Popular neighborhoods

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

…

Enjoy modern living? The Middleton Hills subdivision contains a variety of homes with modern prairie style architecture and design, including a beautiful landscape of the Midwestern wetlands. Located in the City of Middleton, this subdivision is within close proximity to Morey Airport, is within biking distance to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, and is a mere eight miles from Madison Wisconsin's State Capitol. Middleton Hills promotes "going green" in the truest sense of the word as there is no shortage of recreational space for outdoor activities.

The views from Middleton Hills are, in a word, stunning. In addition to the breathtakingly beautiful prairie style homes, there are picturesque views of the surrounding lakes that are sure to

…

In times of economic uncertainty, identifying a safe and secure environment in which to live, work and raise a family has undoubtedly become a much bigger priority for many Americans than before. In a survey released by Farmers Insurance Group in late December 2009, Madison Wisconsin ranked the third most secure place to live in the United States compared to the largest U.S. metropolitan areas.

The rankings used in the study considered factors ranging from crime statistics, extreme weather, risk of natural disasters, threat of terrorism, housing market depreciation, foreclosure rates, air quality, life expectancy, and job loss numbers. In total, 379 U.S. municipalities were evaluated for the study.

The survey ranked the top 20 cities (or metropolitan

…

Things are about to get harder for first-time home buyers who have their sights set on an FHA (Federal Housing Authority) home mortgage. Borrowers will soon be required to have "more skin in the game", according to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. Donovan is scheduled to announce the following FHA policy changes when he testifies next Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee:

1. increase up-front cash paid by FHA borrowers from the current 3.5% (one lawmaker is proposing 5%)
2. raise the minimum credit scores for borrowers who receive FHA-backed mortgages to protect the FHA from the riskiest borrowers (the current minimum credit score requirement is a mere 500 out of 850)
3. limit the amount of money sellers can kick in from

…

You may or may not like the song or even the band (seriously though, who doesn't like R.E.M.?), but we're sure you're gonna love our new MLS data feed!

Starting today, instead of new property listings hitting our site every 24 hours, they're going to hit our site every three hours. That's right, LakeandCityHomes.com now receives data (new listings, photos, price updates, etc) from the South Central WI MLS every three hours rather than once a day! How do you like that frequency?!

Why is that important, you might be asking yourself? Simply put, if you're looking to buy a property in a popular neighborhood or sought-after area, you're going to have some stiff competition, even in a buyer's market. But now that the listings on our website are updated

…

Lake and City Homes Realty is proud to announce the addition of demographics to its flagship Madison WI real estate website! Three new batches of neighborhood-specific information now appears under a new tab, "Get Local", conveniently located on all our Property Details pages. As a result, we think our Madison real estate site truely qualifies as a one-stop shopping destination for those interested in buying Madison area real estate!

As you can see in the screenshot to the right, our new Get Local tab has three distinct information groupings:

1. Nearby Amenities
2. Nearby Schools
3. Neighborhood Information

Under the Nearby Amenities tab, the names of businesses are shown along with the relevant business category and approximate distances from the subject

…

CNNMoney.com has once again put Madison WI on one of its Best Places lists, this time for the 20th best place to launch a small business startup. Madison usually ranks well in such lists due to its relatively low unemployment and highly educated population and this time Madison's well-deveoped transportation system and moderate weather were also cited as pluses (note: some might beg to differ on the latter!).

Other reasons that Madison WI was chosen one of the best places in the nation to launch a small business startup:

• The UW-Madison runs a Small Business Development Center and has a ready supply of students and graduates for hire
• The economic development initiative Thrive is helping to grow the local biotech, agriculture and health care industries

…

Yesterday I discussed how home sales were up a respectable 12.63% in July 2009 vs July 2008 on the West Side of Madison after six straight months of year-over-year declines. The question I posed was whether this signals a turnaround for the housing market on the West Side of Madison? The jury may still be out on the West Side but a clearer picture could be emerging for Madison's East Side where sales of single family homes have been up for not one but two consecutive months. After five straight months of year-over-year declines ranging from 7.35% to a whopping 35%, sales of single-family homes on Madison's East Side were up 3.05% and 29.63% in June and July 2009, respectively, compared to June and July 2008 (see chart below). Could a turnaround in the

…

After sales plummeted each month from 4.1% to 27.62% during January-June 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, sales of single family homes on Madison's West Side rose a respectable 12.63% in July 2009 compared to July 2008 (see chart below). Could this be the beginning of a turnaround in the Madison West Side housing market?

 

Other highlights:

• The volume of homes sold on the West Side of Madison from January-July 2009 was down 7.67% (to 819) vs the same period in 2008.
• The average price of a West Side Madison home was down 8.64% (to $274,097) from January-July 2009 vs the same period in 2008, making West Side homes more affordable.
• The volume of listings was down 11.55% (to 1,547) from January-July 2009 vs the same period in 2008,

…

San Francisco was recently named "Best Walking City in America" by Prevention magazine in conjunction with the American Podiatric Medical Association and Sperling's Best Places. Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago competed for the remaining top four spots. Among the 19 criteria utilized for comparing different metro areas was "population density per square miles of public parks". Prevention also published a list of honorable mentions - cities considered best for families, nature walks, fitness walkers and walking commuters.

Lake & City Homes recently integrated WalkScore into its MLS search criteria. As a result, you can view how high the walkability factor is for properties that interest you right on our Property Details page. Read about how

…