There are 1,000s of Web sites that offer information about newly-built homes and condos in Chicago and its suburbs.
Only a few of those sites are truly useful. This article is one person's take on which sites qualify as useful, and why, and which sites are not what they appear to be or may be a waste of your time.
No single site suffices
There is no single Web site that aggregates information about all of the new residential properties in Chicago and its suburbs.
If you want to see all of your new construction options you'll have to resign yourself to visiting a number of Web sites. If you also want to know about all pre-construction properties in an area, you'll need to do a block-by-block survey of the area in your car or on foot.
A number of larger builders market their projects directly and do not list them with real estate brokers, so the projects do not appear in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) or on broker Web sites. Never-occupied units in these projects will sometimes be listed in the MLS, generally units purchased by flippers / investors, buyers whose plans have changed, or the "remnant" units that are unsold when the builder shuts down its on-site sales effort
Smaller builders often rely on site signage, local newspapers, and their own Web sites to market their project and list only completed units that don't sell through these channels with real estate brokers.
Bait and switch sites
A number of local real estate brokers have developed sites that appear to be content-oriented and consumer-focused. Some of these sites come up high in search engine results - because they've been optimized to do just that.
Be careful. Many of these sites have a single goal: to "harvest" your name and e-mail address, qualify you as a "lead" for a real estate broker, and add your e-mail to a broker's "drip marketing" program. The sites promise that they won't disclose your e-mail address to any "unauthorized" party, but give you no clue as to who is authorized to receive it.
If you're interested in a particular development you see on one of these sites, take the time to search for the development's Web site and go directly to that site to request more information, or contact your real estate agent if you're working with one.
National sites
The big-name national real estate sites are nearly useless when it comes to finding newly-built homes for sale in Chicago and its suburbs.
Move.com / Realtor.com. Although this site has thousands of new construction listings, it only surfaces developments listed with Realtors and doesn't allow you to limit your search to new construction. Skip Realtor.com and go to one of the local real estate brokerage sites that has the same listings and offers more detail about them.
Move.com / HomeBuilder.com. This is an advertising site that features ads only from a very few new home communities, many of which are not listed with brokerage firms. Only a few builders advertise here, making the site not worth your time.
NewHomeSource.com was founded and funded by a consortium of large national homebuilders. At September 17, only 4 communities in the City of Chicago.
HomeFinder.com is an affiliate of the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. Take a pass on HomeFinder and go directly to the Tribune's real estate section, which bills itself as "Your complete guide to homes for sale in Chicago and suburbs." The site has decent, but far from complete, coverage of new construction.
If you click the radio button to limit your search to new construction only, you'll see two options: "Display homes" and "Display communities." The first option searches homes listed with real estate brokers and / or advertised in the Tribune; the second displays builder projects advertised online with the Tribune.
Trulia.com has a slick, easy-to-use interface but offers only limited coverage of broker-listed new construction, and almost nothing from the larger homebuilders who don't list their developments with real estate brokers. Trulia does host forums and blogs that occasionally provide useful information about the home-buying process and individual developments. Those forums and blogs can be problematic, however, since they're frequented by often inexperienced and occasionally unlicensed agents and mortgage brokers.
Zillow.com lags far behind Trulia in listings. It's most useful for getting a fix on home values in areas you might be interested in. Zillow also offers a useful wiki-like guide to various aspects of the home-buying process. Be careful of some of the links, since they're nothing more than spam from real estate agents and mortgage brokers.
Builder Web sites
You'll almost always find the most complete and accurate information about a builder's offerings at the builder's Web site or the individual Web sites the builder maintains for each of its developments.
Some of the builder sites also have information you won't find elsewhere on the Web: current deals, special financing offers, office hours, homes available for immediate occupancy, and readable floor plans.
Understanding the MLS
Some real estate brokers would like you to believe that all properties for sale are available through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and broker Web sites that offer access to MLS data. In the case of new construction, that's not true. In some parts of Chicagoland, fewer than half the new construction homes available for sale at any given time are listed in the MLS.
MLS access comes in two flavors: IDX and VOW. IDX sites (a/k/a broker reciprocity and Internet Data Exchange) enable you to see almost all (about 93%) of the listings in the Chicago-area MLS, and VOW sites (Virtual Office Web sites) provide access to all MLS listings. IDX sites generally provide open access. To gain access to a VOW site and see all of the listings you'll need to register on a broker site with a valid e-mail address.
Many brokers provide both IDX and VOW access to their sites: you can see most of the listings without registering but need to register to see all of them. The broker sites, however, provide varying degrees of access to the extensive information about each property that's contained in the MLS database.
Local broker sites
It's important to recognize that the best brokerage Web site might not be the best broker / agent for you to work with. Registering with a broker Web site does not generally obligate you to work with that broker or its agents.
There's a clear leader among the Web sites operated by local real estate brokerage firms, Redfin, which has both IDX (most MLS listings, open access) and VOW (all MLS listings, registration required) versions of its site.
Some broker sites have easier-to-navigate interfaces than Redfin's, but none offers access to as much MLS information about each listing. Redfin's site, for example, tells you how long the property's been on the market and whether the price has been reduced during that time. It also serves up public record info about the property, e.g. real estate tax data and prior sales history and statistical and trending information about the area (see sample).
One of the most useful features on the Redfin site enables you to toggle easily between Google's street-level view of a property, Microsoft Virtual Earth's Bird's Eye aerial views and map and satellite views.
Take a close look at several listings on Redfin to familiarize yourself with the wealth of information and links available for each listing.
Redfin also offers forums on which you can post questions and view discussions initiated by others. These forums do not appear to be as heavily-trafficked as those on Trulia.
Rating and review sites
If you're like many people, you'll want to see what other home buyers have said about a development and share your thoughts on particular developments.
New Home Notebook is the only Chicago-area site that enables you search every local residential new construction . The site currently lists most new projects in the city of Chicago and a major suburban developments. If you encounter a development that's missing from the site, you can add it through a Web interface.
New Home Notebook also features a Chicago Real Estate News page that's updated several times a day based on feeds from over 100 local, regional and national news sources and blogs.
NewHomeNotebook.net is a companion site to New Home Notebook. It enables buyers to blog their home search, comment on new developments, share photos and videos, see real estate events, and initiate and participate in discussion forums.
Finding an agent / broker
If you're looking for a full-service real estate agent to work with there are, currently, no sites that are helpful in finding one. Selecting a real estate agent is beyond the scope of this article.
An affiliate of this author recently launched two social networking sites that connect home buyers and sellers with pre-selected real estate professionals who meet objective criteria for demonstrated expertise. These sites, for which the Chicago Tribune is the exclusive media sponsor, are:
Commission rebates
When you're doing most of the work of searching for a home on your own, and are confident that you don't need the services of a real estate agent, you may be tempted to consider using a firm that rebates part of the buyer's agent commission to you.
If you plan to work with one of these firms, be aware that many builders require that you register with your agent's name on your first visit to a project or the builder will not pay a cooperating commission to your agent. You should also note that, while most builders cooperate with real estate agents, some do not.
Redfin offers what is, on the surface, the largest commission refund: 2/3 of the commission paid to the buyer's agent.
ZipRealty rebates 20% of the buyer's agent's commission if you're only buying through the firm. The rebate is higher if you're both buying and selling. Note that agents tend to be less experienced and are often unfamiliar with the area you may be interested in.
iNest has arrangements with many builders, some of whom are not listed at its Web site, and offers 1% of the purchase price in most cases as a rebate to buyers.
NOTE: Read the fine print on all of these sites as there are limitations on these offers that may be significant, depending on the purchase price of the home.
News sites, blogs
The only local non-broker affiliated Web site that focuses exclusively on new construction news and features is YoChicago, which concentrates on the City of Chicago. YoChicago also offers a news feed that aggregates local, regional and national stories from scores of other publications and blogs.
Outside.in aggregates and summarizes news stories from a wide variety of publications and local blogs. It's a useful tool for familiarizing yourself with what's happening in an area.
Generic tools
Google Maps is indispensable. In addition to maps and satellite views of an area, it offers street-level photography of most parts of Chicago and its suburbs.
If you're looking in the City of Chicago, EveryBlock.com aggregates a wealth of hyper-local information related to an address - crime reports, building permits, property transfers, business reviews, photos, news articles, blog posts and much more. Many of Chicago's suburbs have excellent municipal Web sites, and are worth a visit.
Flickr probably has the widest variety of photos of most of the areas where you'd consider purchasing a new home. YouTube has a surprisingly large - and growing - number of real estate and neighborhood videos.
Disclosures
I've attempted to be as objective as possible in this article, but you should be aware that several of the sites I've mentioned (NewHomeNotebook, YoChicago) are owned by the author's business, and others are clients of my business. Other sites mentioned may compete for advertising with sites operated by the author's business.
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