Selling a Home in Chicago: The Biggest Hassle Known to Man?

Maybe selling a home in Chicago isn't the biggest hassle known to man, but after my experience, it certainly seems to me like it has to rank somewhere up there. We actually weren't selling within the city limits of Chicago per se, but rather in a near west suburb. And while this particular suburb may be lacking in many things, nitpicky rules and regulations when it comes to selling a home isn't one of them.

Maybe things were better back in the days when the real estate market was good and before buyers could be as choosy as they like. I'm really not sure since I didn't have the pleasure of buying or selling back then. Now however, the people and the process involved in selling my home in Chicagoland made it a severe pain in the butt and cost me a boatload of money.

Back and Forth

I don't mind negotiations -- in fact, I actually enjoy them -- the process however, and especially in the case of our home sale situation, can at times wear upon you. In the Chicago area, I guess it's just the norm for each side to have a real estate lawyer involved. This can be a nice bit of added protection to both buyer and seller, but this extra hand in the pot can also slow down the negotiating process as well as make it more confusing.

While the initial negotiations process only involved the buyers, sellers, and realtors, the subsequent negotiations regarding home repairs and modifications after the homeowners' inspection, also involved the lawyers. It kind of reminded me of a game we used to play in school where you'd line up the class, whisper a secret to the first person in line, and see how jumbled the secret message was by the time it reached the last person in line.

The buyers would make a request to their realtor. Their realtor would relay it to their lawyer. Their lawyer would relay it to our realtor. Our realtor would relay it to us. Then we would determine our response, and begin the process in reverse. It was ridiculous I tell you. And by the time we'd finished with just the homeowner inspection negotiations, it'd been nearly three weeks!

How Many Inspections?

Next we get to the inspections. As with many home sales, there was of course a homeowners' inspection, which was to be expected. But beyond that, our suburb also required a village inspection (at a cost of $125 to us). During this inspection, we were told that we also needed to get a separate inspection for a bar sink that was no longer in use because the previous village inspection had required it to be disconnected when we purchased the house. However, we did as we were told and had the requisite plumbing inspection.

Once the village inspection was over, we were sent a list of repair items that the village wanted fixed (beyond what the buyers wanted fixed), which for some reason were items that had not changed since the inspection conducted three years prior when we purchased, yet now needed to be updated -- and no, to my knowledge the building codes had not changed significantly since then. After we had made the required adjustments, we then had to have a follow-up inspection from the village to ensure we were in compliance.

Toward the end of this process, and seeing how it was Chicago, I was left wondering just whose palm I needed to grease to get through this and move on with the home sale process and life in general.

So while it was simple to get into a home in the Chicagoland area, it was far from simple to escape it. I'm sure that other places have similar requirements and other people have far worse stories than mine. But my case was however, a prime example of just how important it is not only to know the move in and living rules and requirements of an area to which one moves, but also what is required to leave that home and what hoops must be jumped through in the process.

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Disclaimer:

The author is not a licensed financial professional. The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Any action taken by the reader due to the information provided in this article is solely at the reader's discretion.