Real estate news & trends
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Short sales
Printers Row Lofts is an 8-story, 138-unit loft building at 732 S Financial Pl in the South Loop. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was converted to loft apartments in 1996 by Tony Rezko‘s Rezmar Group and converted to condos in 2003. We wrote about the conversion in the February ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 1, 2013
Yesterday CoreLogic released its April MarketPulse Report (PDF, free registration required). The report includes a discussion of housing’s anticipated contribution to economic growth and an analysis of single-family rental supply and demand trends. Key findings in the report include: Increasing equity has revived buyer demand, and trade-up opportunities are increasing for some buyers. Investor demand ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 24, 2013
Last week the ever-informative Calculated Risk blog posted a table showing the share of the market accounted for by distressed properties, i.e. short sales and foreclosures, in 13 major cities. The market share of distressed properties declined significantly year-over-year in March in a number of cities. Las Vegas and Phoenix, for example, saw year-over-year declines ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 22, 2013
RealtyTrac today released its Year-End and Q4 2012 U.S. Foreclosure and Short Sales Report, which shows a total of 947,995 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure or bank-owned (REO) were sold during the year, a decrease of 6 percent from 2011 and down 11 percent from 2010. These foreclosure-related sales accounted for 21 percent ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 28, 2013
Rogers Park developers periodically fall prey to a state of irrational exuberance. The peak of the most recent mania had already passed in May of 2008 when a 2-day survey of Rogers Park took us to more than 100 active condo conversions. It was already clear that the bubble had popped, and it only remained ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 22, 2013
After hearing of a short sale that elicited 33 bids – 22 of them cash offers – within a week, I reached out to Vik Wadhwa of Urban Living to learn whether this was a common occurrence. Vik’s response to my email: Clients searching for properties in downtown neighborhoods – especially in River North, Gold ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 8, 2013
RealtyTrac released its Q3 2012 Foreclosure & Short Sales Report yesterday. In, Q3 24% of Illinois sales, or nearly in every 4, were foreclosure-related. The report: … shows a total of 193,059 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure or bank-owned (REO) were sold during the third quarter, an increase of 21 percent from the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 7, 2012
The following market update arrived via a news release from RE/MAX Northern Illinois: The seven-county metropolitan Chicago real estate market delivered a strong performance in October, with 43 percent more homes changing hands than in the same month last year. The increase in sales activity was especially pronounced in Cook County and the City of ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 15, 2012
The three blue and gold 11-story towers of Edgewater‘s Catalpa Gardens make a colorful statement up close and from a distance. The 126-unit complex’s other distinctive features include glass walkways connecting the towers, a rooftop deck with outstanding views – and unit values that have radically imploded. When we looked in on the building two ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 7, 2012
The following market update arrived via a news release from RE/MAX Northern Illinois: The residential segment of the metropolitan Chicago real estate market extended the upswing experienced in the first half of 2012 through the third quarter, registering the largest number of third-quarter home sales since 2007. According to an analysis by RE/MAX, home sales ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on October 26, 2012
Six and a half years ago we were reporting at length on a condo boom and a lagging retail scene in Rogers Park. Our story led and ended with an enthusiastic buyer: Alpana Singh is a star of Chicago’s fine dining scene, with a string of accomplishments including a TV show, an upcoming book and ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 31, 2012
Unit 1S at 7708 S Essex Ave is a 3-bedroom, 2-bath duplex that’s listed as 3,300 square feet and described as “completely remodeled with all stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops, juccuzzi [sic] baths, hardwood floors and garage parking.” The condo was originally listed for $189,900 in June of 2010. It went under contract shortly ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 27, 2012
It could be just a case of a spring market up-tick, but a number of neighborhoods have seen the inventory of available homes drop sharply last month. In mid-March there were six neighborhoods with 4-6 months inventory (the accepted definition of a balanced market). Today, 17 neighborhoods are in that balanced category and two neighborhoods ...
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Posted by Jody Wise on June 2, 2012
This morning’s email brought the following from a local Realtor: Meet the latest in shady practices – the short sale come-on tease. These are listings that are advertised as short sales but…aren’t….really. I represented some buyers who wanted to make an offer on a so-called shorts, but was told, after many dodgy evasions of my ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 17, 2012
Four years ago in January, 3% of all closed sales in Chicago were lender-owned foreclosures and 1% were short sales. A short sale, as many of you know, is a sale where the market value of the property is less than the mortgage amount. This type of sale requires lender approval. Short sales and lender-owned ...
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Posted by Jody Wise on April 4, 2012
The CoreLogic Market Pulse report for November (PDF) just became available and the Chicago numbers aren’t pretty. For the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville metro area, CoreLogic reports 4,604 November sales, a year-over-year increase of 1.4%. Distressed sales accounted for 35.6% of the market, with 641 short sales and 998 REO sales. Prices fell 2.5% month-over-month and 10.5% year-over-year. ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 18, 2012
Five years ago to the day we wrote about a new construction condo project at 4705 S Champlain Ave, where 3-bedroom, 2-bath units were priced from the $260s to the $290s. The Grand Boulevard project also included two ground-level retail spaces and 14 deeded parking spots. The copy on the mural directly across the street ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 3, 2012
When we first looked in on 801 Glenview Rd in the Solar Park subdivision in Glenview, back in May, the 5-bedroom, 3-bath home on a half-acre lot was newly listed at $725,000. The home was also listed as a vacant land / teardown candidate, and at $1.45M as a new construction option. After a series ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 21, 2011
It’s been nearly 10 years since we first wrote about Union Lofts in our now-defunct New Homes Magazine. At the time, March of 2002, forty of the 71 units, at 3500 S Sangamon St in Bridgeport, were under contract prior to construction. Paul Marks, one of the developers, was bullish on Bridgeport: “We strongly believe ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 12, 2011
North Beach Lofts, the conversion of an old Duxler Tire warehouse at 1225 W Morse, was one of the more successful projects completed in Rogers Park. The 43-unit project, which included three stories of new construction, sold fairly rapidly in the boom years of 2006-07. At the time, most of the 2-bedroom, 2-bath units were ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 26, 2011
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