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Emery Moorehead huddles with Bears coach Mike Ditka. (January 3, 1985) |
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Like other football fans across the country, Emery Moorehead will be sitting in front of a television Sunday at 5:30 p.m. watching the Packers-Steelers kickoff.
But shortly before that, he just may be yanking an "open house" sign from a front yard on the North Shore.
Moorehead, starting tight end for the 1985 Chicago Bears, started working his way toward becoming a real estate agent shortly after receiving his Super Bowl ring. In 1986, two years before he retired from the National Football League, he received his license.
"I was in my ninth year when we won the Super Bowl, and I knew it wasn't going to last too much longer," Moorehead said. "I made $220,000 that year. All of our guys had to go to work when we got done. You had to have someplace to go, something to do. You weren't making the kind of money they are now."
The Monday after he retired, he traded his uniform for a sport coat and started working as a real estate agent full time.
Now a longtime Koenig & Strey real estate agent in Lake Forest and chairman of the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, Moorehead, 56, can spout housing market numbers and mortgage rates as well as he can football stats.
Many of the numbers he talks about these days aren't very pretty, particularly when it comes to Moorehead's sweet spot: upper-bracket homes.
According to the realty board, only 30 homes sold for $1 million or more in 2010, one fewer than in 2009. And those 30 homes were the fewest number of million-dollar homes sold since 2004.
Pricing remains key, and Moorehead noted the difficulty in representing sellers who want to hold out for a certain price when comparable, well-maintained foreclosures are selling for substantially less. Last year, the median price of upper-bracket homes sold was $1.3 million. That was an 11 percent improvement from 2009 but still down substantially from the peak median high-end home price of almost $1.48 million in 2007.
In Lake Forest alone, more than 150 single-family, detached homes priced at $1 million or more are actively being marketed for sale, including many that have had price reductions.
"For 21 years it was a seller's market," Moorehead said. "Now, young people have opportunities to get into communities they could not get into four years ago. These are times you will not see again."
Still, Moorehead, like other real estate agents, worries that any uptick in consumer interest could come to a screeching halt as would-be buyers watch interest rates slowly inch up and talk continues about eliminating the mortgage-interest tax deduction.
"We have to do everything we can to help the real estate industry," Moorehead said. "Real estate has always been what's led the country out of recession. It's not going to be this time."
As for football, Moorehead still loves the game, now as a fan who's been known to "moan and groan just like another fan." And up until about Thanksgiving, he'll only watch Bears games, that is, when he's not at real estate open houses, Moorehead said.
His prediction for Sunday: He admires the Packers' remarkable year but thinks the Steelers will emerge victorious, primarily because they've been there a few times before (the Steelers have won six of the seven Super Bowls they've been in) and the Packers' injured reserve list is long.
Optimism vs. realism: As upbeat as anyone tries to be, there's just no getting around the reality behind the numbers staring at the housing industry, at least for the first half of the year.
At a recent Chicago Association of Realtors event, Michael Miller, an associate economics professor at DePaul University, said the phrase for 2011 was "ho-hum." In other words, there will be improvement, primarily in the second half of the year, but it won't be much.
"The growth rate is going to be so anemic compared to what we need that we can't restore confidence completely," he said. "We still have to wait until next year for something you're used to."
One slide in Miller's PowerPoint presentation noted that Illinois' high level of unemployment and recently passed higher income taxes were doing little to restore consumer confidence.
The title on the slide: "Illinois — The Prairie State or the Pray for Me state." No one laughed.
mepodmolik@tribune.com
But shortly before that, he just may be yanking an "open house" sign from a front yard on the North Shore.
Moorehead, starting tight end for the 1985 Chicago Bears, started working his way toward becoming a real estate agent shortly after receiving his Super Bowl ring. In 1986, two years before he retired from the National Football League, he received his license.
"I was in my ninth year when we won the Super Bowl, and I knew it wasn't going to last too much longer," Moorehead said. "I made $220,000 that year. All of our guys had to go to work when we got done. You had to have someplace to go, something to do. You weren't making the kind of money they are now."
The Monday after he retired, he traded his uniform for a sport coat and started working as a real estate agent full time.
Now a longtime Koenig & Strey real estate agent in Lake Forest and chairman of the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, Moorehead, 56, can spout housing market numbers and mortgage rates as well as he can football stats.
Many of the numbers he talks about these days aren't very pretty, particularly when it comes to Moorehead's sweet spot: upper-bracket homes.
According to the realty board, only 30 homes sold for $1 million or more in 2010, one fewer than in 2009. And those 30 homes were the fewest number of million-dollar homes sold since 2004.
Pricing remains key, and Moorehead noted the difficulty in representing sellers who want to hold out for a certain price when comparable, well-maintained foreclosures are selling for substantially less. Last year, the median price of upper-bracket homes sold was $1.3 million. That was an 11 percent improvement from 2009 but still down substantially from the peak median high-end home price of almost $1.48 million in 2007.
In Lake Forest alone, more than 150 single-family, detached homes priced at $1 million or more are actively being marketed for sale, including many that have had price reductions.
"For 21 years it was a seller's market," Moorehead said. "Now, young people have opportunities to get into communities they could not get into four years ago. These are times you will not see again."
Still, Moorehead, like other real estate agents, worries that any uptick in consumer interest could come to a screeching halt as would-be buyers watch interest rates slowly inch up and talk continues about eliminating the mortgage-interest tax deduction.
"We have to do everything we can to help the real estate industry," Moorehead said. "Real estate has always been what's led the country out of recession. It's not going to be this time."
As for football, Moorehead still loves the game, now as a fan who's been known to "moan and groan just like another fan." And up until about Thanksgiving, he'll only watch Bears games, that is, when he's not at real estate open houses, Moorehead said.
His prediction for Sunday: He admires the Packers' remarkable year but thinks the Steelers will emerge victorious, primarily because they've been there a few times before (the Steelers have won six of the seven Super Bowls they've been in) and the Packers' injured reserve list is long.
Optimism vs. realism: As upbeat as anyone tries to be, there's just no getting around the reality behind the numbers staring at the housing industry, at least for the first half of the year.
At a recent Chicago Association of Realtors event, Michael Miller, an associate economics professor at DePaul University, said the phrase for 2011 was "ho-hum." In other words, there will be improvement, primarily in the second half of the year, but it won't be much.
"The growth rate is going to be so anemic compared to what we need that we can't restore confidence completely," he said. "We still have to wait until next year for something you're used to."
One slide in Miller's PowerPoint presentation noted that Illinois' high level of unemployment and recently passed higher income taxes were doing little to restore consumer confidence.
The title on the slide: "Illinois — The Prairie State or the Pray for Me state." No one laughed.
mepodmolik@tribune.com