I love a local brewery! This week, I found myself at Corridor Brewery & Provisions, located at 3446 N Southport. Every time I’ve walked by around dinner time, the patio is full and the inside of the restaurant is bustling with people. We came in for dinner around 8 on a Monday night and had no problem being seated right away. The atmosphere is fantastic, with a huge wooden bar, industrial lighting, and cozy booths and tables. The menu is relatively small, with a few choices for appetizers, sandwiches, pizzas, and salads. I was super tempted by the Shrimp Tostadas topped with mango salsa, chipotle, and lime juice. I decided to save my appetite for the main event and chose the Chopped Salad: mixed lettuces, chicken, smoked pepper bacon, tomato, green peas, croutons, and shaved parmesan, all tossed in a green goddess dressing. This salad was fantastic! The lettuces were fresh and crunchy and I absolutely love peas in a salad. The texture and richness of the smoked bacon really complimented the bright vegetables as well. I would order this again in a heartbeat. My friend decided on the burger: a double steak patty with mustard herb mayo, cheddar, and Detroit pickles on a sesame bun served with fries. This was a great burger. The steak patties were cooked perfectly and I loved the simplicity of the dish. The fries were amazing! They were thick cut, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and seasoned well. Corridor also has a great brunch menu, with a dedicated section of brioche waffles, large plates, omelettes, and more.

Corridor is open Mondays and Tuesdays from 11 am to 11 pm, Wednesdays through Fridays from 11 am to midnight, Saturdays from 10 am to midnight, and Sundays from 10 am to 11 pm. Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 2 pm. Corridor does not take reservations, but you can put your name on a waiting list. Find more information about this delicious spot here.

RACHEL HOOVLER & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO

When it comes to real estate, location is everything, hence the adage, “location, location, location.” You could have a fabulous home, but if it’s in a bad location, its value can definitely suffer.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to sell your home if the neighborhood it’s located in is less than desirable. Plenty of sellers find themselves in this exact position but manage to sell successfully, and you can too.

Here are some things you can do to help sell your home despite its bad location.

Boost Curb Appeal

There might be little you can do about the block you’re on, but there’s a lot you can do to make your home stand out, in a good way. The first thing you can do to ensure that buyers like what they see when they pull up to your home is to give the exterior a facelift. Boosting the curb appeal of your home can do wonders to attract buyers and increase the perceived value of the home.

If you’re selling in a bad location, you’ve got to pull out all the stops to impress buyers the moment they lay eyes on your house. Keep the lawn mowed, remove dead leaves, prune the bushes, plant some flowers, paint the door and shutters, and wash the windows. If your home is adjacent to a home that’s not very well maintained, consider planting some hedges or erecting a fence to add some separation.

Have Your Home Professionally Staged

You’ve charmed buyers with your home’s exterior, and now it’s time to do the same with the interior. Buyers should be “wowed” as soon as they cross over the threshold if you want them to be able to see past the sub-par location of the property. To do this, you’ve got to have your home staged.

While you could always stage your home yourself, a professional home staging company will probably be able to do a much better job at understanding what local buyers want and staging the home specifically to cater to this group.

Staging involves presenting a home in the most positive light by choosing the right furniture pieces and accessories and positioning them strategically to optimize flow and visual interest.

Professional staging has a track record of helping homes sell quickly and for more money compared to homes that have not been staged. If your home seems to offer everything that buyers are looking for in a home, they might be more willing to place less weight on the negative traits of the surrounding location.

Price it Right

Pricing real estate properly is key to selling within a reasonable amount of time, especially for homes that may be a tough sell. With a difficult location, pricing appropriately compared to other homes nearby that have recently sold is important. Pricing too high will certainly scare off buyers, particularly when it comes to homes that are located in a neighborhood that’s less than desirable.

Your real estate agent will conduct a comparative market analysis on similar homes that have recently sold, and you’d be well advised to heed their advice. The last thing you want to do is drop the price a few weeks after your listing goes live because there are no takers. Selling in a tough neighborhood is difficult enough, and trying to convince buyers to pay more than what it’s worth is even harder.

Make Improvements That Will Bring You a Decent ROI

Sometimes it might be necessary to make some improvements to your home in order to impress buyers. Maybe the kitchen seems too small, or the hallway is too dark and dingy. Whatever the case may be, upgrading specific aspects of your home might be warranted. Just be very careful where you’re spending your money and how much you’re spending.

Consider how much you can realistically sell for and account for that figure in your calculations. You don’t want to spend much more than what you’ll recoup when you sell.

Spending money on a fresh coat of paint, repairs, new flooring, new light fixtures, updating kitchens and bathrooms, and organizing closets can be very effective when done right.

Heavily Market an Open House

Have your agent advertise an open house to maximize the number of buyers who show up, and try to host the open house shortly after listing the property. Interest is usually highest for brand new listings, so you need to capitalize on this window of opportunity. Having as many buyers present during your open house will show other buyers that they’re not the only ones who may be interested in buying your home.

Give Directions Through the Nicer Part of Town

When providing directions for your open house, direct buyers through the nicer streets, if any exist. While you don’t want to send people on a major detour, you also want to point out that there are some positive parts to the area, reassuring buyers that the neighborhood isn’t necessarily all that bad.

Offer Concessions

A number of factors play a role in whether or not a buyer decides to put in an offer, and sometimes offering concessions may be just what’s needed to seal a deal. If possible, consider offering concessions to sweeten the deal and make up for the lack of a desirable location. You might choose to pay for part of the closing costs, provide a credit to buyers to cover the cost of home improvements or offer a home warranty for a certain amount of time.

The Bottom Line

Selling a home in a bad location isn’t exactly ideal, but there are definitely some things you can do to improve the situation. There’s always a buyer for every home, even those that are not located in the best neighborhood.

I have been craving Italian food something fierce. This week took me to Francesca’s, a charming spot tucked away in the Edgewater neighborhood. The restaurant is deceptively large, with ample seating around the wooden bar, a generous number of tables and booths, and a private dining space in the back. We came in on a Tuesday night and although the restaurant wasn’t super busy, I was glad we had made a reservation for a group of seven people. The menu immediately made my mouth water; everything looked so delicious. I know that my eyes always tend to be bigger than my stomach (especially at an Italian restaurant), so I decided to start small. I ordered the Insalata di Rucola: arugula and chopped tomatoes topped with lemon juice, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. This was fantastic. The flavors were bright and fresh and I loved the simplicity of the dish. I will say, the portion was a bit small for the price, but the taste more than made up for it. On Tuesday evenings, they do a lasagna special; $13 for your choice of a dinner or Caesar salad or soup and the lasagna. This week they featured a three cheese lasagna: ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese with a tomato vodka cream sauce. Most of my friends ordered the dinner salad, which came with a positively delightful lemon basil vinaigrette. The lasagna was delicious. The sauce completely made the dish for me, I would order it again in a heartbeat. One of my friends ordered the rigatoni dish: rigatoni pasta topped with peas, cremini mushrooms, and prosciutto in a parmesan cream sauce. After tasting this, I immediately had food envy. The combination of the salty prosciutto with the rich mushrooms, fresh peas, and savory cream sauce was incredible. I also saw that Francesca’s is now serving brunch and I can’t wait to try some of their brunch items! In particular, the Arancini Benedict caught my eye: crispy risotto, prosciutto, poached egg, and hollandaise sauce served with house potatoes.

Francesca’s Bryn Mawr is open Mondays from 11:30 am to 9 pm, Tuesdays through Thursdays from 11:30 am to 9:30 pm, Fridays from 11:30 am to 10:30 pm, Saturdays from 10 am to 10:30 pm, and Sundays from 10 am to 9 pm. Brunch is served Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 3 pm. Francesca’s has three other locations in the city: Gold Coast, Little Italy, and Lakeview. Find more information here.

RACHEL HOOVLER & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO

Some homeowners are pretty handy, which can be very convenient when a light bulb burns out or a door hinge needs to be tightened. But no matter how good you might be around the house, there are certain jobs that you should think twice about taking the DIY route for. Some jobs are just too big and complicated for homeowners and are best left to the professionals to handle.

Here are a few home improvement jobs that you probably shouldn’t take on yourself.

1. Fixing Electrical Wiring

It goes without saying that messing around with live wires puts you at risk of electrocution, not to mention electrical fires. Whether you’re trying to rewire the house, repair the electrical panel, or install wiring to a new space, this is not a job for an amateur. Besides, you might even have to get a permit to make any significant changes to the electricals in your house. This one’s just not worth risking the potential hazards that come with it.

2. Repairing Plumbing Pipes

Similar to meddling with the electricals, fussing with plumbing pipes can leave you with a big mess on your hands if you’re not skilled in this particular trade. Sure, you might be able to get away with minor jobs like unclogging a drain or hooking up your washing machine. But any major plumbing issues – like dismantling a toilet or fussing with the main plumbing line in any way – should be left to professional plumbers.

3. Repairing the Roof

Notice any peeling shingles or water damage in the attic? If so, your roof may require some attention, but not necessarily from you. For starters, climbing way up there is dangerous if the proper precautions aren’t taken. Further, do you really know what you’re doing once you’re up there? Honestly, roof repair is not a one-man job.

Instead, it usually takes a crew of experts to get the job done. Do yourself – and your house – a favor and call professional roofers to tackle any major roof repairs that may be required.

4. Removing Trees

Mature trees not only offer aesthetic appeal to your landscaping, but they can also provide some much-needed shade to your home as well as a certain amount of privacy and security. But big, old trees can also be a nuisance if they’re causing a big mess from leaves that are constantly falling. They could also be a bother if they’re too close to the home and provide intruders with an easier way to break into your house. Some old trees might even be diseased and will have to be removed as a result.

Whatever the reason for you wanting to remove your old trees, resist the urge to crack open the chainsaw and take it down yourself. If that tree happens to fall in the wrong direction, or you underestimated its reach once it’s horizontal, you could do some major damage and even cause serious injury. Even if the tree lands exactly where you want it, how will you remove it? And what will you do with the stump that’s left behind?

It would be much easier and even safer to consult with a tree service to take on this big job for you.

5. Removing Popcorn Ceilings

While they may have been popular back in the 80s and earlier, popcorn ceilings are nothing but an eyesore today. But as easy as it may sound to just scrape off that sprayed-on material to reveal a smoother surface, you run the risk of dealing with asbestos. This material may be harmless when left alone, but it can become a real hazard if it is disturbed and allowed to become airborne when it’s tampered with.

Ceiling specialists will test the area for the presence of asbestos, and if any is detected, they will deal with the popcorn ceiling removal accordingly. Even if no asbestos is found, the process of removing this material is an extremely messy, laborious, and time-consuming one that would be a nightmare for you to do on your own.

6. Applying Stucco

If your home’s exterior walls are looking a little tired, a fresh coat of stucco can breathe new life into them. But that doesn’t mean you should apply it yourself. A good stucco job can make a big improvement to the look of a home, but a shoddy job can make it look worse than before. And if you don’t do a perfect job, you could find yourself with bubbling and cracking in spots where the material was not applied evenly or properly.

Even if your home is covered in siding, that’s still not a job for the DIY homeowner to repair or replace. Professionals in masonry know what they’re doing and will get the job done right the first time around.

7. Repairing or Replacing Gutters

Gutters are super important for directing water runoff away from your home during bouts of precipitation to avoid water pooling at the base of your exterior walls. Without gutters, your home could easily be subject to water damage and even flooding if it rains particularly hard at any given time.

But if you notice that the gutters are bent, cut, or simply not doing their job properly, you might want to think twice about repairing them yourself. Your gutters are directly linked to your roof, so if you meddle with the gutters, you’ll ultimately end up messing around with the roof too. And we’ve already explained why the roof should be left to the professionals to deal with. You could end up causing more damage to the roof and even put yourself in danger.

8. Repairing the HVAC System

The summer season is the worst time for your A/C to konk out on you, and it will definitely require some immediate attention if it’s not working as it should. But that doesn’t mean you should tamper with the system or unit yourself. You might know a thing or two about your air conditioner or the HVAC system in general, but unless you’re an HVAC technician yourself, you probably don’t have the experience nor the knowledge necessary to fix whatever may be wrong with your system without potentially making things worse.

The Bottom Line

Owning a home inevitably means having to deal with repairs every once in a while. But that doesn’t mean you should take on every job that comes your way. In situations where the repairs are extensive or your safety is on the line, it always makes more sense to call in the pros. It’s not worth the hassle or the hazard, especially for these types of home improvement jobs.