Announcements

The ability to search homes by Street Name has been available on lakeandcityhomes.com for some time, however it's been missing from the Quick Search on our home page. Until today, that is! Lake & City Homes Realty is happy to announce that we have added "Street name" (see arrow on screenshot) to the "Start Your Home Search" field in the quick search on our home page. So now, in addition to searching by City, Subdivision, Zip, or MLS number from the Quick Search, you can also type in a street name to quickly reference all the homes currently for sale on that street, regardless of city. 

In addition, we added a "By Address" tab to our advanced search form here. :) And, happily, we did not eliminate the ability to drill down and search by street name

Great news! We've added a new feature to our property details pages that we think you're gonna love. It's an idea similar to "Related Products" that we borrowed from Retailing except that it's for real estate so we call it "Similar Properties". Located near the bottom of every property details page you'll see four properties that are similar to the property you're currently looking at. The picture to the left is an example of what we mean. Underneath these four properties is a button marked "View all similar properties here" if you want a complete list of properties that are similar to the current property.

How do we define "similar"? Well, in order for a property to show up under "Similar Properties" it has to have the following characteristics:

Looking for the perfect ranch condo? Located just 10 minutes from downtown Madison in the popular zip code of 53711, this immaculately maintained, like-new ranch style condo located in Forest Glen Estates truly has it all! Main floor master suite with two walk-in closets, main floor study with French doors (currently used as a music room), nice-sized living room with gas fireplace, and beautiful gourmet kitchen with stainless steel Frigidaire appliances including gas range, refrigerator with French doors, dishwasher, and microwave. The gleaming granite countertops, gorgeous glass tile backsplashes, and custom lighting fixtures are simply dazzling! Relax at the breakfast bar, in the dining area, on the screen porch, or on the sun deck and enjoy the lush,

Happy New Year! We hope that your 2012 has gotten off to a great start. As a token of our appreciation for your business we have just rolled out a brand new look & feel for our flagship Madison real estate site, LakeandCityhomes.com. Please bear with us while we work out the kinks. We think that you're going to love the new functionality and improved readability.

Some of the more noticeable changes include:

• new & improved Quick Search at the top of the home page
• radius and polygon searches (included with Search by Map)
• more readable property details pages
• links to virtual tours (without leaving the site)
• create Saved Searches instantly 
• featured neighborhoods, communities
• rotating testimonials
• our new mobile site:

Ever wondered if there's an app for searching for Madison WI real estate? Well, you're in luck! Lake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce the launch of iLakeandCityhomes.com, the mobile edition of our flagship Madison WI real estate site LakeandCityhomes.com. The mobile addition of our site has some really cool features that our desktop version does not have that we think you're really going to love.

For starters, scroll down and click on a community that interests you. The app loads all the listings for that community in chronological order. That means the latest listings always appear at the top of your screen. That way you can stay on top of which listings are the newest to the market in that community. This is doubly helpful for quickly checking

A small but critical omission has been corrected on the Property Details pages of LakeandCityHomes.com. First, some background info to put things into context:

Recently I added Lot Size to the search criteria for all the available searches on the site, however when a site visitor looked at the Property Details page for any given property, Lot Size/Acreage was nowhere to be found in the information displayed. But thanks to a very observant visitor to the site, this was pointed out to me and I corrected the issue as quickly as I could. My heartfelt thanks to Jessica for her valuable feedback!

Below are screen shots showing where you can specify one or more Lot Sizes to your property searches, as well as where you can now see Lot Size/Acreage displayed

Great news for anyone searching for Madison area golf course homes and condos! In addition to the four new search criteria recently added to our advanced search screens (Basement, New Construction, REO/Foreclosure and Short Sale), you can now search for homes and condos for sale that are located directly on Madison area golf courses. Whether you prefer to search by City, Subdivision, School, Waterfront, or Zip Code, our new golf course search option works with each of these advanced search tools.

To get started, simply choose one of the advanced search options from the Listings menu located on the home page (or click the large graphic marked Advanced Search). Select the city, subdivision, etc that you're interested in, type of property (home or condo),

Great news for anyone searching for Madison area homes and condos online! Due to popular demand we've just added four new search criteria to our advanced search screens. The new search options, which apply to any type of search be it City, Subdivision, School Waterfront, or Zip Code are...drumroll, please...Basement, New Construction, REO/Foreclosure, and Short Sale. Now you can set up searches that will narrow down your results even further by utilizing these additional criteria.

To get started, simplly choose one of the advanced search options from the Listings menu located on the home page (or click the big button marked Advanced Search). Select the city, subdivision, etc that you're interested in, type of property (home or condo), number of

In case you missed it, this week we announced on Lake & City Homes Facebook Fan Page our new Market Snapshot reports. What's a market snapshot? It's a personalized report that charts current up-to-the-minute market activity about homes in your neighborhood (or any area you specify within a 3-5 mile radius of a given property address). The report includes data such as sold homes and condos, homes and condos currently for sale, inventory counts and even days-on-market. These reports are a fantastic resource if you've been asking yourself any of these burning questions:

• How do my neighborhood's home values stack up?
• What are homes worth in my target area?
• What's my current home worth?
• Is now a good time to sell?
• Has the market stabilized?

To get

In order of popularity, here are the top 10 most viewed blog posts here at Lake & City Views for the year 2010:

1. Parade of Homes 2010: Madison homes show
   Avoiding aggregators to get the freshest real estate listings
   Madison ranks 2nd healthiest U.S city for men in 2010
   When is it okay to walk away from your mortgage?
   Madison WI ranks most secure place to live
   How Much Home Can You Afford?
   Wisconsin Still Faring Better Than the Rest of the Country in Terms of Foreclosure Rates
   How to Choose Your Madison WI Realtor
   Madison Ranks 3rd Best City For Families
   New "walkable" homes quicksearch added
   

Noteworthy is the number of awards that Madison continues to rack up year in and year out. Overall, this list seems to be a pretty good barameter of what people