Chicagoland Getaway: A Day in Suburban Antioch

It’s a great feeling finding something new in somewhere old. Your getaway day can begin with a tour of custom homes at the Newport Cove waterfront planned community near Antioch on the Chain O' Lakes. See quality craftsmanship up close. View the newest features in home design. Walk the pathways surrounded by natural prairie landscaping. Dangle your feet off the piers at the marina on Bluff Lake. If you lived here, you’d be just steps away from all of this and more.

After touring Newport Cove, you might want to visit the Infini-tea, a charming tea house/eaterie in nearby downtown Antioch. Tea is served all day long in a quaint, relaxing environment. More than 50 varieties of tea are offered from all around the world. At the entrance, open jars of tea are available for customers to take a whiff. The lunch menu includes gourmet soups, salads and sandwiches. Scones and other baked goodies are offered as well. Thirsty children can enjoy juices and smoothies.

Around the corner is a shop called Hannah’s “Where inspiration is always free.” This family-owned craft store has a paper department, a frame shop, candle center, custom floral and home décor. It carries name brands “Life is Good”, Vera Bradley, Pandora jewelry and women’s accessories. Card making, soldering, beading and scrapbooking are some of the classes offered here. For $12 on Friday nights, scrapbooking students get dinner, dessert, demos and lively conversation.

You won’t want to leave the area before visiting Pickard China, known as America’s oldest and finest china maker. Serving markets around the world, the family-owned business began operating in 1893. It has supplied custom china for Air Force One, Blair House and Camp David. Dignitaries including the Queen of England and the King of Saudi Arabia chose Pickard to produce exclusive fine china. You can visit the outlet store and factory museum to be enchanted by the history of such craftsmanship.

In each of these places, “Made in America” still reigns. An attention to detail, product quality and customer’s satisfaction is paramount. Enjoy your day!

Sell Yourself, Sell Your Home

When your lifestyle reflects market trends, it's possible that if you sell yourself, you can sell your home. How can unfinished rooms in a basement be turned into a selling point? Lots of people are looking for studio space. Mary's basement rooms became studios with a drafting board for design work and a potter's wheel for making ceramics. Her husband set up an area for making wine. Think charm, not glamor. 

Cook at home. Selling point: Chef's kitchen. A real cook makes the kitchen work no matter what kind of cabinets are used. Kate shows the good use of space and storage in her kitchen. She organizes shelves and arranges furniture so it's easy for her to make an inviting environment around meals.

Cultivate a garden. Selling point: Curb appeal. Cut flowers in vases display a domestic touch. Don't go overboard in the yard. Too much may intimidate those who don't garden. Low maintenance perennials are lovely.

Check out the nine-foot basement ceilings at Newport Cove, a waterfront community of custom homes on the Chain O' Lakes in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Kitchen space is well-designed for busy cooks. Professionally designed landscaping uses prairie plants and grasses to accent roads and pathways. Models are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5 p.m.

Trying to Sell Your Home? Be Ready with Selling Points

Do you have lifestyle selling points worth mentioning when trying to sell your home? Realtors may not list these assets along with wood floors and granite counter tops, but they may be worth discussing when potential buyers are wavering between your house and someone else's. Here are some potential house selling points you may have overlooked.

Do you pay someone to clean your house? Selling point: Professionally cleaned on a regular basis. This may influence asthma sufferers. The upkeep of a home tells potential buyers the owners care about the space they live in. If the cleaning products contain only natural ingredients be sure to mention that as well.

Raising a family in your house. Selling point: A family-friendly layout. Carol never used a baby monitor since she could hear what was going on from any room in the house. Anecdotal stories like these can turn into advantages.

Purchasing energy-saving appliances and good insulation. Selling point: Energy efficiency. If you remodeled your kitchen and installed energy-efficient appliances or added attic insulation, you may want to show your low utility bills to potential home buyers. 

Being on a good site with well-positioned windows and no clutter. Selling point: A great view. Clutter makes a house look and feel smaller. Ted's house had windows that offered views of the sunrise and sunset.

Another favorite selling point at Newport Cove, a custom home waterfront community on the Chain O' Lakes in suburban Chicago, is the coastal-style architecture. Homes are built using durable, low-maintenance products such as Hardieboard concrete fiber siding and shakes, long-lived Certainteed architectural roof shingles, and aluminum-clad Pella windows.

Can Lifestyle Choices Help Sell a House?

This week we're talking about giving yourself an edge when selling an existing house. It may be as simple as looking at your lifestyle choices as a homeowner. A few years ago Mary and her husband sold their ranch house. A potential buyer impressed with the butterflies, rabbits and birds in the yard asked how they had taken care of the lawn. "We had never put pesticides and chemical-based weed killer on our property for the 16 years we lived there," she said. Their natural "green" yard was a benefit worth talking about.

One northwest suburban realtor sees potential buyers walk away from houses occupied by smokers. "The owners cleaned every inch of the house including all the fabrics. People still could smell the smoke." She said smoke is the biggest lifestyle decision that detracts from home sales.

One of the favorite selling points at Newport Cove, a waterfront community of new custom homes, is its 100-plus-slip marina. Built for the exclusive use of the community's 67 homes (and homeowners' children and grandchildren). The marina extends along the community's 1,800 feet of shoreline and fronts onto an eight-acre private lakefront. Newport Cove is located on Bluff Lake, one of the beautiful lakes in suburban Chicago's Chain O' Lakes.

Staying Ahead of New Housing Trends

New housing trends emphasize clean architectural lines, flexible floor plans and low maintenance "green" materials. Overall, home building trends are moving towards quality vs. quantity, distinction over conformity, well-designed space vs. simply SPACE.

Defined spaces. Half walls are now favored as a way to define space. They are being used to separate the kitchen from living and dining rooms. In the bathroom, spaces for the tub and shower are being separated. Transitional spaces such as hallways are sheltering home work stations, laundry alcoves and hobby nooks.

Green materials. Green products are flourishing in today's new homes. Synthetic/engineered materials (for countertops, flooring, siding, exterior trim and decking) all are increasing in popularity. Traditional exteriors are popular, while the materials used to create them are increasingly eco-friendly.

Energy efficiency. Home buyers appreciate options for energy efficiency, sustainability features and low maintenance products. Alternative home insulation such as structural foam insulation panels or sprayed foam insulation, extra insulation in the attic, double and triple glazed windows, human scale ceiling heights of nine feet are all signs of the new energy-efficient home.

Accessibility. Improving accessibility in the home is a rising trend. First-floor master bedrooms suites, ramps and elevators, multi-level counters, as well as easy-to-use handles and faucets are favorites of aging-in-place advocates.  In Newport Cove's LIFEhouse, a home designed for all of your life, an inobtrusive brick ramp, pictured at right, leads to the front door.

Outdoor Spaces. Natural landscaping sensitive to the site is an appealing alternative to time-consuming, chemcially treated, manicured lawns. Wildflowers and native grasses are favored. Recreation elements such as a lake, walking trails and bicycle paths add to the livability of a setting.

Newport Cove, a waterfront community located on the Chain O' Lakes near Antioch, IL., is staying ahead of the new housing trends offering the most popular features in custom home design. We want our buyers to love their homes and the environment around them.

On the Side of Concrete Fiber Siding

The “Cottages” at Newport Cove, the neighborhood of maintenance-free-exterior homes that is part of the Newport Cove waterfront development on the Chain O’ Lakes, come standard with fiber cement siding. It’s a product builder New American Homes has been using for several years and highly recommends.

Although fiber cement siding has the look of traditional wood siding, it is more durable than wood, vinyl or aluminum siding. It doesn’t warp, buckle or fade and has a Class 1-A fire rating. It withstands ultraviolet rays and does not rot. Birds and insects do not penetrate it (much to the dismay of the local woodpeckers and carpenter ants). Hail does not dent it, unlike aluminum siding. And, unlike vinyl siding, concrete fiber siding does not become brittle in cold weather or melt when near a barbeque grill. Moreover, it is a renewable, sustainable “green” product.

The product comes in a variety of textures, profiles and colors. Typically it carries a multi-decade warranty and its factory-applied paint lasts 15 years or more.

At Newport Cove we use the fiber concrete lap siding, board-and batten siding and shingles to create our coastal-style look. It’s one more way we build homes that are easy to live in, easy to maintain and give owners more time to enjoy their waterfront lifestyle.

Find Pleasure in Buying a New Home

When searching for a new home some people fall in love fast. For others anticipation builds. Avoid these potential trouble spots to keep your pleasure high throughout the buying process.

1. Financing. Get your mortgage pre-approved. Talk with a professional loan officer and get a firm loan commitment. This can hasten the closing process, getting you into your new home sooner rather than later.
2. The search. Find a trusted advisor. Work with a real estate agent you trust and who understands the market. Home buying is manageable on your own, but a realtor can give you insight and reassurance.
3. Tax credits. Learn about what's being offered. Currently, tax credits are being offered to new home buyers and existing home owners. These credits can take thousands of dollars off your federal tax bill. For answers to frequently asked questions: http://ow.ly/1uOx3
4. Price. Evaluate what you're really buying. You may not need a room for a home office or formal dining, so consider the efficient use of space. Also, short sales offered by banks on foreclosed properties may seem like a good deal at first, but buying a short sale is a long, involved process that delivers an as-is product often requiring major repairs and renovation.
5. Decisions. Understand what you appreciate and what you can do without. Make a list of your priorities. Ultimately, the decision is yours. Don't buy the wrong house for the wrong reasons.

Mix your joy in buying a new home with sound judgment and you're bound to live there happily ever after.

Housing Stats Predict Spring Market

The national Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) offered the real estate market a breath of spring last week.

According to the association’s Market Composite Index, more people applied for home loans during the week ending March 26 than for any other similar period in the last six months.

The weekly survey of mortgage applications is one of the earliest measures of the health of the housing market. Not only do mortgage applications estimate sales that could potentially close in the future, but the data comes out well before similar surveys tracking the pace of housing sales are released. The latest MBA survey provides one of the only market indicators currently available on housing activity occurring in late March.

At Newport Cove, New American Homes’ waterfront community on the Chain O’ Lakes, sales have been picking up. So far this year the Newport Cove sales team has written three contracts (and closed on one) – well ahead of the sales pace of 2009.

The Rhino Challenge

How long would your carpet last in a rhinoceros cage?

If you like light-colored carpet, you may want to check into something new (and remarkable) in the carpet world: Mohawk’s SmartStrand carpet with DuPont Sorona renewably sourced polymer. This stain-resistant carpet was used in a rhinoceros cage at the Birmingham Zoo for two weeks and – guess what – it survived!! As a custom home builder with decades of construction experience, we are quite skeptical when it comes to the many stain-resistant claims surrounding today’s carpets, but the Rhino Challenge convinced us.

At Newport Cove, our boating and watersport centered community on the Chain O’ Lakes, we are constantly on the lookout for easy-living products for our cottages and waterfront homes – products that will make your indoor/outdoor lifestyle more enjoyable. Who wants to come off your boat with a group of friends, go into your house and be anxious about – of all things – someone ruining the carpet?

So, red wine, sodas, barbeque sauce and all the other banes of white carpet beware: There now is a carpet that even a rhinoceros didn’t ruin. . . (And, incidentally, it is a “green” product, too.)