Check It Out: Crib Chatter in the Chicago Tribune
There is finally a link to the Chicago Tribune’s article about Crib Chatter from the Memorial Day Weekend real estate section (for those of you- like me- who couldn’t find the print version).
All you “regular” commenters should know that more people are now checking into your chatter here so please be on your best behavior. (ha! ha!)
If you live in Chicago and you’re familiar with the term “real estate porn,” you probably already know about Sabrina and her Web site.
That would be CribChatter.com, a labor of love by a self-confessed “house freak” who decided three years ago there had to be other real estate fanatics: people who regard attending open houses as a form of entertainment or can quote the pricing history of a house on the market the way some White Sox fans can spit out Paul Konerko‘s batting average.Each day, Sabrina’s blog posts listing details and photos of three houses for sale or that recently have closed, and invites her followers to weigh in. And they do, sometimes with a vengeance.
“Some people feel real strongly about housing, obviously, and some things will set some of the commenters off,” said Sabrina, who has watched verbal slugfests ensue over some listings.
“It’s stuff like, if you’re trying to sell for a lot more than what you paid in the last five years, or if the interior is crazy, that’ll do it,” she said.
Real estate blog has house hunters talking [Chicago Tribune, Mary Umberger, June 2, 2010]
A quarter million visitors a month is no small feat! That is a pretty large chunk of visitors.
“I’m very sensitive to how difficult it is out there for many sellers,” she said. “(Some commenters) talk about these properties on the site without any real concern for the people living there, and that it is real money lost and difficult times for many of them.”
Its a sad fact that the internet takes away most of the “realness” of it and the anonymity of each person gives a further disconnect. Very good quote, and i know i will “be nicerererer” after reading.
BUT will not be nice when someone bought in 2007 did nothing to improve the place or adds uniqueness and then lists it higher than the 2007 price 🙂
But Groove77…those 2007 dollars are worth more than 2010 dollars 🙂
I don’t mind a little venom if that’s the correct medicine to stop: inflating square footage, not including floorplans, cell phone pictures, “CHEF’s KITCHENS”, and blatently incorrect tax advice.
Plus if enough of us start calling it NorthCostco the area could eventually turn into NoCo and we could start an association.
BTW congrats on the success, Sabrina. I honestly have no recollection of how I found this blog years ago but have consistently told others about it.
Very nice article, Sabrina. I don’t get the trib so I’ve been waiting to see it. One thing not captured is that there is a depth of real information and knowledge on this site that is not readily available elsewhere (at least to me). I’ve gotten a lot of useful information and learned how to use existing resources better.
Most people are here are not only (reasonably) polite but very helpful. I have seen anon, G (where are you?), Groove, Gary, Architect, HD, and many many others going out of their way to answer questions, including for new posters.
Nice, hopefully that’ll get some fresh commentators in here to spice things up a bit.
“A quarter million visitors a month is no small feat!”
That’s hits, not visitors. A practically worthless statistic. Visitors is most likely less than 10k/month.
terrible article, way overpriced at $.50
I was hoping for a shout out in the article.
“I was hoping for a shout out in the article.”
“(Some commenters) talk about these properties on the site without any real concern for the people living there, and that it is real money lost and difficult times for many of them.”
the “kill it with fire” comment a couple months back should have been quoted.
“terrible article, way overpriced at $.50”
hee!
Congrats Sabrina, you’re famous. The Trib will now try to co-opt you as one of their “Chicago Now” blogs.
this is pretty awesome. congrats to Sabrina. this site gave me tons of food for thought while i looked at places over the past year, and the various links shared by others led me to many great resources including Redfin, who we used for our purchase. i think we were more prepared and well informed than 99% of FTHB’s, and it’s because of this site.
Yay – way to go Sabrina. Giving “house freaks” a home since ’07!
Congrats Sabrina. Every consider creating a Facebook page?
Congrats!
Hits most definitely are not a “worthless stat.”. At the very least it shows the people who do visit the site are very passionate about it.
I think your best bet at growing the site is to start a network of cc’s in other cities where you can find some dedicated writers and also add a forum where people from each individual city can discuss local RE trends and suggest properties for the main blog. Gl
Sabrina Great Job!
Congrats on the well-deserved pub, and thanks for providing the space, finding interesting cribs/topics to chat about, and all you in running and maintaining the site.
thanks to HD, anon, G & SH (missed), DZ, SquareD, Architect, Groove, Laura, Gary, Russ, wloop, skeptic, and other regular and occasional posters, too; i’ve learned a lot and had some fun here with you all over the last couple years
“all you do in running”
“But Groove77…those 2007 dollars are worth more than 2010 dollars :)”
I will do with the Delorean rebuttal on that 🙂
Awesome article!!! Awesome Site!!! I do wish, as others pointed out that it would have touched on more that how much info one can learn here from the “crazies” and “professionals” on here. I wish when i first bought there was a site like this, but it did help me get a crazy leverage to get a steal recently.
“Hits most definitely are not a “worthless stat.”. At the very least it shows the people who do visit the site are very passionate about it.”
A hit is any request to the server. Loading a page with 10 pictures will result in 11 hits. A page with 100 pictures will result in 101 hits. Thus it’s a meaningless stat producing huge numbers, although nothing wrong with quoting it in a newspaper to impress as long as the webmaster knows wassup.
Ill stop derailing now. Cribchatter rocks, that’s all.
Rereading the article it was quoted as “visits”, not “visitors” (as per first post). My apologies, if it’s visits that’s a great number probably indicating a lot of hardcore cc junkies.
DZ:
You totally out of the market for now? Or just shift your focus? Feel free to hit the email if you don’t want to share publicly (or not, if you don’t want to share at all).
Congrats on the success of CC by far one of my favorite sites on the internet!
Bob2, if you are going to argue that “hits” (you probably meant to use the term “page views”) are a “worthless” stat, using that same logic “visits” mean just as little w/o knowing the number of “unique users”. 1 “unique user” could in theory generate 250,000 “visits”.
“You totally out of the market for now? Or just shift your focus?”
Short answer is we haven’t bought anything yet, are looking, but, as ever, are not quite sure where we want to live. Still looking in the usual places, northcenterish, logan, bucktown. Sent you a longer answer as well.
Hey Anon,
You can help me here, Is the hot dog stand on the NE of lincoln and i think Grace? I used to eat there when i worked at Ace down the street.
Wife was in NorthCenter tuesday (one word) and said she didnt see it.
She did say she never seen so many damn double strollers in her life. her words were “dont they believe in condoms in this hood. or at least spread the timing out a bit. maybe its the water there, i only had coffee so we are ok”
“You can help me here, Is the hot dog stand on the NE of lincoln and i think Grace?”
Still there (or, you know, last time I drove down Lincoln sometime in the past 2 weeks). Still selling lotto tickets. Mangi’s Fast Foods.
OT:
What do people think about $$/sq. foot for primetime LP / OT places? There is this place I like, but its small, but highly upgraded. Still since its so upgraded, its like $550/sq ft. which I think it nuts for LP / OT vs. some Streeter high-rise.
Thoughts?
“its like $550/sq ft. which I think it nuts for LP / OT”
Condo, correct? Seems awfully rich to me, unless there is literally *nothing* you would change about the place and its pristine. And then it’s just expensive and has you looking for the next you when you go to sell.
No, its a SFH in OT.
“Still there (or, you know, last time I drove down Lincoln sometime in the past 2 weeks). Still selling lotto tickets. Mangi’s Fast Foods”
i hope still the same owners, the old, i think greek guy, always gave me free fries. I will swing by there one day. memories 🙂
“No, its a SFH in OT.”
Then it’s not so bad, esp. once you back out the $$ for the lot. But still subject to the “basically perfect for you” standard. 2000 sf for $1.1 or 3000 sf for $1.65 means you’re paying ~$200psf for structure/finishes and $700-$1mm for the land–>seems about right (tho, yeah, v.v. expensive still), if the location is above-average OT/LP.
Yeah land value is crazy. My biggest concern with going SFH is where is Cook county headed in terms of property taxes…
“My biggest concern with going SFH is where is Cook county headed in terms of property taxes…”
Don’t know how a condo would insulate you from that issue. Land is *severely* under assessed–Bet that $1mm lot is assessed as having a market value of about $175k, with the improvements the rest.
Without any real reasoning, my guess is that the County will get a bigger slice from SFH’s instead of Condo (which may have more resources to appeal)
anon(tfo) got a throw-away email address to post?
hey daley said no tax increase on property a few weeks back (he did that last election time). i wonder where the money to plant flowers and trees will come from? 🙂
so for the city portion you will be “ok” chichow. Anon off the top of your head what is the city’s pie cut on a 1.1mil place?
They should really just splice together Daley mic cuts and create some mash-up Hip hop beat for Groove to dance to….
and have some video to go with it (I’m think Kim Jong-Il, but that’s not PC)
“anon(tfo) got a throw-away email address to post?”
anon_tfo at hotmail
“Anon off the top of your head what is the city’s pie cut on a 1.1mil place?”
Recall the City’s piece (not schools, not park district, etc etc) is 20%+/- of the total bill–so, $14-15k bill on the $1.1m assessment, City’s cut is ~$3k.
[checking…]
for ’08 (ie last years bill) the total rate (outside the Mosquito dist and any Special Services area) was 4.816 of the EAV; the City’s piece was 0.928, so 19.27%. The rate *will* be different this year, as it’s determined by (budget request)/(aggregate EAV).
Congratulations Sabrina on receiving due recognition for having one of the best RE websites in the country! You singlehandedly do the work that many paid and volunteer writers do here in NYC at Curbed NYC and Streeteasy…and you do so with even more flair and fairness.
Never once have I seen you take sides while writing about the many properties that you have featured over the years and when petty bickering takes place (ME) you allow us all to have our say before you push us back outside to play.
Congrats also have to go out to the many regulars who make reading this blog so much more enjoyable and informative. Although I like to think I know all there is to know about renovating properties, I have to admit my fellow CribChatterers have schooled me in some very important to the area facts of life.
Now with the prospect of reaching more potential buyers/fellow RE freaks, perhaps Chicago’s RE brokers and agents will finally up their game and shell out to feature professional photos, learn how to use proper property measuring devices and…wait for it…even some fair and accurate floorplan porn!!
What do you say RE pros…will you do that for us? Demanding RE freaks want to know?
Can you believe that the domain realestateporn.com is already taken? Damn! I was going to buy it for Sabrina.
email sent from v… gmail.com
very good write-up, congrats! I wonder what you’d get if cribchatter and yochicago had a web baby…
You’d get westloopelo
“skeptic on June 3rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm
very good write-up, congrats! I wonder what you’d get if cribchatter and yochicago had a web baby…”
“Can you believe that the domain realestateporn.com is already taken?”
Yes absolutely. And I’d be willing to bet the eventual use of the site has more to do with the second half of its name than the first. You are aware of..umm…the amount of … on the interwebs?
“Can you believe that the domain realestateporn.com is already taken? Damn! I was going to buy it for Sabrina.”
Thanks for thinking of me Gary. What a site I could have written on that address. 🙂
Thanks to everyone for their kind words and suggestions. Really, it is the comments (and your tips) which make the site a success. I too have learned from all of you about schools, nearby loud bars, bad traffic, and long (or short) commutes, among other things. It’s all great information for house hunters.
And for those of you disappointed you weren’t mentioned by your screen name in the article, believe me, many of you came up in the course of the conversation with Mary so you weren’t forgotten.
Congrats Sabrina !
Your blog is “must reading” because of your excellent work & dedication.
I also enjoy reading the considered views of your “regulars” — Gary Lucido, Laura Louzader, homedelete, anon (tfo), Groove, “G” and others.
(Who can forget the debates between “G” & Joe Zekas? Or Joe Zekas and Gary, or Joe Zekas and . . . everybody? Ahh, Good times….)
If you had a tip jar Sabrina I’d donate to it.
(As for the Tribune, their website & newspaper are terrible. I now get most of my Chicago news & analysis from the NYT:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/illinois/chicago-news-cooperative/index.html
“I wonder what you’d get if cribchatter and yochicago had a web baby…”
“You’d get westloopelo”
The obnoxious ‘old me’ would be carrying on like a raging lunatic, but I actually found this to be VERY funny. Good job HD!
But do you really think I’m CC’s Zekas…that bad…really?
wle I figured you’re a nice guy so you belong on CC but you’re forever a RE bull which is from the genes of Zekas.
“But do you really think I’m CC’s Zekas…that bad…really?”