More Auction Action, on Two Fronts
The seller of an 80-year-old Winnetka mansion has no idea what her lakefront estate might be worth in today’s market, so she is putting it up for auction. And several builders who want to unload their new houses or vacant land have signed on with a new online real-estate auction service. Both auctions are sources of potential bargains for buyers—although in the case of the Winnetka auction...

" /> More Auction Action, on Two Fronts
The seller of an 80-year-old Winnetka mansion has no idea what her lakefront estate might be worth in today’s market, so she is putting it up for auction. And several builders who want to unload their new houses or vacant land have signed on with a new online real-estate auction service. Both auctions are sources of potential bargains for buyers—although in the case of the Winnetka auction...

" /> More Auction Action, on Two Fronts
The seller of an 80-year-old Winnetka mansion has no idea what her lakefront estate might be worth in today’s market, so she is putting it up for auction. And several builders who want to unload their new houses or vacant land have signed on with a new online real-estate auction service. Both auctions are sources of potential bargains for buyers—although in the case of the Winnetka auction...

" />
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Tag: Housing Bulletin
Housing Bulletin—More Auction Action, on Two Fronts
By Dennis Rodkin

More Auction Action, on Two Fronts
The seller of an 80-year-old Winnetka mansion has no idea what her lakefront estate might be worth in today’s market, so she is putting it up for auction. And several builders who want to unload their new houses or vacant land have signed on with a new online real-estate auction service. Both auctions are sources of potential bargains for buyers—although in the case of the Winnetka auction...

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Housing Bulletin—Will Property Taxes Decline with House Prices?
By Dennis Rodkin

Now that we have pretty much accepted that our homes are worth less than they used to be, a question comes up: If the value of my home is dropping, will my property tax bill do the same?

Short answer: Not now, not for a few years, and very likely not at all.

For the long answer, it’s important first to grasp...

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Housing Bulletin—One Chicago Seller’s Limited-Time Offer
By Dennis Rodkin
To save money on commissions to real-estate agents, Rachel and Mark Bickenbach have been trying to sell their Clybourn Avenue loft themselves this summer. They put it on craigslist.com and advertised it in the Chicago Tribune and the Reader—but all they heard was...

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Housing Bulletin—Good News for Chicago Condos
By Dennis Rodkin

With all the reports (including many from Deal Estate) about a vast inventory of unsold condos, it’s a surprise to learn that urban condos are the best-performing part of Chicago’s six-county real-estate market. In the latest release of local market information by the Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR), the median price of a home dropped in five counties and stayed flat in Cook County. The declines ranged from 1.9 percent in Lake County to...

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Housing Bulletin—Zero-Energy Homes on Chicago’s Far South Side
By Dennis Rodkin
On what was once a weedy parcel of land in Veterans Park—situated on Chicago's South Side near where the Skyway crosses above 95th Street—Bernie Schmidt has built the first of what he hopes will be 20 midsize homes that use no electricity from the utility grid. If completed on the linear plot of land adjacent to rows of tidy bungalows, the subdivision, called Solar Verde Estates, will be the city's first zero-energy block...

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Housing Bulletin— A Gloomy Forecast from the University of Illinois’ Geoffrey Hewings
By Dennis Rodkin

On Monday I talked with Geoffrey Hewings, a professor of geography, economics, and urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The director of REAL, the university’s Regional Economics Applications Laboratory, Hewings tracks residential real estate across the state; his forecasts are part of the Illinois Association of Realtors’ periodic reports. In the organization’s latest report, released at the end of July, Hewings predicted that...

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Housing Bulletin—Inventive Incentives
By Dennis Rodkin

What’s keeping people from buying homes right now? Are they worried that a property’s value will drop after they buy it? Or are they wondering what will happen to the economy when we have a new president? Or maybe they are scared that if they buy a condo, they won’t be allowed to swim naked in the...

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Housing Bulletin—Behind the Fall in Round Lake
By Dennis Rodkin

In most of the Chicago area, the number of home sales is down about 30 to 40 percent this year, according to MRED, the real-estate data service. In the Round Lake section of Lake County, it’s down 77.9 percent. That means only a little more than one-fifth as many houses have sold there in the past 12 months as did in the prior year. And some agents in town say...

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