Madison home and condo prices took a big leap in April. Here's a quick look at the April numbers. 

Home Prices

The price per square foot jumped by $22 from April 2016 to April 2017. That's an increase of 16%. 

Year-to-date, the price per square foot was up by $14 through the month of April - an increase of 10%. 

Condo Prices

The April condo price per square foot increased $16 year-over-year - an increase of 11%. 

Year-to-date the price per square foot was also up by 11%

What's driving prices higher? 

Increased competition. Amazingly, 47% of all single family homes that went under contract in March involved 2 or more competing offers. That's the highest percentage we've seen in the Madison market. Increased

As another entry in our series of neighborhood profiles, The Crossing, also known as Glacier Ridge, has earned the attention of families and professionals for its attractive setting within Madison city limits. Its appeal begins with the large amount of green space, and several large parks along its borders. The Crossing is the kind of neighborhood where you'll find residents strolling along the sidewalks each evening, and taking advantage of the expansive trail network along its western edge. 

The Ice Age Trail Park borders the community on the west side. This park provides beautiful space to hike and bike on wooded trails and natural prairies. We recently featured it here:

Mad City Dream Homes Neighborhood Tours - The Ice Age Trail from Dan

The market this year is playing out as expected. Inventories are historically low. Properties are selling quickly. And prices are rising rapidly throughout Dane County. Here's a quick market snapshot covering a few of the county's largest communities. 

Home Prices

We use the price per square foot to track the change in local home prices. Property values are rising rapidly and setting new highs in Fitchburg, Madison, Sun Prairie, Verona and Waunakee. We expect Middleton home prices to reach new highs within a few months.

Low inventories and strong demand are driving prices higher. Bidding wars and "escalation clauses" have become very common this spring, especially for listings priced under $350,000. 

Condo Prices

The condo market used to be

You’ve done your homework, worked with the stager, and made the improvements necessary to make your home attract buyers. You kept it perfect for showings, and generated great interest. Finally, you accept an offer, and believe you will soon move on to a new adventure. But then it happens. The buyer's home inspection report includes mold. What do you do?

We’ve walked many sellers through this predicament, and have found some excellent solutions. One of our favorite mold experts is Rapid Response Remediation. This company has effectively cleaned up several of our clients' properties, and has done it in a timely and affordable manner. Rob Mozgawa, managing partner of the company, says that people are more afraid of mold than they need to be.

“It's an

When is the best time to start your estate planning? Age 18. The reality for most people is that this planning doesn’t happen until much later, but Bob Nennig of Nennig Law Offices, LLC can help clients of all ages prepare for the future. Nennig knows that most clients aren’t experts on estate planning. He prides himself in walking them through the process, explaining the options, and making sure that they are both pleased and protected by the final results. You don’t have to be exceptionally wealthy to make plans. If you own a home and have a retirement plan, you're ready to make an estate plan.

Estate planning is different from financial advice. It is designed to look at your assets and then create the best possible way to share them with your loved

How often do Madison area real estate listings receive multiple offers? The South Central Wisconsin MLS actually started tracking this statistic in 2016. We like following this stat because it gives us some great insight into the market and the performance of our team.

Competing Offers Give us Insight into the Market

As we posted a few weeks ago, competing offers are most common during the springtime. If you're looking to time your sale just right, then right now is the perfect time to sell. Your odds of attracting multiple offers and getting a fantastic price are highest in the Spring. 

Competing Offers Help us Measure our Team's Performance

We design our marketing to attract multiple offers, because competing offers allow us to

There are some in the real estate industry who don't believe in holding an open house. However, our experiences with open houses have been very positive. In fact, they're an important part of our home-selling plan. Here are 3 reasons why holding an open house is a no-brainer in today's real estate market. 

Three Great Reasons to Hold an Open House

1) The mere act of scheduling an open house can cause some buyers to submit an immediate offer. A buyer's worst fear is losing out on their dream home to some other buyer who attends the upcoming open house. This "fear of loss" can motivate some buyers to write a very strong and immediate offer before the open house has a chance to take place. Pre-announcing an open house as part of a "coming soon listing"

Here's an example that demonstrates how competitive the Madison area real estate market has become for home and condo buyers...We recently listed a home for sale in a neighborhood with less than a month of supply. Seventy-five percent of the listings in this neighborhood were under contract and scheduled to close soon. This home was also positioned in a very popular price point. Everything we knew about this listing suggested the response to this home would be very strong. 

As it turned out this property had 30 private showings in 4 days as well as another 30 parties who attended the Sunday open house. By the end of the fourth day six offers were on the table.

Every offer was strong

• Six of six offers were for above the full list price. The

Last year was an eventful year for our team and clients. It was our first full year at our new brokerage, RE/MAX Preferred, where we couldn’t be happier. Thank you Pam and Dan for making RE/MAX a great place to practice real estate! You've gone out of your way to support us through a year of change. 

2016 was a year of improvement, including these 3 big changes:

• Joe Molloy joined our team as our resident MacGyver. For the past year he’s been providing awesome support for our team and clients. Thank you Joe for all you do!
• Shelley Lazzareschi joined us as our newest agent. If you’ve had the pleasure of working with Shelley, you know first-hand she’s a real pro.
• We launched our mobile app, so you can customize your property searches and

We've covered how strong coming soon marketing can create pent up demand for your listing and have buyers lined up at your door when you're ready for showings to begin. So how do you leverage all of this interest to generate the best possible offer? 

When buyer interest is high, many of our clients choose to allow several days to a week of showings before responding to any offers. This strategy offers sellers a few key advantages. 

First, it creates the expectation that multiple offers are likely, and that the winning offer will need to be a very strong one. Therefore, buyers will need to write a nice a clean offer and for a very high price if they hope to have their offer accepted. 

Second, it allows time for all interested parties to schedule