Developers always put on smiles and spout assurances of success when a real-estate market goes sour. But when pressed, few are willing or able to come up with hard figures to back their sunny claims.

That’s what makes Brian Giles’ confidence so impressive. Giles, a senior vice president at Kargil Development and a partner with the Frankel & Giles real-estate team, has developed or marketed more than a dozen South Loop projects over the past 15 years, and he can back up his bragging about his companies’ latest projects with real numbers.

“I have the numbers right here, so I can tell you that as of today, we’ve sold 72 of the 116 units at Prairie District Lofts, and we’re averaging about a sale a week these days,” Giles said in late July.

Prairie District Lofts, one of two developments Frankel & Giles is marketing in the South Loop, is one of the neighborhoods last “true loft” projects, Giles says. The timber and concrete lofts are inside a 103-year-old brick building in the 1700 block of South Indiana Avenue. The building was home to a commercial photography company before being converted into rental apartments. Kargil has converted those units into one- to three-bedroom condominiums with renovated bathrooms and kitchens.

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Once in a while, everything goes your way.

That was the feeling at New West Realty when the company purchased the land at 1555 S Wabash Ave. in the South Loop, the site of its newest development, a 14-story, 176-unit condominium tower with 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

“Acquiring this site was perfect timing for us,” says Terrie Whittaker, president of sales and marketing for New West. “We were just finishing up a very successful project close by, and we had a solid handle on the neighborhood.”

Although New West is “hands-on” when it comes to design, its collaborative efforts with architect Jonathan Splitt proceeded without a hitch.

“New West is a great client,” remarks Splitt. “The folks there outlined their goals and thoughts about the design, but they were very accepting of my suggestions.”

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In a softened market, buyers become more judicious during their home searches. Many prospective home buyers seek the freedom to express themselves through their home, and in today’s real-estate environment, customization is king.

At Superior 110, a glass-and-steel tower under construction at the northwest corner of Superior and Clark streets in River North, homeowners have the ability to customize every inch of their living space with the help of JFJ Development and its president, Jon Zitzman.

“When I founded my company 15 years ago, my mission was to provide more quality construction than a majority of the market was offering,” Zitzman says. “My goal was to build a reputation over time as a developer who doesn’t cut corners and conducts business at the highest level of integrity. Building custom condos is an extension of that philosophy.”

Buyers have a number of options within Snaidero’s standard line of cabinetry and bathroom finishes. But every buyer has the ability to meet with a design coordinator at a design showroom and can choose from literally any of the products found there.

“If somebody wants something specific built in, they can get it,” says Greg Eldridge, the @properties sales agent in charge of marketing Superior 110. “People come in all the time and say, ‘I saw this tile at the Merchandise Mart and I’ve just got to have it.’ And if we can get it, we’ll get it.”

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The stretch of LaSalle Street from Lincoln Park to the heart of the Loop ranks just behind Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue as one of the city’s classic drives.

Marking the midpoint of this historic route, at 150 W Superior St, on the northwest corner of LaSalle and Superior in chic River North, sits KLB Construction and Affinity Development’s new gem of a building. Though not a towering skyscraper, The Superior at LaSalle - a 15-story, 54-unit boutique condominium building - rises above the rest in its originality of design and quality of craftsmanship.

Founded 32 years ago by Kevin Loughlin, KBL specializes in new and renovated residential and commercial properties. Six years ago, Loughlin’s son Jamie established Affinity Development, a high-end luxury development firm that plans and develops premium residential and commercial properties. In collaboration with Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, they created an upper-echelon niche with The Superior at LaSalle, attracting a broad spectrum of buyers in the process.

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The national investigation of mortgage-fraud schemes – the culmination of substantial coordinated efforts in recent months to identify, arrest and prosecute mortgage fraud violators throughout the United States – so far has led to charges being filed against more than 400 defendants.

The FBI estimates that about $1 billion in losses were inflicted by the mortgage fraud schemes employed in these cases.

Locally, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is suing mortgage lender Countrywide Financial for fraud. The civil lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that Countrywide violated the state’s consumer protection statues by making unaffordable loans and failing to give adequate disclosures to borrowers.

So those greedy predatory lenders – the jackals who caused much of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in Cook County and across the nation – caused thousands of foreclosures and helped create the current real estate recession. Many may soon pay for their actions.

With the real-estate market left in ashes, experts say it may take years for some city neighborhoods and suburbs to recover. But what protection do borrowers have against a future wave of mortgage fraud?

Hopefully, a new Illinois law may help. Under the Anti-Predatory Lending Database pilot program, borrowers applying for a mortgage on one- to four-unit, owner-occupied, residential property in Cook County will be assisted in understanding the terms and conditions of their loan.

“Every mortgage recorded on or after July 1, 2008, in Cook County must have either a Certificate of Mortgage Compliance or a Certificate of Mortgage Exemption attached to it,” said attorney Arden K. Miner, senior manager of underwriting and escrow for Attorney’s Title Guaranty Fund. “The mortgage will not be recordable without the certificate.”

The purpose of the program is to reduce predatory lending practices by assisting the borrower in understanding the terms and conditions of the loan for which he or she has applied. The law, which does not apply to loans on property outside of Cook County, does not prohibit any type of loan, such as adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs.

Non-owner occupied property, commercial real estate, residential property containing more than four units and government property is exempt from the law.

As part of the program, mandatory housing counseling by a Department of Housing and Urban Development-certified agency is required in a purchase transaction involving first-time home buyers, or if the borrower is refinancing a primary residence.

Borrower counseling also is required if the mortgage permits interest-only payments, if the loan may result in negative amortization, or the total points and fees payable by the borrower at or before the closing exceed 5 percent of the loan amount.

Counseling also is required if the loan is an ARM which allows adjustments of the interest rate in the first three years, or if the loan includes a prepayment penalty. If counseling is required, the borrower will be notified and given a list of all participating counseling agencies.

Mortgage closers and title companies will generate the certificate of compliance or exemption at closing and be required to enter the information into an online database maintained by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

At the closing, the $200 fee for a Certificate of Mortgage Compliance or the $100 fee for a Certificate of Mortgage Exemption will be split equally between the title company and ether the independent closer or the member closing firm and added to title insurance charges.

Real estate columnist and media consultant Don DeBat has written about Chicago-area housing and mortgage markets since 1968. He is chief executive officer of DeBat Media.

A year ago, just about any Chicago neighborhood outside of the downtown area was described as “up and coming” in real-estate listings. New condo and townhouse construction in some of the city’s outlying regions has since slowed, but one neighborhood that still appears to be developing at a fierce pace is Rogers Park, the lakeside neighborhood on the Far North Side of Chicago that has long been known as a rental community.

Condo conversions in Rogers Park started in 1993 with Paul Goguen and Capstone Partners’ first project on Eastlake Terrace, says RE/MAX NorthCoast Realty broker Connie Abels.

“What Goguen started was the ‘lily pad’ theory: Lily pads reproduce and double themselves every day, and that’s kind of what’s happening here in Rogers Park,” Abels says.

Gut rehabs are indeed multiplying in Rogers Park. The neighborhood is now flush with courtyard and loft conversions. Some infill new construction also can be seen on a few of the neighborhood’s more developed commercial and retail corridors.

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At first blush, the Chicago housing market doesn’t seem like the ideal environment for first-time buyers who are hunting for new-construction homes and conversions.

The average sales price of a downtown or North Side home in the first few months of 2008 was more than $500,000, according to Midwest Real Estate Data. Even in the city’s Northwest Side, hardly the seat of new residential construction, homes were selling at an average price of $315,000 earlier this year.

Those kinds of numbers at first can seem disheartening to buyers whose budgets can’t accommodate a half-million-dollar mortgage. What some buyers fail to realize (or renters who have never considered the prospect of purchasing a home, for that matter) is that the Chicago market is filled with new-construction and rehabilitated condominiums priced at or below $250,000.

That amount isn’t enough land a spacious mansion or a penthouse with horizon-to-horizon views, but it’s enough to get a home in any of the six city areas defined in the New Home Notebook: Loop/downtown, and the North, Far North, Northwest, West/Southwest and South sides.

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Does anybody use the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” anymore? Even if the expression has become a cliché, the concept is still, at the risk of using another hackneyed term, fresh as a daisy.

Competition among homeowners to have the biggest, the best and the most is an old story, but it’s one that continues to have a life of its own. While the mainstream real-estate market is all gloom and doom, the upper brackets seem to get more extreme with each passing day.

Bathrooms with steam showers, heated floors, semi-precious stone surfaces and gold-plated fixtures? So 1990s. Kitchens with top-of-the-line stainless-steel appliances and custom-fitted cabinetry? Even spec houses have those. Home gyms? Ho-hum. If you want to make the neighbors jealous, you’ve really got to step it up a notch – or three.

Swimming pools are not exactly stunning news, but in a climate like Chicago’s, they are so impractical as to border on the idiotic. Although technology has improved the maintenance equation – most pools don’t need regular service visits from the pool man – owners still only get three to four months of usage per year, and the cost of keeping the water warm is rising with the same velocity as gasoline prices. Even more extravagant – and rare – are indoor pools, which require not only ample square footage, but even higher heating bills.

That’s why a combined indoor/outdoor pool on a large compound in Barrington Hills is in a category of extravagance by itself. It almost doesn’t qualify as an amenity in a single-family residence: The property is populated by various branches of an extended family, and the pool area is really more like a private swim club.

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Motoring along the Edens Expressway is rarely a pleasant experience, but if a driver looks west at the appropriate time, the gleam and grace of Optima Old Orchard Woods undoubtedly will provide a few moments of aesthetic relief.

Strategically located at 9645 Woods Drive in Skokie, equidistant between four vibrant northern suburbs, this complex of three 20-story, glass-and-steel buildings is nestled between the Edens, the Harms Woods forest preserve, and Old Orchard and Golf roads.

Designed by its developer, David Hovey, the buildings – the Maple, the Oak, and most recently, the Elm – exude a multitude of forms and shapes, the result of Hovey’s ingenious blend of art and architecture and the minimalist style that he developed as a student of Mies Van Der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“There is no doubt that the design of the project is one of its main attractions,” says Andy Zajac, vice president of sales and marketing for Optima. “Mr. Hovey has created a high-rise complex in the suburbs that has no competition. When you couple that with views that extend 25 miles to the west over the forest preserve and all the way to Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline to the east, you have an unbeatable combination.”

Each Optima tower features such common amenities as a two-story fitness center with a pool and spa and a two-story party room with catering kitchen. There is also an environmentally sensitive green-roof system and sky garden, a reflecting pool and fountain in a grand courtyard, and an exterior color scheme that is in harmony with the building’s natural surroundings. Heated indoor parking is also included with each unit.

Each residence has panoramic views of the city or the forest preserve. The homes are filled with natural light, the result of floor-to-ceiling windows. Units feature state-of-the-art baths and kitchens with stainless-steel appliances, gas ranges, granite counters, and designer cabinets. Window treatments and washers and dryers are included, and an optional gas fireplace is available.

All of these features make Optima Old Orchard Woods a true destination community, explains Zajac.

“What you have here is an urban complex in a suburban setting, yet you are just minutes away from first-class shopping at Old Orchard Shopping Center, a half-hour from the Loop via the expressway, and in a couple of years, the Skokie Swift will likely be extended to stop just two blocks way,” he says.

In June, 430 of the 665 units at Optima had sold. The buyers have represented a broad demographic spectrum, from first-time home owners to empty-nesters who are scaling down, and from single professionals to young married couples with children.

“The complex is beginning to evolve to the point where it is its own community,” says Zajac. “Social groups, fitness groups and others with similar interests are developing close associations now that they have been here for a while.”

Optima’s residences range from one to three bedrooms plus penthouses and vary in size from 700 square feet to over 3,000 square feet. One-bedroom units start in the $250s, two-bedroom units begin in the $310s, three-bedrooms are priced from the $460s, and penthouses range from $1 million to $1.7 million.

A sales center is located at the site and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Marquette Companies’ Front Street Lofts development, currently under construction in Lemont, offers the first residential opportunity in the village’s Downtown Redevelopment Project.

Lemont is located than 30 miles southwest of Chicago along Interstate 55 and has a population of 15,000 residents. The community is home to several well-known attractions, including Cog Hill Golf Club, home of the PGA Tour's BMW Championship, and the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago. Commuters are a 50-minute ride from downtown Chicago via the Lemont stop on Metra's Heritage Corridor line.

Three years ago, the village of Lemont and The Marquette Companies joined together to promote the Lemont Downtown Redevelopment Project. It's unusual for a developer and a small town to co-promote a development, but the city leaders felt that the vision for their downtown deserved this unique type of project.

When complete, the Lemont Downtown Redevelopment Project will comprise 10 city blocks along the historic I&M Canal and will offer 400 new residences, 750 structured parking spaces and 150,000 square feet of new commercial space.

Front Street Lofts consists of four buildings containing 82 loft condominiums. Delivery of 17 of the 29 sold units will begin this month.

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