In the News

Ask ten people at a Bartlett backyard barbecue how real estate commissions work now, and you will get eleven answers. One neighbor swears commissions were “banned.” Another heard buyers have to pay their agent out of pocket. A third saw a website promising a settlement check if they file before some deadline. None of that…

A Skokie resident told village officials this summer that their parents are selling their out-of-state home to move closer, and the plan was simple: build a small place in the backyard. The problem was that Skokie’s code had no category for that. One request like that turns into a five-meeting Plan Commission process, a 7-0…

There’s a particular moment every longtime homeowner hits. You’re standing at the bottom of the stairs with a laundry basket, looking up at thirteen steps you’ve climbed a hundred thousand times, and a small voice says: maybe not for another twenty years. That moment is showing up in a lot of kitchens across Bartlett, Streamwood,…

Every national closing-cost guide says the same thing: budget 2% to 5% of your loan amount. That’s a fine number for a napkin. It’s also useless if you’re buying in Bartlett, because the national guides were written for a country where nobody hires an attorney, property taxes are paid on time, and “transfer stamps” sound…

Here’s a number nobody puts on the listing sheet: the cost of physically getting your stuff from the old house to the new one. Buyers budget down to the dollar for the down payment, the inspection and the title fees, then treat the move as an afterthought — right up until a crew parks a…

Every house hunter in the northwest suburbs eventually asks the same question, usually while standing in someone’s kitchen pretending to admire the backsplash: “How far is the train?” It’s a better question than most people realize, and this year the answer got a little more interesting, because the agency behind the train isn’t the same…

A housing reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer just published the most honest confession you will read this fall: after interviewing dozens of buyers, she bought her own house and still got burned. The inspection turned up cloth-insulated wiring that cost about $12,000 to replace. She’d have loved to ask the seller for a credit. She…

Realtor.com has circled a week on the calendar: Sunday, September 27 through Saturday, October 3. According to its annual study, that’s the best week of 2026 to buy a home, both nationally and in the Chicago metro specifically. The kids are back in school, the summer buyers have either closed or given up, and the…

Every closing in Illinois has a line item that surprises somebody. It isn’t the commission, and it isn’t the title insurance. It’s the transfer tax: a small, very old toll the state charges every time real estate changes hands. Most sellers find out about it on the settlement statement, and most buyers figure it’s somebody…

Here’s something that surprises almost every buyer we work with: the town on your mailing address tells you surprisingly little about where your kids will go to school. In the northwest suburbs, school district lines ignore village limits, county lines, and ZIP codes. Two houses on the same street, sometimes facing each other, can feed…