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Tag: Housing Bulletin
Coming Down: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Love Nest, Bill Wrigley’s Asking Price
By Dennis Rodkin
Demolition is well underway on the Gold Coast home where Frank Lloyd Wright lived briefly with a girlfriend (and future wife) while not yet divorced from his first wife. On Tuesday, the owner of the site told me that once the old residence is razed, construction will start on a four-story home designed “to look like it’s been there 100 years, to look correct for the neighborhood...” Read more
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
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
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
Tough Times for Chicago-Area Latinos Seeking Mortgages—and a New Video Feature for Answering Your Real-Estate Questions
By Dennis Rodkin
Research by the Latino Policy Forum indicates that Chicago-area Latinos get rejected for conventional home loans at nearly twice the rate of the region’s general population. While about 15 percent of Chicago-area residents applying for a home loan were turned down, the forum’s research revealed that almost 30 percent of Latino applicants were denied... Read more
Lake Forest’s House (and Garden) of the Four Winds
By Dennis Rodkin
List Price:$5.995 million
The Property: Now, in high summer, is the time when we most want our homes and gardens to mesh together as one enlarged living space. In Lake Forest, the architect Howard Van Doren Shaw executed that idea splendidly in a country estate he designed in 1909 for Hugh and Mary McBirney... Read more
In Libertyville, SchoolStreet Is in Session
By Dennis Rodkin
A little more than a year ago, the developer John McLinden announced plans for SchoolStreet, a collection of traditional-looking homes—think big front porches—on the site of an unfinished condo development near the shopping district in Libertyville... Read more
Legislators, Realtors Oppose Down-Payment Proposal
By Dennis Rodkin
Members of Congress, real-estate associations, and some civil-rights groups are pushing back against a plan from federal regulators that would mandate a 20 percent down payment from many would-be homeowners. The groups are headed toward an August 1 deadline for comment on a proposal that would create a so-called qualified residential mortgage (QRM), which would require homeowners to have a one-fifth equity stake in their residence—an investment (the thinking goes) that might make them less willing to give up the home in tough financial times... Read more
Tyson Chandler Sells Former Northfield Home
By Dennis Rodkin
Nine days ago, Tyson Chandler was celebrating an NBA championship after his Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat in a six-game series. Yesterday, Chandler enjoyed another victory of sorts: after four years, he finally sold his former home in Northfield... Read more
Getting Wright Right
By Dennis Rodkin
Brown like the nearby tree trunks and terminating in a raised porch that blends indoors and out, the George Millard house in Highland Park exemplifies how well a residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright can coexist with its surroundings. Now the family that has spent 19 years restoring the home is ready to move on. Read more