Deal Estate - February 2009

02/26/09

On the Market: Two Houses, One Home in Old Town

List Price: $4,239,000
The Property: Fifteen years ago, Tom Melk and Sarah Potter paid $500,000 for two dilapidated wood frame houses from 1874. “They were basically leaning on each other to stand up,” Potter remembers. Over the course of ten years, the couple created a distinctive new home by building a glass bridge between the two houses and completely reworking the interiors in a 1930s Modernist style with white plaster walls, crazy-quilt...

Posted at 09:04 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (4)

02/25/09

Housing Bulletin: Coming Out on Top in the Loop

Last week, the first four buyers closed on their condos in one of the city’s most improbable building conversions, the top ten floors of the slab-like, 50-story 55 E. Monroe office building, which has been transformed into a residential block called Park Monroe...

Posted at 07:21 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (1)

02/23/09

Sale of the Week: Lordly Georgian in Inverness

Sale Price: $1.65 million
The Property: This commanding 16-room Georgian mansion looks down from its hilltop site through a broad allée of 26 tall silver maple trees. The home was built in 1972 at the center of the McIntosh section of the village of Inverness from a design by Adolph Nilsson, whose company, Period Homes, built several impressive houses in this and...

Posted at 07:48 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

02/19/09

On the Market: Price Cut Enhances Lincoln Park Condo

List Price: $2,995,000
The Property: This desirable four-bedroom Lincoln Park condo became even more attractive after its sellers cut their asking price by 25 percent. It’s one of eight units in a concrete and glass building that was designed by Pappageorge Haymes and developed by the Belgravia Group. The building stands on a low-traffic cul-de-sac just a block west of the Francis Parker School...

Posted at 10:51 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (1)

02/18/09

Housing Bulletin: It Takes a Village

When checking out the highest-priced home sales in the Chicago area, the two suburbs where I most often wind up are Lake Forest and Winnetka. While other towns (Hinsdale, Kenilworth, Glencoe) have lots of high-end sales, these two towns are perennially near the top of Chicago’s rankings for the number of sales at a million dollars or more (usually behind Chicago’s Gold Coast and...

Posted at 08:01 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (3)

02/16/09

Sale of the Week: Field Mansion Finally Fills Up

List Price: $1,350,000
Sale Price: $1,175,000
The Property: One week ago, unidentified buyers closed on the sixth and final condo in the gigantic old Marshall Field Jr. mansion at 1919 South Prairie Avenue in Chicago’s South Loop. An eight-room unit with some 4,100 square feet of living space, the condo fills the rear half of the first floor—which includes the mansion’s original dining room and an entrance rotunda that served the rear portion of the...

Posted at 07:51 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

02/12/09

On the Market: Mini-mizing a Gold Coast Flaw

List Price: $2.5 million
The Property: Elaborate carvings on its rough sandstone façade and an elegant renovation of its interior make this 19th-century Gold Coast house very appealing. But Tricia Fox, the listing agent for its seller, Joseph Aldeguer, noticed one drawback...

Posted at 09:11 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (1)

02/11/09

Housing Bulletin: Low-Income Housing Developer Hit Hard by Downturn

On Monday, February 9th, Duane Ehresman received a Chicago Neighborhood Development Award for his work preserving 153 low-cost apartments in five buildings in North Lawndale. It’s the latest project in Ehresman’s 28-year career of creating and managing affordable rental housing in Chicago; in that time, he has had a hand in the renovation of almost 1,500 housing units for low-income people...

Posted at 09:29 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (4)

02/09/09

Sale of the Week: Pool with a House Attached – Northbrook

List Price: $2.095 million
Sale Price: $1.6 million
The Property: Set on 1.6 wooded acres overlooking a private pond in Northbrook, this four-bedroom ranch house has a long, glassy second wing that contains a swimming pool. But it’s not just an indoor pool: the many windows and doors of the 1,800-square-foot...

Posted at 09:00 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (3)

02/05/09

On the Market: Majestic River View in River North

List Price: $990,000
The Property: The spectacular view is the primary attraction of this two-bedroom condo on the 13th floor of the 38-story Riverbend; it looks eastward along the main branch of the Chicago River, taking in all the soaring skyscrapers that flank its sides and the muscular bridges that cross it. From the condo balcony, the el trains on the Wells Street bridge “look like Mr. Rogers’...

Posted at 09:47 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (6)

02/04/09

Housing Bulletin: Job Cuts May Spur More Foreclosures

The foreclosure crisis continues to morph. Even as new data show that foreclosures on condos are multiplying faster than those on single-family homes, real-estate experts suggest that foreclosures, boosted by pervasive job cuts in the sagging economy, may soon aggressively climb the socioeconomic...

Posted at 07:17 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (2)

02/02/09

Sale of the Week: NBC’s Wojciechowski Moves to Lake Shore Drive

List Price: not available
Sale Price: $954,000
The Property: Charlie Wojciechowski, an anchor and reporter at NBC5 Chicago (WMAQ-TV), and his wife, Kate, a real-estate manager, have purchased a two-bedroom home on the 33rd floor of a new condo tower on Lake Shore Drive. The building is one of a pair of contemporary structures at 600 North Lake Shore Drive; in addition to the Drive, the buildings overlook...

Posted at 07:14 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (3)

February 2009