Assessments, taxes, & mil rates

Is your heart set on a classic Cape Cod, a cool Contemporary, or a character-filled Victorian?  The beauty and diversity of architecture is one of the most enjoyable aspects of real estate. But when buying a home it can also be confusing if you're unfamiliar what's available or unsure which styles you'll like best. If you do have your mind made up, how do you access just your favorite style homes for sale?

Whether or not you've decided what style's for you, it's easy to find the Madison home of your dreams with our new Guide to Madison homes. Here you'll find brief descriptions of the most popular housing styles found in Madison along with one-click access to all the homes currently for sale in each category of architecture.

What style home do you

Lake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce the addition of property taxes and room dimensions to our Details tab!

We recognize that it's a hassle to have to leave LakeandCityhomes.com to look up property taxes for Madison homes you find of interest. Or to have to contact us when you want to know whether the room dimensions for a certain Madison area property are going to be adequate for you or your family's needs. We also recognize that Madison property taxes can be very high and that many homes seem too be good to be true until you get a chance to see the actual room dimensions. So we went ahead and added property taxes and room dimensions to our Details page. We want to take the hassle and aggravation out of your Madison home search and make it a

Two days and counting until Tax Day! That means prospective homeowners better close the deal if they want to take advantage of the tax credit, which could return up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers and $6,500 to repeat buyers. Thankfully, qualified service members from the Armed Forces, intelligence community or The Foreign Service have an extra year to put this tax credit to use.

Homebuyers that meet one of those criteria and are on official extended duty, deadlines for the tax credit are extended. They have until April 30, 2011 to sign a binding sales contract that is closed by July 30, 2011.

Those considering home buying should seriously consider Wisconsin. Thanks to its mix of rural and urban areas, the state of Wisconsin has an attractive range

I'm pleased to announce that after two weeks of enduring a steep learning curve for video editing, a variety of technical issues and glitches, and a fair degree of performance anxiety, I'm finally ready to kick off our new monthly housing update! It's dubbed The Madison Market Update because it's focused on the residential Madison WI real estate market.

In today's premier edition of the Madison Market Update you'll find highlights of the Madison housing market year-to-date with comparisons to last year using measures such as sales volume, average prices, average days on market and more. The Madison Market Update will be updated monthly and you'll have access to all the charts and graphs discussed in each edition via our Madison Market Statistics page

As both a Realtor and consumer, it would be hard not to notice what an overwhelming success the first-time homebuyer's $8K tax credit has been both nationally and on the Madison real estate market. Both homebuyer interest and housing sales shot through the roof before the ink was even dry on the legislation. Although lower prices and historically low interest rates have certainly been a huge draw, it's clear the $8K tax credit is primarily responsible for consumers' renewed interest in homeownership in the midst of the massive mortgage meltdown and ensuing housing crisis.


But progress may come to a screeching halt unless Congress extends the credit through 2010. Without an extension of the legislation, many people will miss out. Those who couldn't

A client recently posed this question, "Do you think if we got rid of the hot tub it would help?" Translation: Would getting rid of our hot tub make our property more attractive to buyers?

The client suggested she freecycle the hot tub. In fact, she thought she'd have no problem getting rid of it by the weekend. I don't know a lot about hot tubs (I've never owned one) but I wondered how she'd get rid of it so quickly if it was so undesirable. Afterall, it was already Thursday when she made the suggestion. Then again, that hot tub (see photo) wasn't looking so hot. It actually made her newly refinished deck look a little shabby. Then she mused, "I don't think anyone even wants a hot tub anymore. It costs a fortune to keep it running in the winter and

That old joke about how your tax assessor views your property may be more true than you realize...

In a recent conversation with City of Madison Assessor's Office I was struck by two things: One, the fact that the office of the City Assessor of Madison does not have unfettered access to the South Central Wisconsin MLS (apparently they they have access to Sold listings but do not have access to Active, Pending and Expired listings). And two (and perhaps more surprising), that in valuing properties for the purpose of determining homeowners' annual property assessments, the City doesn't use certain recent comparable solds. Which recent comps, you might ask? Well, recent comps deemed by the City to have been "sold under duress" as in, you guessed it, short