Real estate news & trends
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North Shore
Some suburbs are obsessive about preventing their citizens from placing anything in the public parkway abutting their property. That’s not the case in Wilmette, where you’ll see the occasional instance of a resident’s having temporarily or permanently commandeered the space between the sidewalk and the street for an idiosyncratic installation. On Hunter Rd, a few ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 21, 2013
Trib Local recently reported that Lake Forest is considering amending its zoning code to allow second living units, e.g. coach houses and garage apartments, on single-family properties. According to a news release for the public forum that the Tribune covered: Current economic conditions have made the sale of larger properties, with historic homes and outbuildings, ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 26, 2013
Lake Forest differs, in many ways, from the mental picture that many have of a long-settled bastion of North Shore mansions. Perhaps the greatest difference is that the majority of Lake Forest housing is of fairly recent vintage, built within the past 50 years, and quite a bit of it in large subdivisions west of ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 25, 2013
Last September, just before it closed, my son and I visited C.J. Arthur’s in Wilmette for the last of the 100s of meals we’d eaten there over a more than 20-year period. Yesterday’s Trib Local brought the sad news that Art Falzer, the “Arthur” in C.J. Arthur’s, had died of ALS at the age of ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 21, 2013
Anne West’s North Shore Views paints this picture of a changed market: It seems like just yesterday that it was a buyer’s market here on Chicago’s North Shore: lots of homes to choose from, plenty of time to consider the options, the ability to negotiate hard with desperate sellers, the possibility of scoring a deal ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 18, 2013
Three new Evanston apartment complexes are racing toward delivering nearly 500 units this spring, and all appeared to be on schedule when we visited several days ago. We served up an update yesterday on the 214-unit AMLI Evanston development. The 80-unit Central Station, pictured above at 1720 Central St, is topped out and nearly fully ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 12, 2013
AMLI Evanston is targeting an April opening, and is offering studios priced from $1,375, 1-bedrooms from $1,695, 2-bedrooms from $2,100 and 3-bedrooms from $3,000. Live / work apartments are also available. Anyone familiar with AMLI Evanston’s Chicago and Madison location will find almost non-stop howlers in the following quote from AMLI’s online brochure: AMLI Evanston ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 11, 2013
The past half dozen years have seen many upper-bracket North Shore homes languish on the market for extended periods of time, experience multiple price cuts, and sell for fractions of their original list price. The completely renovated Italianate villa at 175 Sheridan Rd in Winnetka came on the market early in July with an asking ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 5, 2013
The 3-bedroom, 2-bath home at 1129 Willow Rd in Winnetka has been on the market for almost 4 months despite a sub-$500K price tag. The market time is a sign that buyers have found it deficient in some manner compared to the competition. There’s nothing comparable currently on the market in Winnetka, but similar homes ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 23, 2013
If you like the idea of waking up to Lake Michigan views, you may want to view this home tour of 303 Sheridan Road in Winnetka. Koenig & Strey associate, Beth Groebe walks us through this 5-bedroom classic stone and cedar home that was designed by Spencer S. Beman in 1937. The current owners have ...
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Posted by sponsored post on January 3, 2013
Several weeks ago we asserted that Wilmette no longer makes demolition permit data available online. We wrongly relied on looking for the data where we recalled finding it several years ago. A tipster from the Village sent along a link to the list of demolition permits, which has since been updated through December 6. It’s ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 28, 2012
Koenig & Strey‘s Winnetka office ran an immensely successful Toys for Tots drive this holiday season. Donors, many of them daily repeaters, and almost all of them anonymous, gave gifts that would be welcomed in the most affluent households in the community. On Sunday, December 17, Koenig & Strey agents gathered at the office to ...
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Posted by sponsored post on December 20, 2012
BJB Evanston, one of our sponsors, owns and manages a dozen vintage and contemporary apartment buildings in a variety of strong Evanston neighborhoods. Studio to 3-bedroom units in the buildings have been updated with hardwood floors and new kitchens and baths. Earlier this year we shot video at eight of those buildings. Each of the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 18, 2012
Wilmette no longer makes available an online list of demolition permits, so I don’t have accurate data about the current pace of teardowns in the village. My impression, however, is that the number of teardowns is up this year over recent years, but fewer than in 2005 or 2006. I passed three teardowns last week ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 6, 2012
The 214-unit AMLI Evanston is topped out, and appears to be fully enclosed. The brick cladding is being installed on the north end of the building, giving a clearer vision of its final look. The floor plans (pdf) and the building plan (pdf) are online, and it appears that some of the residents may be ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 28, 2012
One way to learn whether an apartment project is on track for its scheduled opening is to scan the Help Wanted ads. AMLI Evanston is leasing consultants and a sales and marketing coordinator to start in December, looking toward the building’s March 2013 opening. Floor plans are now available at the 214-unit building’s website. Studios ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 26, 2012
The Thanksgiving holiday is a time for sharing with family, with friends and with the larger community. Chicago’s North Shore communities rank among the most affluent in the area – and in the entire country. Their wealth can easily obscure the fact that some residents of the North Shore are needy, and some may be ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 5, 2012
My tendency, and I suspect the tendency of many, is to type the name of an apartment project followed by “.com” when I don’t know its URL, rather than finding it through a Google search. That’s a sensible strategy, since developers often lock up a URL that corresponds to the name of their project. I ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on October 15, 2012
We recently stopped by for a look at three new apartment projects that will add nearly 500 units to the Evanston market next year. AMLI Evanston, a mixed-use development at Chicago Ave and Kedzie St, is targeting occupancy in spring 2013. When complete, the project will include 214 1- to 3-bedroom apartments, 19 of them ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on September 27, 2012
Glencoe has a small, but surprisingly lively downtown near its Metra station. The downtown area has one-of-a-kind shops, sidewalk cafes, the Writers’ Theatre, a farmers market, the wildly-popular Friends Park, and more. I’d consider living near downtown Glencoe a viable alternative to many low-density in-city neighborhoods along the CTA Brown Line, especially for anyone concerned ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on September 10, 2012
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