Author: hermione

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Home is where the heart is

Happy New Year "homies." I'd like to share with you the wisdom (yes, wisdom) of real estate agent Fran Bailey at her Chicago Metro Real Estate blog. B [...]

Burglars wish Bucktowners a Merry Christmas

So we got home to our little three-flat in the Wicker Park / Bucktown neighborhood last night to discover that burglars had broken in and made off w [...]
The first-time buyer: What's the deal with Logan Square?

The first-time buyer: What's the deal with Logan Square?

So I'm sitting on the bus this morning fantasizing about buying an affordable brick home in a neighborhood like Logan Square when I glance at my RedEy [...]

The first-time buyer: Brick vs frame

Hi again. I've always been a sucker for frame houses but as I continue my search for a home, everyone is urging me to consider brick. Then today, the [...]
The first-time buyer: Shame about the entryway

The first-time buyer: Shame about the entryway

I know that many Yo readers don't seem to have a problem with buildings that aren't set back from the street, but I'm not a fan of them and I wonder h [...]

The first-time buyer: Home on the ranch

On Friday I made clear my dislike for the architecture of small Chicago ranch homes but I don't want to leave the impression that my comments apply to [...]
The first-time buyer: Choosy beggar

The first-time buyer: Choosy beggar

I don't mean to be mean - Ok, maybe I do. Here goes: who buys these little ranch houses? There, I said it. Got it off my chest. It was the chihuahua [...]
The first-time buyer: Streetside sex appeal

The first-time buyer: Streetside sex appeal

We're a shallow, looks-obsessed society. When our real estate agent bombards my email inbox with home listings I pounce on them, shuddering at the ugl [...]

The first-time buyer: Hitting the open houses

After our bar crawl through Avondale on Sunday we figured we probably should check out some open houses. We looked at three two-story frame homes. Eve [...]

The first-time buyer: Afternoon delight

No, not that kind of afternoon delight. Our exploration of neighborhoods on the Northwest Side takes us to Chief O'Neill's Pub & Restaurant, 3471 N El [...]

The first-time buyer: Son of a beach

The weather has been so great that I've taken a little hiatus from home-hunting in order to play dodge-the-E. coli-outbreak down at the lake. Recently [...]

The first-time buyer: Will we or won't we?

So our home inspector tells us the roof is dodgy, the preloved airconditioner has almost reached its best-before date, and there's that God-awful stin [...]

The first-time buyer: Feels like the first time

As we watched the home inspectors swarm all over our prospective condo and the surrounding building, we realized with homebuying novices we were. We h [...]

The first-time buyer: Watching the detectives

So it was time to let loose our home inspector on the condo we planned to buy. We weren't too concerned - the building is only about nine years old an [...]

The first-time buyer: I want my HBO

Around the time we had decided to make an offer on a condo, my home inspector-to-be urged me to get a copy of the condo board minutes. He says that th [...]

The first-time buyer: All's fair in love and real estate

As I said in my last post, we made an offer on the condo, and all seemed to be going well. The seller was due to sign off on the counter-offer on the [...]

The first-time buyer: name your price – it's no small beer

Is there anything more anxiety-provoking than making an offer on a new home? How the hell do you come up with your price? We were clueless about the w [...]

The first-time buyer: the FSBO and her fashion faux pas

So, in the hunt for our very first home, we decided we had looked at enough unimpressive rehabs, with their miserly dive rooms, and we should focus ba [...]

The first-time buyer: navigating the dive room

I'm still in the throes of conducting due diligence on the beautiful condo with the stinky hallway, and I haven't unearthed much today, so in the mean [...]

The first time buyer: On the trail of a (bad) scent

Thanks to those of you who responded to my cry for help yesterday, when I blogged about the God-awful odor in the common hallway outside the condo I'm [...]
1 2 20 / 29 POSTS