Welcome to StraubHomes.com - a source of business advantage

Come join us at our buyer seminar. The CRF team and myself will offer solutions, tips and advice on buying smart real estate in Chicago. Learn the five best kept secrets of buying smart real estate. We want to share this real estate information and guide you to where the smart buys are.

In a Wall Street Journal article listing the top 200 agents in the nation, the CRF team was listed at No. 25 and No. 42 in team dollar sales volume of $142,237,850. We are the number one team for GMAC nationwide. We consistently rank in the "Best of the Best" of GMAC brokers and recognized by the Chicago Association of Realtors since 1997 for top sales volume and transactions.

Don't miss this! The seminar is on Saturday at 2pm located at 1454 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60605. Seating is limited. Please register at 312.602.6479.

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CRF Marketing: A Real Estate Powerhouse

(July 2007) For Developers, Experts Bring Extreme Marketing Savvy and Much, Much More by Donna Kozik.

Earlier this year, two of Chicago's most knowledgeable and esteemed real estate professionals joined forces to create a powerful force in the industry. Read Full Article Here.

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Akos Straub is Honored among Metro Chicago
Real Estate Magazine's 40 under 40

Selling residential real estate isn't as easy in 2007 as it has been in years past. But MCREM found 40 real estate agents under the age of 40 who've made it look easy.

This year, MCREM received more than 300 nominations. From this number, they struggled to narrow the list to 40. The struggle didn’t come in finding enough qualified candidates. The real challenge came in deciding which deserving candidates to eliminate. Even those nominees that didn’t make the list this time deserved a space on these pages.

Those candidates that are included are here for a variety of reasons. Some are top-producers, selling an enormous amount of real estate every year. Others excel in providing top-notch service to their clients. Others work tirelessly on behalf of the residential real estate industry. And others, though just starting out, have already made an impact in the business.

If you’re looking for shortcuts to success from these young agents, though, you’re out of luck. Not one of our 40 Under 40 members has any get-rich-quick insights. Succeeding in real estate still takes incredible amounts of hard work, time, dedication and knowledge. And, as we all know, there are no shortcuts for achieving any of those traits. Click here to read full article about Akos Straub, MCRE 2007.

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NAR Survey Shows Realtors® Investing in and Demanding More Technology

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2007 - Realtors® invest heavily in technology with more than half of brokers, sales agents, associate brokers and managers saying they spent more than $1,000 last year, according to a new survey by the National Association of Realtors®.

The 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey, conducted by NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Technology, also found that 25 percent of respondents spent more than $2,000 on technology in 2006. In addition, approximately two-thirds of those surveyed have a real estate business Web site, and a quarter spends more than $1,000 annually to maintain their site. Nearly all of these sites – 93 percent – provide listing search capabilities. Other than their own Web site, the most popular sites for Realtors® to display their listings include the local MLS, their broker’s Web site and REALTOR.com.

“Realtors® have invested a lot of time and millions of dollars in building and improving real estate technology, and the demand for additional technology is high,” said Mark Lesswing, NAR senior vice president and chief technology officer. “While eight in 10 Realtors® think the current technology supplied by their broker is valuable, two-thirds would like their broker to expand the amount of technology offered. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed were also interested in augmenting the technology and services offered by their Multiple Listing Service.”

One of those services is the Comparative Market Analysis, which compares a home to similar properties that have sold in an area. Ninety-four percent of those surveyed include a CMA as part of their listing presentations, and most Realtors® are satisfied with the program. However, 35 percent thought the program could be improved by offering the ability to personalize designs and making it easier to use.

The most popular devices Realtors® use in their day-to-day business include digital cameras, desktop computers and cell phones. The survey also revealed the growing popularity of smart phones or PDAs, which provide phone, Internet and e-mail capabilities. In 2005, only 8 percent of respondents used a smart phone compared to 28 percent in 2006, and as many as 30 percent of respondents plan to purchase or replace one in the coming year.

Realtors®’ use of automated forms and transaction management software is also on the rise as real estate transactions become more complex. In fact, more than three-fourths of Realtors® surveyed said they must manage as many as 20 documents to complete a real estate transaction. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed use an automated forms management program to help streamline the paperwork involved in a transaction. Twenty-three percent of respondents use a transaction management system, which tracks each step of the real estate process, and 69 percent of those who aren’t currently using a transaction management system are interested in adopting the technology.

“By integrating and adopting innovative systems and processes, Realtors® continue to advance real estate technology, improving communication with home buyers and sellers and streamlining transactions,” said NAR President Pat V. Combs, of Grand Rapids, Mich., and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt. “However, real estate is still a high-touch business. Building strong, personal relationships with home buyers and sellers and understanding their unique needs, is essential to helping them find the home of their dreams.”

Indeed, survey respondents cite referrals and repeat business as the top sources for generating the greatest number of leads. One-third of respondents said that more than half of their business comes from referral clients, which makes staying in touch with current and past clients crucial to a Realtor®’s success. The most popular way to maintain relationships with current clients is through phone calls (48 percent) and e-mail (39 percent).

Two-thirds of Realtors® continue to communicate with their former clients at least once or more every quarter. The methods, however, have changed. Electronic newsletters have gained in popularity as a way to stay in touch with former clients; other favored methods are mailings and market updates. By comparison, the telephone has fallen out of favor; in 2005, one of every three Realtors® picked up the phone to reach out to former clients, but less than 1 percent of Realtors® in the current survey relied on phone calls to stay in touch with their past client base.

The 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey was based on data from field research conducted from February 28 to March 14 of this year. CRT e-mailed the survey to 21,869 NAR members, including Realtor® brokers and agents, and generated 468 usable responses. Download the survey (PDF 239Kb) - For more information, contact: Sara Weis.

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Buyer & Seller Survey Shows Rising Use of Internet, Reliance on Agents



WASHINGTON (January 17, 2006) – Technology is transforming how Americans buy and sell homes in unexpected ways, including how they work with real estate agents and brokers, according to one of the largest surveys of real estate consumers ever conducted. The study was released today by the National Association of Realtors®.

Nine out of 10 home buyers use a real estate agent in the search process, but use of the Internet to search for a home has risen dramatically over time, increasing from only 2 percent of buyers in 1995 to 77 percent in 2005; it was 74 percent in 2004. The next largest source of information for buyers is a yard sign, mentioned by 71 percent of buyers.

When asked where they first learned about the home purchased, 24 percent of buyers identified the Internet, up strongly from 15 percent in 2004 and only 2 percent in 1997. Although most buyers use an agent to complete the transaction, 36 first learn about the home they buy from a real estate agent and 15 percent from yard signs; five other categories were 7 percent or less.

The 2005 National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, based on more than 7,800 responses to a questionnaire mailed to a large national sample of consumers located through county deed records, is the latest in a series of surveys evaluating demographics, marketing and other characteristics of home buyers and sellers.

NAR President Thomas M. Stevens from Vienna, Va., said the findings underscore the complexity of the home-buying process. “Buyers who use the Internet in searching for a home are more likely to use a real estate agent than non-Internet users, and consumers rely on professionals to provide context, negotiate the transaction and help with the paperwork,” said Stevens, senior vice president of NRT Inc.

“The real estate industry today bears little resemblance to the way we did business 10 years ago. It is hard to find another industry that has adopted technology so readily to its customers,” Stevens said. “Realtors® have invested a lot of time and money in building information technology, and because of these efforts, more consumers than ever are using the Internet in their home search.”

The survey shows 81 percent of buyers who use the Internet to search for a home purchase through a real estate agent, while 63 percent of non-Internet users buy through an agent; non-Internet users are more likely to purchase directly from a builder or an owner they knew in advance of the transaction.

“We find that the level of for-sale-by-owners is on a sustained decline and is now at a record low. In addition, a growing share of FSBO properties are not placed on the open market – they’re private transactions,” Stevens said.

A clear downtrend in FSBOs has been seen since that market share experienced a cyclical peak of 18 percent in 1997. Only 13 percent of sellers conducted transactions without the assistance of a real estate professional in 2005, and 39 percent of those FSBO transactions were “closely held” between parties who knew each other in advance, up from 32 percent in 2004. The FSBO market share was at 14 percent in both 2003 and 2004. NAR began tracking the FSBO market in 1981; the record was 20 percent in 1987.

“In reality, the term ‘FSBO’ is a misnomer when used to broadly describe homes sold directly by owners. Since two out of five of these transactions are between related parties, and those properties are not placed on the open market, we believe that ‘unrepresented sellers’ would be a much more accurate term to describe this segment,” Stevens said.

The median home price for sellers who use an agent is 16.0 percent higher than a home sold directly by an owner; $230,000 vs. $198,200; there were no significant differences between the types of homes sold. “While many unrepresented sellers are motivated to save on paying a commission, we think the price difference speaks for itself,” Stevens said. “Owners without professional assistance also have problems in understanding and completing paperwork, prepping the home for sale, getting the right price and selling within the time planned.”

Survey data don’t explain the price difference, but Stevens offered some context. “Agents know best how to prepare a home and maximize value, agents provide broader exposure to the market and are more likely to generate multiple bids, and the portion of sales that are between private parties are likely to be at a lower price than those on the open market.”

“The housing market today contrasts sharply with predictions a decade ago that the Internet would ‘disintermediate’ real estate agents, including speculation that NAR membership would fall in half. In reality, it’s grown dramatically – selling real estate is not like selling a book or buying an airline ticket,” he said.

Realtor.com was the most popular Internet resource, used by 54 percent of buyers, followed by multiple listing service (MLS) Web sites, 50 percent, real estate company sites, 38 percent, real estate agent Web sites, 31 percent, and local newspaper sites, 15 percent; other categories were smaller.

Married couples make up the largest share of the housing market, accounting for 61 percent of transactions. Single women purchase 21 percent of homes while single men account for 9 percent. Unmarried couples were 7 percent of the market, and 2 percent were listed as other. In 2004, single women were 18 percent of buyers and single men were 8 percent.

The typical buyer walked through nine properties, searched eight weeks to buy a home and moved 12 miles from their previous residence. The typical seller placed their home on the market for four weeks, had lived in it for six years, moved 15 miles to their new residence and previously owned three homes, including the one just sold.

NAR’s senior economist Paul Bishop said both buyers and sellers use traditional methods to choose a real estate agent. “Word-of-mouth recommendation is the most common way to learn about real estate professionals,” Bishop said. “The most important criteria, whether you’re buying or selling, are the individual agent’s reputation and their knowledge of the local market.”

In finding a real estate professional, 44 percent of buyers were referred by a friend, neighbor or relative, 11 percent used an agent from a previous transaction, 7 percent found an agent on the Internet, 7 percent met at an open house and 6 percent saw contact information on a “for sale” sign. Six other categories accounted for smaller shares each.

The most important factor in choosing an agent was reputation, according to 41 percent of home buyers, followed by an agent’s knowledge of the neighborhood, 24 percent. In terms of desired qualities in an agent, three categories were rated as very important by more than nine out of 10 buyers: knowledge of the purchase process, responsiveness and knowledge of the market. Of buyers who use an agent, 63 percent choose a buyer representative. Satisfaction with real estate agents is very high, with 85 percent of buyers saying they were likely to use the agent again.

Seller responses are comparable: 43 percent chose agents based on a referral by a friend, neighbor or relative, and 28 percent used their agent previously; 10 other categories were 5 percent or less. Fifty-seven percent of sellers said reputation was the most important factor in selecting an agent, followed by their knowledge of the neighborhood, 17 percent. Eighty-two percent said they were likely to use the same agent again or recommend to others.

Four out of ten respondents are first-time buyers, a finding that is consistent for more than a decade. The median age of entry-level buyers is 32 years, also typical over time, and the household income was $57,200. They made a downpayment of 2 percent on a home costing $150,000, but 43 percent purchased with no money down. Of first-time buyers who made a downpayment, 23 percent received a gift from a friend or relative.

The typical repeat buyer is 46 years old and had a household income of $83,200. They placed a downpayment of 21 percent on a home costing $235,000, but 11 percent of repeat buyers paid cash for their home. In all, 94 percent of buyers and sellers believe their home purchase is a good financial investment.

“To underscore the value of housing as an investment, all you have to do is look at the difference in how repeat buyers purchase their next home – the wealth effect of homeownership provides the greatest source for their downpayment, which is significantly larger,” Bishop said. Aside from sellers who pay cash for their new home, 66 use the equity from their previous home for a downpayment.

The most important factors in choosing a location to purchase a home are neighborhood quality, cited by 68 percent, close to a job or school, 43 percent, close to family or friends, 36 percent, and the school district itself, 23 percent; seven other categories were under 20 percent.

NAR mailed an eight-page questionnaire to a national sample of 145,000 home buyers and sellers, based on county records, who purchased their homes between August 2004 and July 2005. It generated 7,813 usable responses; the response rate was 5.4 percent.

The 2005 National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers can be ordered by calling 800-874-6500 or going to the Realtor.org store. The cost is $50 for NAR members and $125 for non-members. Download the Technology Survey.

The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing more than 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.