Dennis Rodkin

Part of a distressed sale—a foreclosure or a short sale—or a loan modification entails the mortgage lender forgiving some or all of a homeowner’s debt. Formerly, tax laws counted that forgiven amount as taxable income. But in 2007, President George W. Bush signed legislation that temporarily exempted forgiven mortgage debt from taxable income. That law expires December 31—unless Congress acts to extend it... Read more

Real-estate data has been getting dished up in the past few weeks as heartily as mashed potatoes get passed around the Thanksgiving table. And this year, for the first time in a while, the information provides some solace—though not nearly as much as the comfort food will... Read more

On Friday, Richard Cooper, the head of an Oak Brook-based hedge fund, sold his 66th-floor penthouse at the Park Tower for $15 million, the highest-ever recorded sale price of a Chicago condo... Read more

Apartment rents have been rising and will keep going up for the near future—but at three different rates in three different strata of the market, according to speakers at last week’s Lincoln Park Builders Real Estate Forum ’12. In the fourth and bottom layer, they will remain flat... Read more

One of the most controversial pieces of Kenwood property, the vacant lot next door to the house of President Barack Obama, went up for sale today. The sellers are asking $899,000. That’s 33 percent more than they paid for the 50-by-150-foot lot in March 2008, before Obama’s election presumably jacked up the value of properties near his... Read more