Jeanine McShea has seen plenty of ups and downs in residential real estate since she began her career 25 years ago. McShea, who was @Properties’ president of brokerage services, jumped ship late last month to become an executive vice president at Koenig & Strey Real Living and manage its Gold Coast office.
In an interview shortly after taking the job, McShea answered five questions about the state of a housing market that could, at best, be called difficult.
Q: How would you characterize the Chicago market?
A: The downtown marketplace, there’s definitely more activity. I don’t think prices are on the rise yet. I think they’re maybe flat. Maybe we’ve seen the bottom of the market.
There’s also more realism on both the part of the sellers and the buyers. There aren’t a lot of testers.
Q: What’s the most important thing for a buyer and a seller to ask a real estate agent they may work with?
A: Ask your friends that you trust who did they use. That’s the first thing. Interview the top five firms in market share and find the person who’s most familiar with the neighborhood and the hardest-working agent who is 24/7 and understands this business.
I’m not so concerned about (how much) the agent sold. Ask what the firm sold. The average agent is working four times as hard to get the same accomplished as they did four years ago. Especially on the sell side, ask what the marketing (plan) will be.
Q: Are open houses important?
A: I don’t think open houses sell properties like they used to. Everyone is on the Internet. Buyers go online first, even six months to a year before the purchase. Open houses are more now for sellers to see what is their competition.
Q: How many houses are too many to look at?
A: If they’re looking at more than 20 units, and they’re really serious in their search, then the buyer doesn’t know what they want or they haven’t been able to communicate that. The buyer after 15 places, even in different neighborhoods, should be very educated on what’s out there. As for that perfect house that may be just around the corner, you’ve already seen it.
Q: How difficult is it to advise clients without steering them?
A: Our job is educating them on properties, on a property’s value. I say to my agents, “Never talk about people, talk about properties, the amenities, the transportation.” That hasn’t changed at all.
Builder program update: When Marketplace Homes entered the Chicago market late last year, its strategy was to partner with builders in a given trade area and help sell their projects by paying a consumer to rent out their existing home and buy a newly built one in a move-up or trade-down scenario.
It has proved successful. Through its program, 121 new homes have been built and sold to consumers in the Chicago area.
Aiding its progress here is a shift away from the exclusivity that Plymouth, Mich.-based Marketplace originally used to pitch the program to builders. Eight builders are signed up to sell homes in select communities as part of its program, and the most recent to join is industry behemoth Pulte Homes.
While the additions lessen the competitive advantages of one builder over another, it means more choices for potential homebuyers.
“This is a great way to help differentiate between used homes and new construction,” said Mike Kalis, Marketplace’s managing partner. “This is a way for all builders to come together and promote the industry.”
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Under the program, the company researches the local marketplace and a particular home and comes back to a program participant with an offer of what Marketplace would, in effect, pay the homeowner to rent the home for up to 6 years. Marketplace then manages the property’s rental while the homeowner purchases a new home from a participating builder.
Kalis noted that Marketplace, which plans to be in 36 markets by year’s end, also is benefiting from the falloff in homeownership levels.
“We are raising rent on most people when their leases come up,” he said. “There’s very big demand for rental housing.”
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