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        <title>Chicago Suburb Real Estate &amp; Area Guide</title>
        <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/chicago-suburb-events/</link>
        <description>New real estate listings, entertainment, recreation, news and things to do in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.</description>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/happy-birthday-homer-glen.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/happy-birthday-homer-glen.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Happy Birthday Homer Glen</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
If you missed the 10th anniversary festival of Homer Glen's incorporation, you missed a great time!  I went last Friday night to see my husband's band play, The New Invaders.  I thought it was great that the village tried to get entertainment from the "locals."  We live in Homer Glen and that is one reason The New Invaders were hired.  The carnival was big, there was food, music and activities, making this Homer Glen's biggest festival to date.  Our friend owns Chesdan's Restaurant and was one of the sponsors.


If you're interested in living in Chicago's youngest suburb, check out the Homer Glen homes page where you can see a list of available properties without having to do a search.  Then get in touch with Judy Orr, a Homer Glen homeowner, and we'll start searching for your Homer Glen property.  You can reach me at 708-536-8200.
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            <pubDate>Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:13:26 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/new-look-coming-for-cook-will-county-real-estate-site.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/new-look-coming-for-cook-will-county-real-estate-site.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>New Look Coming for Cook &amp; Will County Real Estate Site</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
There have been several different websites and looks over the years on this site.  I even made some tweaks to the Cook &amp; Will County Real Estate website last year to make it easier to read and navigate.  Below is my prior look for the Cook County Real Estate website:





The upcoming change will be more drastic.  Although I chose a layout that is similar to the look above, the colors, heading and other items will be different.  Again, I will strive to keep the site relevant with great real estate content but easy to use.


Maybe you're a buyer that doesn't need to read how to buy a place as you might be on your 3rd home.  You just want to search the MLS.  And that will be another site improvement.  A better MLS search offering even more data than before.


This Chicago area blog will match the new website (although I've always liked the set-up below) and will be a more seamless part of it.  I currently have to manually add new blog posts to the home page, it will be done automatically once the site has been updated.  The photo below is my original Chicago Suburbs Real Estate area blog:





 


While waiting for the changes I will not be posting any further blog posts (I hope it doesn't take too long), since they all have to be moved over to the new platform.  I am anxious to see the new website and will sign off for now.  The above layout is like my "baby" - it was my first semi-custom website and it will be difficult to let it go.  But it's time...
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            <pubDate>Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:25:30 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/homer-glen-festival.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/homer-glen-festival.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Homer Glen Festival</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
It was great timing to be able to attend this year's Homer Glen Parade and Festival since we'll be moving to our Homer Glen home soon.  My husband's old band (he doesn't play with them much anymore as he is in a different band) played last year and this year.  I missed last year's festival so was happy to be able to make it this year, although I didn't see the parade.


I thought that attendance was light but my friend told me it was twice as many people as last year's event.  It will hopefully grow larger year after year.  


Someone mentioned that there was a wolf on display so I went looking.  Before finding the wolf I stopped by a petting area with some interesting looking alpacas (I thought they were llamas), goats and a pony.





Behind the petting area was an animal display compliments of Big Run Wolf Ranch.  There was a beautiful white wolf to one side.  On the other side of the display there were cages with a baby skunk (my husband got to pet it but it was in the cage when I was there), a beautiful coyote that I thought was a young wolf, a hedgehog or something and a baby raccoon.  The raccoon was reaching through the cage and hitting a baby wolf that was sleeping in front of it's cage on a leash.  I could have watched them all afternoon.





 


I did not get a photo of Bubba the alligator, who was pretty inactive.  I had seen that he was on the ground but when I returned he was in the van with his tail hanging out.  There were also a couple of snakes and I hate snakes so I didn't stick around.


Homer Glen got lucky with the weather.  Although there were soggy spots in the grass from the rain we've had lately, it was sunny out and hot, with some welcomed breezes.


Click the link if you're interested in Homer Glen homes.  I'm looking forward to move to the area.
 ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:54:09 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/follow-me-and-be-my-friend.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/follow-me-and-be-my-friend.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Follow Me and Be My Friend</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
I have been on Facebook for quite some time.  My friends range from family, actual friends (some that I've grown up with), clients and other real estate related people.  I don't post a lot but I've discovered a new item that will automatically send my Twitter Tweets to Facebook and my LinkedIn account called Hootlet which makes it much easier.  


If you'd like to join me on Facebook then go to my Facebook Badge on my sidebar to the right.  


I just started a Twitter account and I still don't understand what all the interest is.  I can't keep up with all the tweets and prefer the Facebook experience much better.  But if you'd like to follow me go to my Twitter button to the right.


And if you'd just like to start searching for a new home fill out my Home Finder Form or you can start out with an MLS search.  Get your Facebook &amp; Twitter buttons by clicking the link.  
 ]]> </description>
            <pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:07:53 -0600</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/local-hgtv-buy-me-show.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/local-hgtv-buy-me-show.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Local HGTV Buy Me Show</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
 


I caught a great "Buy Me" show on HGTV today that was shot in Chicago.  It was very interesting because one of the owners was a long-time veteran real estate agent that had her REALTOR son list the home.  


It was a very unique, custom styled 3-story and although the home owners seemed to acknowledge that they were looking for that special (needle-in-a-haystack) buyer, they were not cooperating with their son about staging the home and pricing it correctly.  And it kind of bothered me that as a real estate agent, the wife was one of the most difficult to convince.


She had a difficult time de-cluttering and kept items that her son tried to get her to store away.  And she wanted to try a very high price even after her son showed her comparables and tried explaining that they were wasting time at such a high price.  But she wouldn't budge or acknowlege his factual data.  As a real estate agent, whether retired or active, in my opinion, she should have known better!  


The husband seemed to be more realistic - in the beginning.  The son told him that the price was too high and at one point the husband said that his wife needed to face reality.  Yet in the end, it was the husband that pulled the plug, although that was probably a planned television edit. 


They admitted they were greedy


In the beginning of the show they stated that they were as greedy as any other buyer or seller out there.  Their reason for selling was to downsize and retire early.  But in order for that plan to work, they needed to get a certain amount of money for their home.  


After the de-cluttering


Since the agent was their son, he had to do some hands-on de-clutteirng for his parents.  It was a funny battle.  He was packing things while Mom was looking through old photos.  I felt sorry for him as he seemed to be doing everything right.


He held a broker's open and the comments were too much stuff (after de-cluttering) and too high a price.  It's like these comments went through one ear and out the other with these stubborn sellers. 


And time went by


I believe it was on the market for around 4 months.  They held open houses and there were showings.  But buyers felt the place was outdated and would require too much money to fix it up, they felt it was overpriced, bedrooms were too small, it only had one bathroom, it had a weird floor plan, etc.  Bottom line, it was not priced correctly and the son knew it and simply could not convince his parents. 


He was fired


They set up a cutesy scene where the son/agent goes for a visit to discuss lowering the price.  Prior to this scene the veteran agent/wife/mom actually admits they're priced too high and states that they won't sell until they reduce.  But then when son visits Dad is the one to drop the bomb that they are going to stay in the home and that his son is fired.  His son is shown alone where he states something about a house not selling if it's priced too high.  


All in all, this was a tough one.  If your parents or any other family member wants to list their house you're most likely not going to refer them to someone else.  In fact, when the son was first explaining to his parents what the house should be priced at and could see their displeasure, he reminded them that he's their son and he's telling them the truth.


But working with family and friends is something some of us would almost prefer to avoid.  It can cause bad feelings on both sides.  In this case, the son was working hard and getting nowhere.  These two were the kind of sellers an agent doesn't want!  


I tried searching for the listing


I searched through the Chicago MLS to try to find this property but using different methods I could not find it.  I figured at some point it showed as an expired or canceled listing but maybe because of the notoriety created by the show they were able to remove it.  I thought it was a Chicago address but nothing came up.  Maybe the show alters some things like price and people's names (all they showed was the first name of the listing agent son and the first names of the sellers).  It never showed the full house address and I have no idea what street it was on.


So I don't know if they ever sold the property, but with the continuous market decline it would be worth less now than it was then and they weren't happy about the price at that time.  That's another thing that bothers me about this scenario.  They wanted to downsize as the property was too big for them.  But they had an unrealistic price in mind.  So instead of downsizing and probably saving money in the long-run, they stayed in the too large home because they couldn't get their price.  That kind of thinking just doesn't make sense to me.


But then I guess I'm not the typical seller.  As an experienced REALTOR, I price my property at the low end of the range.  I de-clutter and stage my properties to their best.  I am not emotional and treat it as a financial transaction and am realistic about the market.  When I want to sell I have made that decision and I'm not just trying it out like many sellers seem to do.


This is a great show for sellers to watch


This is a TV program I suggest sellers watch before and during the sale of their property.  Although I feel most of these shows are scripted and staged, it also seems to be pretty realistic.  It shows sellers upset with the lack of progress and it shows them blaming their agent when it's easy to see that they're being unrealistic.  It also shows how agents get frustrated with these sellers that won't face facts.  Some of the homes sell, many don't, so it's not always a feel-good story with a happy ending.  It's real real estate stories.


I don't sell too much in the city of Chicago, but if you're looking for Orland Park homes give Judy Orr a call at 708-536-8200 or fill out the Automated Home Finder Form to get listings sent directly to your e-mail. 
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            <pubDate>Sun, 31 May 2009 17:45:01 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/nu-grad-students-party-hardy-at-the-field-museum.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/nu-grad-students-party-hardy-at-the-field-museum.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>NU Grad Students Party Hardy at The Field Museum</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
When I attended K-5th grade at Paul Revere Elementary School in Blue Island, IL, every year we went to The Field Museum for our field trip.  Friends in other schools seemed to go to a different place every year such as the zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry.  But Paul Revere only went to The Field Museum.


I'm not complaining as I love the place.  I try to get there with my grandkids as much as possible and always enjoy the visit.  We never seem to make it through every single exhibit when we visit so there's always something to look forward to the next time.


Did You Know You Can Have Group Gatherings After Hours?


I've heard about companies and other groups being able to rent space in public properties like The Field Museum but I've never thought much about it.  Until I caught a news article being syndicated in many different online venues about students of Northwestern Univerity's Kellogg School of Management that rented an area in the museum for an after hours party.


Seems like the museum sells alcohol during these kinds of parties but it was found that the students brought their own, which is against policy.  But the worst part of the event was the "half dozen or so" students (according to Northwestern spokesman Al Cubbage) that were over served and causing trouble, which forced the museum's bar to close down. 


The Chicago Sun Times wrote that students vomited on the floor, spit at people, passed out and threw things at Sue herself.  However, according to the article, "Field Museum spokeswoman Nancy O'Shea denied any objects were thrown at Sue during the after-hours party."


Students Were Reprimanded 


Imagine the embarrassment of the Kellogg Student Association.  Vice President Andrea Hanson sent an e-mail to students reprimanding them for their behavior.  She passed on her feelings of how it might be more difficult in the future to get anyone to host Kellogg student events and even insinuated that this could decrease the value of a Kellogg MBA for us and future students.


We Know About Those Few Bad Apples...  


There were around 700 students attending the function and only some of them were drunk and acting out.  But to be causing trouble in a place like Chicago's Field Museum is gonna get some unwanted press.  


I think we all have places in our heart for our nationally known and popular museum and it hurts us to think that anyone would be desecrating such a beloved Chicago icon.  I hope these revelers have learned a lesson and take some responsibility for giving their school a bad name.  And I'm glad no real damage was done.
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            <pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:30:27 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/tweeter-center-in-trouble.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/tweeter-center-in-trouble.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Tweeter Center in Trouble?</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 



It's hard for me to refer to the original World Music Theatre by its current name, The First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre.  That just isn't a very catchy name.  I knew something was up when my husband told me that Jimmy Buffett (sorry, not a fan) was going to be playing at Bridgeview's Toyota Park instead of the venue that put Tinley Park real estate on the map.


In fact, The First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre was put up for sale last summer at a price tag of 50 million dollars.  I'm not sure what is meant by the following taking from the Southtown Star newspaper:  The current owners, Live Nation, will not sell it to anyone who would maintain it as an entetainment vanue.  But in another paragraph it is stated:  The man charged with selling the property, CB Ellis Vice President Mike Nardini, has said an interested buyer likely would enclosed the 12,000-seat portion to use as a small amphitheater and ditch the lawn seats.  Isn't that still considered an entertainment venue?


Concert ticket sales have fallen 16% from 2006 to 2007.  Even though I never really cared for this particular venue and only attended a few concerts when it first opened up, it's sad to see this Tinley Park landmark go away.  I can imagine that the nearby residents will be very happy to see it end because it will also end the noise and traffic they've endured for years.     
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            <pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:54:57 -0600</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/bengstons-pumpkin-farm.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/bengstons-pumpkin-farm.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Bengston's Pumpkin Farm</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
My favorite holiday is Halloween so I needed to get something on this blog about it. There are many pumpkin farms in Northern IL and although I have a very long list, I decided just to mention those located in the southwest suburbs since that is where I work. The photo is a carved pumpkin on display at Benstons's Pumpkin Farm located at 13341 W. 151st St., Homer Glen, IL 60491. The phone number is 708-301-3276. Hours are 7 days a week from 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. and free parking is offered.There is much more than pumpkins at this farm so give yourself time to enjoy all of the offerings which include a petting zoo, pig races, the Haunted Fun Barn, pony and train rides, cow milking and more! You can get a coupon and find out more on Bengston's web site which is located here. Be sure to visit one of the most popular areas of Homer Glen Real Estate before the big day. Have fun! Photo Originally uploaded by Ryan Kinderman 






Children's Farm Pick-Your-Own-Pumpkin


Another local place that offers more than just pumpkins is The Children's Farm in Palos Park.  It is located just north of 131st St. on Southwest Highway.  The Children's Farm Pumpkin Patch is open every day in October from 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 10:00 a.m. - 4 p.m. on the weekends.  Their phone number is 708-361-3650.  Their web site isn't as fun as Benston's but if you're interested in going here there is more information on the site which is here.




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            <pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:08:09 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/say-good-bye-to-swallow-cliff-toboggan-slides.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/say-good-bye-to-swallow-cliff-toboggan-slides.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Say Good-bye to Swallow Cliff Toboggan Slides</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
    Photo originally uploaded by PaulEisenberg


Let me first say that I have never had fun on the Swallow Cliff Toboggan Slides located in Palos Township.  A friend of mine broke her back on them in the '60s and the truth is, I don't think I'd be interested even if that didn't happen.  I'm afraid of heights and fast rides.  But I've used that excuse about my friend ever since.      My son Chad &amp; I wound up at the Toboggan Slides walking a trail at Horseshoe Lake located in Palos Park over the summer this year.  Because I've never been on the cliffs I couldn't remember exactly where they were located.  Running into them during a trail walk was like finding an old treasure.      Sadly, that treasure, dangerous or not, will be leaving us.  Cook County Forest Preserve District commissioners voted this week to get rid of the slides and regrade the hill for sledding.  They feel repairing them would cost too much.  It was stated that fixing them would run around $4 million, whereas removing them and regrading the hill would be approximately $1.3 million dollars.      They were officially closed down in 2004 but were operable for decades.  However, weather had to be cooperative for them to be used with enough snow (at least 4 inches) and temps of 25 degrees or under.        These are not the only slides that will be removed in Cook County.  I thought we had the only toboggan slides in the area but others are being removed from Bemis Woods in Western Springs and Deer Grove in Palatine.      Even though I had no use for these slides I guess I'm just a sentimental fool.  There were a couple others on the committee that did not want this memory erased but they were outnumbered by their opponents and the financial facts.  I'll need to take my grandkids out there and take more photos to remember this piece of Palos Park real estate before it's gone. 
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            <pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:12:56 -0500</pubDate>
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            <guid>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/have-a-great-chicago-suburb-4th-of-july.html</guid>
            <link>http://www.cook-county-real-estate.net/blog/have-a-great-chicago-suburb-4th-of-july.html</link>
            <author>judyorr@gmail.com (Judy Orr)</author>
            <title>Have a great Chicago Suburb 4th of July</title>
            <description> <![CDATA[ 
UPDATE:  This was originally posted in 2006.  Wherever you might celebrate, either in Chicago or one of the Chicago suburbs, have a safe and happy 4th of July celebration. If you don't have any plans you might want to drive to Winnetka to see The New Invaders play. 


I attended last year and the fireworks were great (so was the band). Bring a lawn chair or blanket. It is going to be a little colder tonight than it has been recently with less humidity. So dress accordingly. Check out my weather in Chicago page.


The celebration will be held at Duke Childs Field at Hubbard &amp; Willow in Winnetka, IL, with the band starting at 6:30 and ending at 9:00 and the fireworks will be shot off afterwards.  
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            <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jul 2006 09:16:49 -0500</pubDate>
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