - the Illinois House is considering a bill that would add “methamphetamine lab” to the list of disclosures home sellers and real estate agents must make to potential home buyers.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Mike Smith, who says there had been a rash of meth lab discoveries and arrests in his district south of Peoria in recent months.

Representative Smith says he sponsored the bill because residue from meth labs can cause serious health problems, including cancer, neurological damage and damage to the

Currently, there are no real standards to determine how cleaned up a meth lab must be before the home can be returned to the market.

What should a buyer look for before choosing an agent to represent them?

What should a buyer look for before choosing an agent to represent them?

1. Ability to help a buyer evaluate homes
2. Skill in negotiation
3. Undivided Loyalty
4. Proof of savings and past client satisfaction.

An Exclusive Buyer Agent covers the negative aspects of a home as well as the positive - in a consultative role - versus a "sales" role. We give them the pros and cons of a property rather than trying to sell them one. I might show my buyer a number of homes in a given day - and it might be that I would not recommend any one of them (or unless the price came down to an acceptable level - as price fixes everything at some point.)

A couple of people who were referred to us - said that a past client (or past clients) - told them that we had told them when "not to buy a property" and that is what they were looking for.

An Exclusive Buyer Agent buyer agent is focused on:

1. Finding the best home for the buyer
2. Helping the buyer buy it at the best possible value (frequently aligning their compensation with the buyer's interests vs. adverse to their interests as is typical - ie - an agent representing the buyer getting paid more when the buyer's price goes up.)

3. Helping the buyer save money on a loan (shopping lenders) - vs. referring them to an "in-house" lender.


An Exclusive Buyer Agent's role is to consult and counsel and protect a buyer.

They typically have:

1. A higher level of experience serving buyers and better negotiation skills.

2. They also have unwavering/undivided loyalty to buyers - never having any "dual agency" conflicts of interest.

Questions to Ask Any Agent Before You Hire Them

The Ummel Verdict Is In - Buyers Need to be Careful in Choosing Their 'Buyer Agent'

The Ummel Verdict Is In - Buyers Need to be Careful in Choosing Their 'Buyer Agent'

Good article. Exclusive Buyer Agents go way beyond analyzing comps (which is a given) - to looking at recent market trends and statistics, neighborhood information, city plans, community plans, and helping the buyer do Due Diligence on other things.

Interestingly - the general public and many Real Estate agents - don't even know that Exclusive Buyer Agents exist.

Exclusive Buyer Agents are experts at collecting information on the seller's situation - while keeping their buyer client's situation confidential.

Because Exclusive Buyer Agents are specialists - they a very good at what they do.
Since they are generalists - some "buyer agents" may spend 95% of their time listing property for sale and representing sellers - or may have dual agency conflicts of interest.

Village of Deerfield Files Suit versus ComEd

Nothing like a city getting angry over the quality of power that it receives...
This is one thing to consider if you are planning on buying a home in Deerfield.
Perhaps it will get fixed due to the suit..... Time will tell.... Excerpt -

The Village of Deerfield filed a class action lawsuit today against Commonwealth Edison charging the utility company with gross violation of its agreement to provide reliable service to its 18,000 residents.

Deerfield officials say that during the period from 2000 until 2007, the village suffered 82,347 individual customer power outages during 1,377 separate electrical failures. They said "Only 13% of these outages were weather-related."

Steve Harris, Mayor of Deerfield said - "ComEd has given us no other option than to seek a legal remedy to their gross and willful dereliction of duty." "After years of patience while listening to ComEd's unfulfilled promises to fix these problems, we now turn to the courts to adjudicate our claims."

Reportedly - several Deerfield residents have been told by ComEd employees that the infrastructure in the Deerfield area "absolutely needs to be updated."

Judith Adamson, a Deerfield resident for thirty years said, "ComEd tells us that the problem is that our utilities are underground and connect to old above ground poles and switch boxes and it would be too costly to revamp the system."

The class action lawsuit filed in Lake County Circuit Court on Thursday charges that ComEd violated the Illinois Public Utilities Act and their franchise agreement with Deerfield and its residents by failing to provide adequate and reliable electric service and failing to maintain infrastructure necessary to provide that service. It calls for compensation for actual damages as well as punitive damages for ComEd's willful refusal to repair and maintain its electrical systems and circuits.

From 2000 to 2007, ComEd's Franchise Reports confirm Deerfield suffered 1,377 total outages that lasted 5,576 hours. The reports show only 13% were attributed to weather related causes. The Franchise Reports also show that the total amount of outages have increased steadily during the last three years. During this period, outages due to failure of ComEd's electric underground equipment have risen dramatically.

ComEd's Annual Reliability Reports cite ten circuits that serve Deerfield as appearing on their list of top 1% worst performing circuits in its Northeast service area from 2001-2006. In addition, these reports show at least one circuit serving Deerfield has been included as a top 1% worst performing circuit for ComEd's Northeast service area in every year from 2001 to 2006. Moreover, the report proves there are other circuits serving Deerfield that are performing even worse than those on ComEd's 1% worst performing list, but they do not appear on that list.

"I have been told by ComEd workers that the feeder to our area of the Village is very old and worn out and that is one reason for the outages," said Deerfield resident Richard Beaton.

Article About Buyer Potentially Losing 50k Deposit With Builder

Here is a good story about why any buyer needs representation when dealing with a builder

The three biggest mistakes are indeed:

1. Not using a buyer's agent

2. Opting to use the builder's preferred finance company

3. Signing a standard builder contract without adding any of your own protections and contingencies.

Agree with the article - that many builders insert carefully worded fine print into sales contracts that naturally favors them in court -- language that necessitates careful legal interpretation by a party on the buyer's side -- before the documents are signed.

Many builders make it a practice to retain deposits after buyer cancellation due to wording that favors the builder - and not the buyer.

Agree that builders are in a world of hurt now and grasping at straws like others in the housing game - and as the market tightens, they are simply less likely to be flexible.

Builders offer extra incentives if you'll just be so kind as to use their mortgage company (or the incentive is a great rate - but an inflated sales price.)

Feel free to read my other articles about builders: (It's a pet peeve of mine because the public is getting raped - without the knowledge they need before going in.... They sign in without representation because "we were just driving buy" "we didn't realize" "they never disclosed that if we signed in alone we'd lose our ability to obtain the representation we want. No one told us."

Builders in the Chicago Area Offering Nice Price Off Discounts on New Construction

Don't Visit New Construction Without Representation

Article About Toll Brothers Hawthorn Woods Country Club Development. Don't Sign In Alone Without Representation!

Interested in Del Webb Grand Dominion in Mundelein Illinois? Don't Sign In Alone Without Representation!

As an Agent - Make Sure you ID a Short Sale Situation Up-front. Listing Agents Aren't Revealing it. Protect Buyer Clients Who Have a Timeline

Many homes that are for sale in various neighborhoods in the Chicago area, are not occupied anymore - and a number of them are pre-foreclosure or foreclosure properties. Others - will be short sale situations.

Homes that are currently occupied may be listed for a figure where the seller will come up short after paying off the principal balance of their loan(s).

If the seller can't cover the shortfall - it will be a short sale situation - meaning that the lender will have to pick up some of the shortfall.

It is important to note that many agents are not advertising that their listed property will be a short sale in the remarks section of the MLS sheet - because they don't want to dissuade a buyer from writing an offer on the property.

Short sale situations can drag on for quite some time - and many buyers have certain time-lines. Negotiations with the lender about how much of the deficiency the lender will pick up can take time.

If a buyer client wants to get into a home in the next 60 days - it might not happen if they are buying into a short sale situation.

So - it is important that the agent representing the buyer find out as soon as possible from the other side what the seller's equity is (which can sometimes be gleaned from the tax record) at the moment - and if there will be a short sale situation - and if so - how much -- so that the buyer isn't blindsided with delays.

As a rule of thumb - the larger the deficiency - the longer the negotiation can take with the lender.

With any short sale situation - we give the buyer "an out" in the contract - if the seller's short sale negotiations with the lender are not concluded within X days.

Our buyer client can then seek a deal elsewhere.

Another Article About The Buyers's Market

I enjoy reading various articles that supposedly knowledgeable journalists write - because there are usually quite a number of mistakes or gross generalizations in every article that need to be picked apart...

We agree - buy smart & buy cheap and read Ilyce Glink's

"100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask."



We don't agree that you should conduct preliminary research online at Web sites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com and greatschools.net -- these are pretty awful sites in general.
Zillow is extremely inacurrate. Trulia only has a small subset of homes in the MLS (very small subset).

And you won't need cash for your closing costs if you purchase a home through us. We have the seller pay for all of your closing costs.

By the way - there are MUCH better databases on schools than greatschools.net
(Something we provide our clients with..)

Just want to get a handle on what is out there? Email us at info@relocationadvisorsgroup.com and we'll set you up on a familiarization feed - of exactly what you are looking for (please be as specific as you can) -- from the ENTIRE MLS - not just a small sub-set of it.

Should you think about becoming a client at some point - we'll sit down with you in a mutal Q&A session to really explore your needs in greater depth.

Have a nice day :-)