Michael Thomas's (michael_thomas) Blog

As if it's not tough enough to encourage some cash-strapped owners to keep their property in good condition, they are offered this advice:7 tips to lower your property taxes...4. Limit Curb Appeal Tax assessors use a very strict set of guidelines when evaluating a house. However, the assessment d...

YouTube home improvement public service message from 1944.

  Fixed!  

I’ve been looking at foreclosures, and recently saw at a small 2BR house in a Chicago suburb with extensive termite and water damage. After sharpening my pencil and costing it out I was considering offering $50-60K as a rehab (unusual situation where two single family homes had been condo'ed on t...

I've been seeing too many of these lately - the problem, I guess, is that there are really no standards or certifications for "winterizers", and out-of-state title holders are hiring the low bidder. Some of there are real heart-breakers, previously sound structures that are being destroyed by win...

Interesting and IMO pretty scary read on the fundamentals of the housing market in areas that have experienced high appreciation.

Doing some research on foreclosed property I was interested to run into these results from a ServiceMagic survey of homeowners who were trying to deal with neighbors who were not properly maintaining their property:"More than 60% have or have had neighbors who make the street look bad...  18% sai...

OK, I think we can all agree it's an ugly, ugly crawl space.But what's interesting about it is how it got to be the way it is, click here - this was one of those CSI inspection moments... BTW, the buyer's agent - Beth Morgan, of Prairie Shore Real Estate in Evanston, IL - got down there with me. ...

Well …it’s winter here in Chicago – 21F this morning – and I’m getting calls to inspect vacant and/or “winterized” (mostly foreclosure or pre-foreclosure) properties in below freezing conditions. This means it’s going to be getting harder and harder to perform an inspection that assists my client...

Hi,I've been reading here for a while, posting occasionally to other peoples blogs, and as I'm in the process of gradually moving content up to a new web site I though though this would be a good time to start getting some feedback from  RE professionals other than other inspectors and my clients...