Albuquerque. Baltimore. Baton Rouge. Broward. Central NY. Charleston. Cleveland. DC. Dayton. Fresno. Kansas City. Lexington. Little Rock. Milwaukee. Nashville. Omaha. Orange County. Rhode Island. Sacramento. San Francisco. San Jose. South Alabama. Southeastern Pa. Tampa Bay. Twin Cities. Ventura County. Winston-Salem.

What do these United States communities have in common? All of them were scheduled to have Parkinson’s Moving Day walks this spring. All of their walks were cancelled.

Covid-19!

We’re at the beginning of the charity walk season. Each weekend from now through the fall, you’ll find walkers in our local parks, trying to raise money for the causes that are closest to their hearts. Like everything else in America, charities are affected by the pandemic. It’s hard to have a group walk when most of the country has been under a stay at home order. If you think having fifty people in one location is pushing it, how is it possible to gather a couple of thousand folks together? The answer is, it’s not! Social distancing isn’t possible.

But, what we’ve found out in the last two months is there are still ways to connect. We’ve seen children attend school by Zoom. Work, too. Families and friends have their connections by computer. If these groups can do it, why not have a virtual charity walk for thousands?

Today is the Parkinson’s community day to have their walk. At 1 pm eastern time, you can click this link and attend a virtual Parkinson’s event. You can also find it on Facebook and You Tube.

I’ve been to seven Moving Day events and it’s always a special and emotional day. When you pass along the lakefront with a thousand other people, it’s almost a spiritual experience. I don’t know if sitting on a laptop and watching will match that, but it’s opportunity to bond with others from this community. Because of our current circumstances, it may be even more special than a normal walk.

And then there’s the money. Moving Day walks throughout the United States raises millions of dollars which is used to support programs that makes the lives of people suffering with Parkinson’s Disease better. With so many people out of jobs and struggling to make ends meet, you have to figure that charity donations are the last thing on everyone’s mind. Hopefully, virtual walks like this one, and the others you’ll see for various other causes, will remind people that money is still needed. Every little bit does help.

So at one today, turn on your computer, tablet or phone and come take a walk. You won’t even have to leave your home.

Related Post: April was Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month

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This graduation isn’t like others. We’re all tucked into our homes, cooking, working out, creating….or not. We might be sitting on the couch, curled up watching Netflix and eating cookies, bored but unable to muster the energy to do much else. Maybe we’re depressed, anxious, afraid.

Those of you with school-aged children are your child’s guide through online school. You’re doing your own school work at the same time, maybe struggling with the same things they are: how can you be engaged, how can you get all of this work done?

Some of you are working from home. Some of you have lost your jobs. Worse still, you may be ill or caring for someone who is. Maybe you’ve lost someone and were separated from them at the end, now waiting for a time when you can gather to honor their lives.

I used to have this fantasy that would crop up perennially when I felt overwhelmed with work. I was in prison—falsely accused of course—maybe for only a year. But I could have all of the books I wanted. I could read and read and read. And every day I’d work out. After a year I’d leave my cell well-read and buff. Relaxed, ready to face the world.

Well, I’ve got my Corona virus prison and I can’t read to save my life. I have four or five books scattered around the house that I’m trying to read. I get through a few paragraphs and have no idea what I’ve just read. My concentration is gone.

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 I faced the same inability to read. It was as if my own story was just too big to allow any others to speak. Sometimes there’s no escape.

As crisis wears on and as you move away from a traumatic reality, you realize that you’re grieving. Grieving for a lost world, for a lost normal, for a lost vitality. And you move and circle back through cycles of denial and anger, sorrow and acceptance.

We are a grieving nation at the moment. I try to remind myself that seasons of grief are normal. They are part of life. Parts of us wither and die with the waning light and bitter winds. But as Tom Waits tell us, “You can never hold back Spring.” New parts of us, old parts recreated perhaps, begin to grow. Not because of the suffering. They are not gifts or silver linings. They are just normal. All things come to an end and new things always begin.

Oprah Winfrey tells of a story she heard from her mentor, Maya Angelou. It ended with the image of boarding a plane in a storm, pouring rain and thunder and lightning. But as the plane takes off, gains altitude, it rises above the storm and there is sun. She reminds us, “The sun is always there.”

Every year I look forward to graduation. I pull out my graduation robe and funny hat, remind myself which side the tassel is supposed to be on, find comfortable shoes and head off to Tinley Park. I get in line with my colleagues and I feel a thrill at the music, the pomp and circumstance, of honoring you, the graduates.

Graduation is the cap of the experience of education. All of the clothes and the music and the words are symbolic to honor you and to honor the intellect and heart of what we do. The colors all mean something.

My hood has purple and white satin on it, symbolizing the institution that granted my degree, Texas Christian University. Go horned frogs. The blue velvet down the front is the color of the discipline of philosophy, representing the Doctor of Philosophy degree, the PhD.

Most of our robes are black, but my friend Genie wears a rich brown robe, which is Brown University’s chosen color. Even the sleeves are symbolic. You can tell the graduate has a Masters degree from the distinctive drape that falls a foot or so below the sleeve.

Some of you wear cords around your neck, symbolizing honor societies and the DDP program.

The graduation ceremony is packed with meaning. I think we all deserve a Corona shaped pin to wear on our lapels for this year, to symbolize this terrible time and our ability to survive it. To help remind us that what we’ve achieved this year matters.

Our education does matter, and I’m proud that you’re graduating. You have learned so much, from math to writing, from counseling to accounting, the breadth of what the institution has to teach. You have also learned about perseverance and hard work, about when to cut corners and when to stay up all night. You’ve learned that learning comes with sacrifice. Most good things do.

So in this time of social isolation, I encourage you to have your own ceremony. Pack it full of meaning and symbolism. Create a wreath or a collage with images and words that represent your time at Governors State. If you have your robe and hat, wear them and take a picture. Be goofy or solemn. Tape messages to the cap. Hug the family you live with and give a speech in which you thank them. Give them and yourself the gift of gratitude for becoming a vetted member of the educated group.

This graduation isn’t like others. So revel in that. Make it special by being kind to yourself, by creating a moment in which you can just be. Know that you are growing, that parts of you are pushing up through the warming ground and are readying yourself to blossom. Mourn for what is lost, accept that loss is inevitable, and find time to celebrate that you are here and ready.

And as Oprah Winfrey reminds us, as the plane takes off and leaves behind the raging storm, rising above it all, “The sun is always there.” Somewhere it is shining.

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April is the Chicago real estate market’s first full month with the coronavirus stay at home order and its repercussions. And the picture is not pretty. And it will get worse before it gets better.

First, April closings were down 21.0% from last April. However, you should note that the Illinois Association of Realtors will report it as a 22.2% decline in about 2 weeks because that’s the way they roll. Of course, the other obvious factoid from the graph below – all Aprils are flagged in red – is that this was the lowest April sales in 8 years. None of this is helping that light blue moving trend line that has been trending downward for a couple of years now. It just took another hit – which would have been great if we were plotting the trend of Covid-19 cases here but we’re not.

Chicago home sales have been declining now for several years but the Coronavirus really tanked the market in April

Chicago Home Contract Activity

So here’s the thing…it’s going to get worse. Check out my contract activity graph below. April was down a whopping 54.4% from last year, which is the biggest percentage loss for any month since I’ve been tracking this. It’s also the lowest level for an April since I’ve been collecting the data. Because closings usually follow contracts by 1 – 2 months this means that closings in May and beyond are going to really suck compared to even April.

Of course, if you’ve been following my weekly Covid-19 updates none of this is a surprise to you.

Chicago home sale contract activity plummeted to a record low for an April due to Coronavirus concerns.

Pending Home Sales

It should be no surprise then that pending home sales also fell to the lowest level for an April since I’ve been tracking that data. The backlog of homes waiting to close plunged by 1746 units vs. last year at this time. That’s actually roughly equivalent to the drop in contract activity as you would expect. The trendline had been looking like it was leveling off but not anymore.

The backlog of homes likely to close in the next 1 – 2 months has fallen to record lows for this time of year in parallel with the decline in contract activity

Distressed Home Sales

The percentage of home sales that are distressed seems to be continuing its long term trend, falling to 4.1% from 6.3%. Since the sale of distressed properties is less sensitive to timing considerations like the infection rate of a population it’s possible that we will actually see this percentage increase temporarily in the next few months.

Since the housing crisis the percentage of home sales that are distressed has steadily declined.

Chicago Home Inventory

For the next few months I’m going to step away from the canned inventory reports. I don’t like the way they calculate their months of supply in an environment like we have right now. When the market is behaving more predictably I think their methodology is probably adequate but right now things are exceptionally dynamic. Rather than spend a lot of time exposing the shortcomings of the canned report let me focus on how I think we should be calculating months of supply: basically homes available for sale in a given month divided by contract activity in that same month. The measure of homes available for sale that is readily available to me looks at homes for sale at any time during the month – not just the end of the month.

On this basis I get the graph below which shows seasonal peaks around September – December and seasonal troughs around March – May. Except this year. You can see in the graph how the April numbers have jumped up. Detached inventory went from 3.2 months supply last year to 3.9 months this year. Attached inventory went from 3.0 months to 5.9 months. As I’ve mentioned in my weekly updates condos seem to have been hit harder than single family homes.

There are actually two different opposing forces at work here. First, new listing activity is down by more than 50% and that has resulted in 20% fewer homes on the market in total. However, contract activity is also down by more than 50% so when you divide the homes for sale by contracts written it gives you more months of supply. So this tips the balance between supply and demand in favor of buyers despite the fact that buyers actually have fewer homes to look at.

The months of supply of detached home inventory in Chicago has declined while attached home inventory has risen but the pandemic has pushed up the inventory of both housing types in April

Chicago Home Sale Market Times

One of the key metrics to watch in order to find out how all these different factors net out is market time – for the homes that closed in a given month how long did it take for them to go under contract. When homes are selling faster it’s an indication that the market is tipping in favor of sellers. And that’s actually happening to a small extent.

For attached homes (condos) the time to sell has dropped by a mere 1 day, from 76 days to 75 days. However, it’s been a little bit better for detached homes which have seen their market times go from 99 days to 91. That’s roughly consistent with the inventory story, though a drop is a little surprising in light of higher inventory levels.

The time it takes to sell condos/ townhomes and single family homes are recently converging.

Our Web site has even more data on the real estate market in Chicago.

#RealEstate #ChicagoRealEstate #Coronavirus

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

If you’re familiar with Schöfferhofer, it’s probably because you’ve had their incredibly drinkable grapefruit hef, a 50/50 blend of authentic unfiltered German Hefeweizen and carbonated grapefruit juice. A few years back, I actually wrote a piece about using it in a few cocktails. If you’re a grapefruit fan, you should definitely check it out! 

Today, I’ll be talking about Schöfferhofer Pomegranate, a beer released in 2017. Like Schöfferhofer Grapefruit, Schöfferhofer Pomegranate is a 50/50 blend of hefeweizen and fruit juice, but it comes in at a slightly stronger 3.2% ABV. Though both are made with a hefeweizen base, these refreshing brews would probably remind you of a radler or shandy, which are typically made with something like a pils.

Their refreshing nature and low-ABV make them fantastic for avoiding the buzz or mixing. That is exactly why I’ll be sharing some great cocktails and punches you can make using the pomegranate as the weather warms up. You’ll find a few of my favorites below.

Tropical Pomegranate Punch

• 1/2 bottle Schöfferhofer Pomegranate
• 1/2 can Mango White Claw
• 2 oz. (60ml) Bacardi Coconut
• 1.5 oz. (45ml) pineapple juice
• 1.5 oz. (45ml) freshly-squeezed lime juice

This has a super easy to drink, island-vibes kinda feel to it. Serve it in oversized tiki glasses with crushed ice and an umbrella. You’ll have everything you need besides the beach. Sub out the Bacardi for something lower proof like Parrot Bay if you want to keep it mellow or you can go big by opting for something like 90 proof Parrot Bay.

Upscale Vodka Pom

• 2 oz. (60ml) vodka of choice
• 1 oz. (30ml) freshly-squeezed lime juice
• 3 oz. Schöfferhofer Pomegranate

This one is pretty straight forward. If you like vodka crans, you’ll love this. EZPZ. 

Pom Cosmo

• 2.5 oz. (75ml) citrus vodka of choice
• 1 oz. (30ml) triple sec
• 3/4 oz. (45ml) lime juice
• 2 oz. (60 ml) Schöfferhofer Pomegranate
• Powdered sugar rim

Here we’ve subbed out the cranberry traditionally found in a cosmo with a heavy pour of Schöfferhofer Pomegranate to help the flavor shine through. It’s a nice variation on a traditional comso that drinks a little longer due to the added volume.

Schöfferhofer Martini

• 2 oz. (60ml) gin
• 1 oz (30ml) Schöfferhofer Pomegranate
• 1 dash Angostura orange bitters

This worked incredibly well to my surprise. I opted for Hendrick’s gin because I enjoy how floral it is, but you could easily make this with Plymouth for something a little more refined a well. If you’re a vodka drinker, this would absolutely work, but I’m not a fan of how neutral vodkas tend to be.

If you’re interested in additional Schöfferhofer cocktail recipes you can find some of their recommendations here. They have three signature cocktails for the grapefruit and pomegranate variants, so if you don’t see something that sounds good above, think about giving their recipes a try.

Cheers!

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*I was sent a 4-pack of Schöfferhofer Pomegranate to sample prior to writing this article. All opinions are my own and I was not paid to write this piece. None of the links in this article are affiliate links either.

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