05/29/08

On The Market—Jersey Avenue-Chicago’s Northwest Side

List Price: $799,000
The Property: While Jersey Avenue on Chicago’s Northwest Side is fairly noisy with traffic, this house and its five same-style neighbors create a wall that hides the quiet, leafy treasure that lies behind them: a long stretch of...

Posted at 08:42 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/28/08

Housing Bulletin— Neumann Bankruptcy Spurs House Auction

Before Neumann Homes went into bankruptcy last November, it was the ninth-largest builder in the Chicago area, with subdivisions going up in a string of towns along the outer edge of the suburbs. The company’s tumble, which its CEO, Ken Neumann, acknowledged was due to over-exuberant expansion, sent yet another shockwave through...

Posted at 07:44 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (1)

05/22/08

On The Market—A Goldberg House in Flossmoor

List Price: $587,500
The Property: Today, everybody loves Bertrand. But in 1957, before the iconic corncob towers of Marina City made Bertrand Goldberg a beloved Chicago architect, he had to revamp his plans for this house in Flossmoor twice because village officials didn’t like his...

Posted at 08:58 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/21/08

Housing Bulletin— Chicago’s Condo Market: Sheltered from the Fallout

The latest report from Appraisal Research Counselors (ARC), whose finger is always on the pulse of Chicago’s downtown condominium market, indicates that even if the shine is gone from condos as investment vehicles, the overwhelming majority of people who bought a few years ago in buildings now being finished are sticking with their contracts.

Why is that news? Well, a spike in the number of buyers opting to back out of their deals—leaving their upfront cash deposits in the hands of...

Posted at 07:44 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/19/08

Sale of the Week—Real Cathedral Ceilings in Wilmette

List Price: $1,990,000
Sale Price: $1,725,000
The Property: There’s nothing half-apsed about this condominium in a converted, cruciform-shaped Catholic church in Wilmette. The 3,662-square-foot residence fills the entire third floor of the semicircular space that was once the church’s apse—or head of the cross—as well as its transepts: that is, the two arms of the cross, each graced with a tall, arched window. A dining room occupies one arm; the master bedroom, the other. The apse has been transformed into a...

Posted at 09:27 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/15/08

On The Market—Two-Bedroom Plus Library at the Palmolive

List Price: $2,495,000
The Property: This two-bedroom condo at the landmark Palmolive Building has been sumptuously finished with extensive millwork, gracious chandeliers, and a home automation system that controls everything from the indoor temperature to the blackout shades on the...

Posted at 07:17 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/14/08

Housing Bulletin— Melissa Bean and Mortgage-Aid Legislation

On May 8th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a mortgage rescue plan that, although threatened by a veto from President Bush, could help homeowners facing foreclosure stay in their homes with lower-cost loans.

Congresswoman Melissa Bean, who represents Illinois’ 8th District (Chicago’s north and northwest suburbs), authored three parts of the package that were expressly designed to keep the bill from rewarding irresponsible borrowers with government funds. “There’s an implication from opponents that this is somehow gifting taxpayer money to...

Posted at 05:50 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/12/08

Sale of the Week—At a Loss in Wilmette

List Price: $1,199,900
Sale Price: $1,103,500
The Property: This large four-year-old house resides in a Wilmette neighborhood where new construction has replaced about one-third of the older ranch houses that still characterize the area. It has 13 rooms, five of them bedrooms (one is in the basement, where it would commonly be used for a nanny or guests), a pillared foyer, and a spacious kitchen lined with cherry cabinets. From the family room, French doors open onto a nice patio—but that’s about all there is to...

Posted at 07:43 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/08/08

On The Market—Throwing Bucktown a Curve

List Price: $1.9 million
The Property: The architect John Hanna threw the rigidly rectilinear street grid in Bucktown a curve when he designed this contemporary home for a corner lot. The house appears impossibly slender when viewed from the west (looking at its front door), but then broadens in a sweeping, glassy curve as you walk around its north side.
Inside, the floor plan doesn’t feel pinched at the narrow ends because Hanna and the property’s developer, Chris Angelou, tucked balconies, closets, and bathrooms into those spaces. Stacked from the basement to the top floor within the house’s big bend are a...

Posted at 08:01 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (2)

05/07/08

Housing Bulletin— Neighborhood Info @ Your Service

Two weeks ago, the Chicago real-estate agency @properties rolled out a cool tool for house hunters and sellers on its Web site. The @Report, as they call it, is built on the idea that real-estate markets are very, very local.

The eight-year-old agency has offices or agents working in 21 Chicago neighborhoods (most of the lakefront from Rogers Park to South Shore, plus a layer or two of inland neighborhoods for much of that stretch); this new tool puts the details on...

Posted at 06:48 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/05/08

Sale of the Week—Breaking the Mold in Glen Ellyn

List price: $600,000
Sale Price: $545,000
The Property: When a homeowner owes more than a house is worth, that’s called being “under water.” In the case of this house, the term took on a double meaning.

The sellers of this house had bought the place in July 2006 for $800,000. The next year they moved to New York before they were able to sell the home, says their agent, RE/Max’s Christopher Kouros. Eventually the sellers, whose names do not appear in public records, dropped their asking price to...

Posted at 07:27 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

05/01/08

On The Market—A Tudor Manor in Highland Park

List Price: $2.9 million
The Property: This grand old home 75 yards from the Lake Michigan blufftop in Highland Park evokes the early 20th-century age of big North Shore country houses. With its peacock fan of gable beams above a cozy inglenook entry, it would have been a happy place to arrive after a long...

Posted at 11:22 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (0)