On The Market—Throwing Bucktown a Curve

List Price: $1.9 million
The Property: The architect John Hanna threw the rigidly rectilinear street grid in Bucktown a curve when he designed this contemporary home for a corner lot. The house appears impossibly slender when viewed from the west (looking at its front door), but then broadens in a sweeping, glassy curve as you walk around its north side.
Inside, the floor plan doesn’t feel pinched at the narrow ends because Hanna and the property’s developer, Chris Angelou, tucked balconies, closets, and bathrooms into those spaces. Stacked from the basement to the top floor within the house’s big bend are a...

Housing Bulletin— Neighborhood Info @ Your Service

Two weeks ago, the Chicago real-estate agency @properties rolled out a cool tool for house hunters and sellers on its Web site. The @Report, as they call it, is built on the idea that real-estate markets are very, very local.

The eight-year-old agency has offices or agents working in 21 Chicago neighborhoods (most of the lakefront from Rogers Park to South Shore, plus a layer or two of inland neighborhoods for much of that stretch); this new tool puts the details on...

Sale of the Week—Breaking the Mold in Glen Ellyn

List price: $600,000
Sale Price: $545,000
The Property: When a homeowner owes more than a house is worth, that’s called being “under water.” In the case of this house, the term took on a double meaning.

The sellers of this house had bought the place in July 2006 for $800,000. The next year they moved to New York before they were able to sell the home, says their agent, RE/Max’s Christopher Kouros. Eventually the sellers, whose names do not appear in public records, dropped their asking price to...