Lake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce a new page called All Today's New Listings designed to help you quickly focus in on the newest listings to go on the South Central WI MLS during the previous 24 hours. Simply go to the Listings tab (or the Buyers tab) at the top of the home page and choose "All Today's New Listings" from the drop-down menu or choose the link entitled "ALL Today's New Listings" under Popular Searches on the right-hand side of the home page.

Be sure to check this new listings page frequently - that way you'll be one of the first to know about the latest property listings (homes, condos, and other real estate for sale) to go on the South Central WI MLS and you'll be seeing those listings before they hit the national listings…

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search the South Central WI MLS by waterfrontLake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce that we've expanded our MLS Search to include a dedicated Search By Waterfront page!

Choose Your Waterfront Options

Choose from a variety of waterfront options such as water frontage or water view, on a lake, river, or other type of water, whether or not a dock/pier is included in the sale, and how much frontage you need with your lakefront property.

Choose Your Location

You can choose from a list of locations that updates dynamically depending on what's currently available on the market. For example, if there are properties for sale on (or with a view of) Lake Mendota, Lake Monona, Lake Kegonsa, or Lake Waubesa, any or all of those lake names will show up in the list of locations. Of course you can…

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Boomers will represent 25% of the total U.S. population by 2010. Although most baby boomers prefer to stay in their own homes as they age, an increasing number - an estimated 1.2 million households intotal - plan to move to "active-lifestyle communities", according to arecent study by the National Association of Home Builders and theMetLife Mature Market Institute. As a result, as boomers get closer to retirement they're expected to have a huge impact on housing trends.

What's an active-lifestyle community? Generally it's considered an attractive, resort-style community that's restricted and specifically geared toward active adults aged 55 and over. Such communities often seek to emulate the amenities found at luxury resorts, such as golf, fitness…

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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…

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It's well established that walking offers better health, fewer greenhouse gases, more transportation options (e.g. bicycling and busing), increased social interaction with family and neighbors, and stronger local businesses. So in its effort to match people with Homes that fit their lifestyle, we at Lake & City Homes are proud to announce the addition of WalkScore to LakeandCityHomes.com. We simply love that WalkScore ranks thousands of neighborhoods all over the country to help you find a walkable place to live. So we decided to integrate that functionality into our search capabilities and more. Here's how we do it (so far):

Search for "highly walkable" homes 

A "Walk Score Minimum" field has been added to our MLS Search so you can search for homes…

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Federal officials on Monday reversed an earlier decision to allow first-time home buyers to use an $8,000 tax credit to borrow the down payment on a home.

A week earlier, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan had told the National Association of Home Builders that HUD would let banks and local governments offer short-term "bridge loans" to cover the down payment for first-time buyers eligible for the tax credit. The loans would have been available to applicants for federally insured mortgages such as Federal Housing Administration loans.

Lenders, home builders and real estate agents had reacted favorably to the bridge-loan proposal, saying it would open up the housing market to more first-time buyers, however it was…

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Federal Housing Commissioner Brian D. Montgomery has extended the temporary property flipping waiver to May 10, 2010.  Under  the waiver, homes that were foreclosed on and are being sold by the mortgagee or on its behalf may be purchased by FHA borrowers without regard to the 90-day seasoning period. The waiver does not apply to entities that purchase foreclosures either singly or in bulk for resale.  Subsequent sales of such properties will continue to be subject to the standard regulatory requirements.   

The waiver expires for all loans for which the sales agreements were signed by the seller and buyer on or before May 10, 2010.

What all this means is that a person who purchases a home (more than likely a home that is in foreclosure or at a sheriff sale)…

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act recently enacted by the United States Congress provides Dane County first-time home buyers with a $8,000 tax credit. The current legislation supercedes rules that were enacted back in the fall of 2008. Here are the top ten facts to know about the free $8,000 credit:

1. Available to Dane County first-time home buyers (a first-time home buyer is someone who has not owned real estate in the last three years).

2. Available for all principle residences including single family homes, condominiums, townhouses, and owner-occupied residential income property.

3. Home must be purchased between January 1st, 2009 and December 1st, 2009 inclusive.

4. The credit does NOT require repayment.

5. The full amount of the credit is…

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"Lake, City, Lake." You know it as the City of Madison's trademark. And now it describes the content on our website more accurately than ever before! 


Lake & City Homes Realty is proud to announce eight new search shortcuts for quickly locating new waterfront listings in Madison WI and its surrounding communities. All eight shortcuts are accessible from the homepage of LakeAndCityHomes.com. First, there are daily updated listings and prices for Madison lakefront homes. These are properties in Madison or elsewhere in Dane County that are either situated on a lake or on a river and which include actual water frontage, be it 50' of water frontage all the way up to 300' of frontage or more. Secondly, there are daily updated prices and listings for Madison…

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Something to ponder over your morning coffee this Monday morning: a whopping 45% of all U.S. housing sales in Q4'08 were categorized as "distressed" (foreclosures and short sales).

Clearly the housing situation in the U.S. is serious and getting worse with each passing day as the economy deteriorates. Last week President Obama introduced a comprehensive plan to address the situation. Here are the salient points to understanding President Obama's mortgage bailout plan:

  1. only owner-occupied homes will be eligible for mortgage assistance (2nd homes and vacation homes are ineligible, as are speculative buys and properties that were bought to "flip")
  2. purchasers who did "liar loans" will be ineligible (includes no doc loans in which no income or…

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