Marie Waxton
OwnACondo.com welcomes Marie Waxton to its growing team of licensed real estate sales professionals. She is highly buyer-focused and dedicated to helping people find their dream residence.
Marie enjoys dissecting all the details that make up any particular property. "Real estate is usually the biggest investment people make. I like to make sure it's what they want and that it will fulfill their dreams," she says.
Her real estate career began in 2006 and Marie toured unique (and sometimes historic) buildings in Chicago, researching programs for their restoration. She worked with banks, making sure financing was available for these unique properties.
Highly personable and enthusiastic about Chicago and its people, Maries Waxton says without hesitation "I have a love affair with the city. I enjoy the lake, the zoo, the skyline, museums and jazz clubs." Marie originally hailed from Northwest Indiana and now resides in Chicago's Southwest suburbs.
Marie's specialties include:
- Chicago-area real estate
- Dupage County real estate
- Condos
- Townhomes
- First-time homebuyers
- Real estate investing
- Real estate investors
- Real estate auctions
- Leasing
- Rentals
- Foreclosures
- REOs
- Short sales
- Condo financing
Marie earned a degree in education and journalism from the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She encourages buyers to check out OwnACondo.com's easy condo search and to contact her at mwaxton@ownacondo.com for any information related to condos, townhomes, financing or real estate in general. Marie Waxton continues OwnACondo.com's long tradition of expert, dedicated and customer-centric service that consumers love!
Justin Vangelista
Realtor® Justin Vangelista is the newest member of the dedicated team of Realtors at OwnACondo.com.
Justin earned his real estate broker's license in 2002 with the original intent to help family and friends with their real estate needs. He quickly learned how much he enjoys serving a much wider range of people.
"One of the biggest things in a person's lifetime is finding a place to call home, and being able to help them do that means a lot to me," says Justin.
"Some of my clients have seen 30-40 properties before finding the place they liked," he says. "I always negotiate well for people and I don't believe anyone would say I didn't get the best price for them."
Indeed, Justin brings the perfect attitude to OwnACondo.com, a company which strives to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.
Justin Vangelista earned a bachelor of science degree in geography from Northern Illinois University and he has a professional certificate in GIS (Geographic Information Services). He lives in Hanover Park and covers virtually all of Chicago and the suburbs for his real estate clients. Justin's
• Chicago Real Estate
• Suburban Chicago Real Estate
• Condos
• Condominiums
• Townhomes
• Single Family Homes
• Buyers’ Agent
• Real Estate Investors
• Real Estate Auctions
• Leasing
• Rentals
• Foreclosures
• REO
• Short Sales
• Condo Financing
• GIS data creation and geodatabase design
• GPS data collection
• Building of custom applications with which to collect data in the field
• Teaching and learning from others efficiently
• Fostering a team environment.
Contact Justin Vangelista at jvangelista@ownacondo.com or 847-312-3977.
What is Virtual Staging?
Virtual staging is a new innovative idea for all of the vacant homes on the market. Short sales and forecloses are slowly dominating the market, and most of these types of properties are vacant. Every property needs to look its best, even vacant properties. It is to no surprise that staging can actually sell a home faster than it normally would had it been a clean slate or even over cluttered; however, not everyone can afford to stage their home. To professionally stage a home, it can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to more than one thousand dollars. It is even more expensive to stage vacant properties because of the expense of the furniture rentals.
This is the reason why many Realtors are turning to virtual staging. What is virtual staging you may ask? Virtual staging is using computer technology to add furniture and other decor to the photos of their listings. This is an economical, inexpensive way to really show the potential of a vacant property. The average cost for virtual staging is approximately $225.00. In today’s market, because of the high amount of inventory, many people narrow their choices based on the online photos they see, so this small amount of money is well worth it.
Now there are different programs that are better than others, so it is very important to do your research to see which software offers the best product at the best cost. You can also use this product for your own home if you looking to remodel. There are programs that allow you to change wall colors, countertop textures, and type of flooring!
If you are going to use a virtual staging program, than it is important to make sure that you keep it ethical. The whole idea of virtual staging is not to deceive prospects but rather to help them envision what the home can look like if there were furniture in the space. Each agent needs to clearly state that the images are computer generated. In other words, where the virtually staged photos appear, you should include a small blub that the property has been virtually staged and that the property is actually vacant. Otherwise you risk violating the code of ethics, which states that you need to portray a true picture. As long as you set the right expectation for the prospective buyers then they will know what to expect when they walk in the home... a vacant unfurnished home!
Chicago Foreclosures
Chicago foreclosures are everywhere. How has this all happened? The foreclosures have doubled every year for the last three years and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. How can you take advantages of all the foreclosures in Chicago right now?
It starts with the owner of the real estate not paying his or her mortgage. As time goes on eventually the owner has to abandon to premises and the bank takes the property back. The bank tries to sell the property through an auction. This is where you or your real estate agent can take advantage of spectacular deals. The Realtor will have all the information you’ll need on the foreclosures going on in today’s market place. They’ll show you through the various methods for obtaining a condo through the foreclosure process.
Once you’ve identified the piece of real estate, the Chicago foreclosures you’d like to bid on, you’ll need to make sure you can finance the real estate. There are several financing firms that specialize in real estate. If you are focused on townhouses or condos, you can go to FinanceACondo.com and get a number of financing institutions that can help this process. Once you get the OK from a bank, the next step is to make your auction bid. The bid is an interesting experience. If you bid too high, you pay too much. If you bid too low, you don’t get the property you want. It all comes down to your due diligence and your needs. If you go through and analyze all the properties that are available and look through the sold properties that compare to your subject property, this will help you immensely. The second part of the equation is how bad do you want or need this property. If you don’t need to live in it right away and can wait, make offers that are extremely low. You never know when or if they’ll be accepted, but if they do, you may have one of the best investments you’ve ever made.
Once you own the Chicago foreclosure, who do you choose to manage the property. There are a number of real estate management specialists out there. RE Management is Chicago based and can help with all types of real estate management. If you plan on managing the Chicago foreclosure on your own, make sure you get yourself a good attorney to go over all aspects of property management. There are so many parts to consider when managing real estate, that in the end, it’s great to have the right advice from an attorney.
Short Sale Condos
Short sale condos are everywhere in today’s market place. I keep hearing, short sale, short sale. What does it mean? A short sale is when a bank decides to accept less than what is owed on the condo. Why would they do that? There are so many instances today where the real estate was purchased for more than what it’s worth today leaving no equity when the condo unit sells. Let me give you an example.
A seller of a Miami condo bought the condominium three years ago at $200,000. They put 10% ($20,000) and financed the remaining 90% ($180,000). They now have a $180,000 mortgage at 6% interest for 30 years. Over the last three years they have been diligently paying their mortgage payment when all of a sudden the husband gets transferred and has to sell the condo. The couple outs the condo up for sale but they have no offers. It’s a year into the process when finally an offer comes in at $150,000. This is substantially less than what the couple bought the condo for but the condo market turned so dramatically that it actually is at today’s market value, a loss of 25% since 2006. What can the couple do?
The bank reviews the situation and realizes that the couple cannot afford the condo anymore. If they take the sale at $ 150,000, the couple will lose their $20,000 down payment and the bank will lose because the loan is at $ 170,000. The bank will look at all angles and in the end decide that if they take the condo back and foreclose on this couple, there may be more expenses involved than just simply taking a loss right now. So the bank ends up agreeing and the sellers close on the condo “short†of their mortgage amount. At the closing table the buyers purchase the condo at $150,000. The bank gets all of this money and the sellers are released from the loan. This is a negative on the sellers credit but the condo is now out of their hair, they have moved on with life and the bank has a new buyer for the condo.
Life is not great for the bank or the buyer, but it’s time to move on. Short sale condos can take forever if the bank drags its feet, but if you stick it out, it could be great opportunity to pick up incredible deals because of situations sellers have gotten themselves into.
