We've covered previously how you and your real estate agent can use creative techniques to find and buy an unlisted property. These strategies include calling and sending letters to home owners in your preferred locations. Done in the right way, both methods work extremely well. Both afford you the opportunity to find the right property, negotiate with the owner, and close on your new home without any competition from other buyers. In this market of low inventory and high demand, both strategies give you a big advantage over the competition. Not only that, buying an unlisted home is a bit of an adventure and can be a lot of fun. 

A good old-fashioned postcard offers another creative avenue for finding and buying an unlisted property. A strategically

We recently posted on how you and your buyer agent can collaborate to find an off-market property before the general public knows it's available for sale. Blanketing a neighborhood (or condo development) with a personal letter is an excellent strategy for beating the competition to a great home in a popular location. 

Another effective method is to ask your agent to call the households in your preferred neighborhood. Similar to the personal letter, an effective phone call campaign allows you to connect with property owners who are planning to sell in the near future. Here are a few tips for a successful phone call campaign, which we've learned through trial, error, and on-the-job education.

Five Tips for an Effective Phone Call Campaign

1. Your

Housing inventory is much lower than it used to be - and demand is much higher - so for some buyers finding the right home can be a real challenge. In some neighborhoods the competition for homes is fierce. A well-priced listing in a popular neighborhood can sell within days (or sometimes even within hours) and with multiple competing offers.

However, there are a few different strategies you and your buyer agent can use to beat the competition to a great home in your preferred location. One very effective method is to deliver a letter to every home in your target neighborhood.

A personal letter offers a great way to reach home owners who are planning to sell but who have not yet put their home on the open market. 

As an example, our real estate

When is the best time to buy a home in Madison? Conventional wisdom says to buy in the springtime. Year in and year out our local real estate market is busiest during the warmer months and slowest during the winter holiday season. There are many in the real estate industry who refer to this time of year as the "REALTOR Holiday", which runs unofficially from Thanksgiving Day through New Year's Day. 

The spring and summer months are the most popular times for buying in our market, but there can be some challenges that come with buying during the peak season. Shopping in the spring or summer market means you're competing with many other buyers at a time when homes are selling very quickly. If you don't act quickly yourself, you could lose your ideal

Searching for real estate by school or school district is easy with our suite of property search tools. We show you how with two simple examples below.

Example 1: Homes in the Middleton-Cross Plains School District

Let's suppose you're interested in homes in the Middleton-Cross Plains school district. Here's how you can focus your search in 4 quick steps:

1. Go to our property Search page.
2. Scroll to the School District filter and select Middleton-Cross Plains
3. Customize your search according to your preferred property type, size, price, and number of bedrooms/bathrooms.
4. Click Refine Search.

Our search tool then presents all of the properties in the Middleton-Cross Plains school district that meet all of our your defined criteria.

What does the new year hold in store for Madison, Wisconsin real estate? Based on our review of objective market data, we expect the 2014 Madison real estate market to be another good year for local home and condo sellers. Read on for more info:

2014 Madison Real Estate Predictions

1. Madison home and condo sales will continue at strong levels, but will decrease from the levels of 2013. The 2013 real estate market was a perfect storm for local sellers. Low prices, rock bottom mortgage rates, and several years of pent up demand combined to create a huge influx of buyers in 2013. These market forces are still at play in 2014, but not to the extent of the previous year. Our pending home sales data suggests strong but moderating sales in the months

Are you in the market for a home or condo in the Madison, Wisconsin area? Our radius search tool makes it easy for you to customize your real estate search according to the area that you define on our MLS map.

Our radius search works along with the many other search settings that we make available - property type, price range, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, and size to name a few - so you can target your ideal property within the map location that you specify. What's more, you can save your radius search settings and receive email notifications new listings enter the MLS and when existing listings undergo a price reduction.

Give our map search a try now. Or sign up for our home finder, and we'll find your properties and set up your

We've been working to create a website that provides you with the very best view of the Madison real estate market at the local and neighborhood level. We've added many improvements to MadCityDreamHomes.com over the last few weeks, including many enhancements to our detailed property views. Our newest feature is the addition of neighborhood market information, which includes a summary of recent sales, active listings, and active listings with accepted offers. 

Take a look at the example below which shows a neighborhood market summary for a home in the Hill Farms neighborhood on Madison's near west side.

• The blue home icons represent current listings in the area with an accepted offer (this status is assigned by the listing brokerage within the

One of our team goals for 2013 has been to create a second real estate website that you will value for years to come. Our first website, DaneCountyMarket.com, is recognized as a great local resource for no-spin information on the Madison area home and condo markets. Our focus for MadCityDreamHomes.com has been to create a Madison real estate resource with the best available view of the properties for sale at the local and neighborhood levels. We have more work to do, but we're well on our way toward achieving our goal. Here's a quick update on our plans for building you a better website for Madison Wisconsin real estate.  

5 Steps to a Better Real Estate Website

1. Create Madison property guides that provide an in-depth view of homes and condos at

Are you the type of person that prefers vintage, old-school homes? Then you'll be very interested to learn about our new historic home listing at 2809 Columbia Rd in Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin. This authentic, prairie style home was built in 1916 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The photo to the right shows this home in an early promotional brochure for Shorewood Hills real estate (see photo center left). This home offers a combination of features that is unique in Shorewood Hills. The house resides on a double lot with mature trees and gardens and features a separate cottage in the back yard. The cottage can be used for a variety of different purposes - as a studio, as a guest house or mother-in-law suite, or as rental income.