04/30/08

Housing Bulletin— City Condos Provide a Little Good News—for Now

Numbers out last week from the Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR) showed a big drop-off in home sales for Illinois in March from the same month in 2007. But Chicago stood out in two ways. The number of sales here dropped by a far smaller percentage than in the rest of the state. What’s more, the median sale price was up in Chicago, although it was down in...

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04/28/08

Sale of the Week—Renter Buys His Mag Mile Penthouse

List Price: $3.6 million
Sale Price: $3.6 million
The Property: A large 54th-floor penthouse in the 55 East Erie tower changed owners last week, but no movers were involved. Sanjay Khosla, an executive vice president of Kraft Foods and president of the company’s Kraft International unit, had been renting the 4,500-square-foot, three-bedroom condo from Michael Giambrone; on April 23rd, Khosla bought...

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04/24/08

On the Market—Lake View's Painting Lady

List Price: $1,850,000
The Property: The colorist behind this "painted lady"—a 120-year-old Queen Anne with 14 different hues of paint accentuating its intricately detailed exterior—is Tracy Hurst, Lake View's painting lady. Hurst, who has lived in the house since 1987 with her husband, Taylor, and their kids, painted the entire exterior herself over three summers in the late 1990s. She did a terrific job, bringing out the...

Posted at 08:53 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/23/08

Housing Bulletin—How Low Can You Go?

The builders who completed a new 4,000-square-foot house on Pine Street in Winnetka last year had hopes of selling it for around $3.2 million. But the real-estate market fell progressively downward, until eventually the builders had no idea what the house was worth anymore. In March, they found out: It sold for $1,926,000, or 39 percent less than they had hoped.

The real-estate auction house Sheldon Good & Co. sold the property for the builders in an unusual way...

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04/21/08

Sale of the Week—Down on Armour’s Lake Forest Farm

List Price: $2,099,000
Sale Price: $1,975,000
The Property: It’s only four years old, but with its low arches, brick corner quoining, and hefty, detailed chimney, this ten-room home in Lake Forest looks as if it might have been plucked out of the English countryside a century ago. That’s what makes it so well suited to its surroundings, a hilltop neighborhood of about 50 gentry homes that overlook one of the prettiest pieces of countryside...

Posted at 07:59 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/17/08

On The Market—Rapper’s Short-Lived Crib in Homer Glen

List Price: $350,000
The Property: For about five months in 2006, this 11-room house on a cul-de-sac in southwest suburban Homer Glen was home to an aspiring rapper who went by the name Blaxican. The embellishments included gargoyles and security cameras across the front of the roof, a shark tank in the dining room, a recording studio and two baby alligators in the...

Posted at 09:15 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/16/08

Housing Bulletin—Notes from a Foreclosure Auction

In January 2003, a modest three-bedroom red brick bungalow in Jefferson Park sold for $269,000. Last Thursday, at a foreclosure auction in a suburban hotel ballroom, that same Northwest Side bungalow sold for $209,625 (which included an auction fee of $14,625). Although he declined to provide his name, the buyer was positively jubilant. “I know it’s worth...
Plus: Video from the auction

Posted at 07:47 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (3)

04/14/08

Sale of the Week—In Lake View, the Deal Was in the Details

List Price: $1,124,000
Sale Price: $1,051,282
The Property: After years of working separately on rehabbing vintage buildings, two Lake View builders, Bryan Hansen and Sharon Pratt, have come to “believe in details,” says Hansen. In their first collaboration on a new house, they indulged that belief, creating a warm, distinctive house that sold relatively quickly in...

Posted at 07:48 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (1)

04/10/08

On The Market—Back to Nature in St. Charles

List Price: $1,390,000
The Property: When Kevin Fitzpatrick bought this 12-room hilltop house in St. Charles two years ago, the entire thing was white, inside and out. “It was right out of Raging Bull,” he says...
Plus: A video walk-through with Dennis

Posted at 08:46 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (2)

04/09/08

Housing Bulletin— More Homeowners Using Short Sales as an Alternative to Foreclosure

Hoping to avoid foreclosure, some financially strapped homeowners are taking advantage of what until recently had been a little-used option. When they find they can no longer afford their homes, they negotiate with their lender to accept a short sale—a transaction where a bank or other lender allows the house to be sold for less than the amount owed on it.

According to the records of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED, which until recently was known as the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois), at least one of every ten houses that sold in the Chicago...

Posted at 07:20 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (1)

04/07/08

Sale of the Week—Priced to Sell in Lincoln Park

List Price: $2,599,500
Sale Price: $2,375,000
The Property: Almost two years old but never occupied, this ten-room house would seem to have everything going for it, starting with location. It is only half a block from lovely Oz Park, and unlike most of the traffic-clogged Lincoln Park neighborhood, the one-way, block-long street it sits on offers some degree of privacy. As for the house itself, it is...

Posted at 07:44 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/03/08

On The Market—A Historic Home in Chicago’s Gap

List Price: $1,075,000
The Property: Built in 1888 when the mid–South Side was very fashionable, this greystone townhouse was dilapidated and fronted by chain-link fencing in May 2002. That’s when Tim and Lynne Rinkoski, moving from Downers Grove into the city, decided to make it their next restoration project. “It was the best-looking deserted house on...
Plus: a video walk-through with Dennis

Posted at 11:41 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

04/02/08

Housing Bulletin— Join the Auction Action

As more homeowners and builders fall into foreclosure, many of the properties they let go of wind up on the auction block, where house hunters willing to do some advance legwork can land some terrific bargains. “It’s not the house’s fault or the condo’s fault that it’s being auctioned,” says Rick Levin, the head of the Chicago real-estate auction firm Rick Levin & Associates. “It’s typically the owners’...

Posted at 10:09 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (5)