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Dennis Rodkin
Will Chicago’s New Vacant Building Ordinance Scare Off Mortgage Lenders?
By Dennis Rodkin
Last Thursday, the Chicago City Council passed a vacant building ordinance designed to get mortgage lenders with a financial stake in vacant foreclosed properties to help keep them from falling into disrepair. Four days later, Moody’s Investors Service issued a report arguing that the ordinance may actually discourage lenders from making mortgages in Chicago neighborhoods where foreclosures are concentrated... Read more
Early Oak Park Developer’s Home Sells Quickly
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $890,000
Sale Price: $840,000
The Property: This substantial Victorian, built in 1906 for a man whose family construction business developed large swaths of homes in Oak Park and the Far West Side of Chicago, sold in just 15 days this May... Read more
How One Homeowner Stopped Paying Her Mortgage
By Dennis Rodkin
The next mortgage payment on Christine O’Malley’s Grayslake townhouse is due Monday, but she’s probably not going to pay it. “I’ve been on my own since I was 18, and I’ve always paid my bills,” says O’Malley, 53. She is employed as a co-owner of an e-learning company, says she has credit scores in “the high 700s, 800s,” and has been trying to sell the three-bedroom townhouse for more than a year... Read more
Indoors Meets Out in Lincoln Park
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $3.895 million
The Property: The distinguished Chicago architect Avi Lothan says he designed this Lincoln Park home for his family with his eye on the interplay between indoor and outdoor spaces... Read more
The New $100 Million Fund to Modify Loans and Prevent Foreclosures
By Dennis Rodkin
Some Chicago-area homeowners at risk of foreclosure may get the lifeline they need from the new $100 million Mortgage Resolution Fund, announced by Governor Quinn this past Friday. “We’re going upstream to stop further houses from becoming vacant,” says Bill Goldsmith, the president of the newly formed MRF... Read more
Sears Exec Pays Most in 5 Years in St. Charles
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price: $3.2 million
Sale Price: $3.1 million
The Property: A custom-built, 11,000-square-foot house on a little more than two acres in the far western suburb of St. Charles commanded the town’s highest home price in five years when it sold July 1... Read more