Real estate news & trends
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West / Southwest Side
A slideshow from Dennis Rodkin shows off the latest round of Chicago Lawn homes to be rehabbed through HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Mercy Portfolio Services is improving a dozen homes near 63rd and Western, and plans to lease or sell them this spring, in hopes of demonstrating “a positive type of concentration” in the neighborhood, ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on March 3, 2011
The Near West Side and East Garfield Park will move one step closer toward getting a much-needed grocery store next month, when Pete’s Fresh Market is expected to close on the vacant lot at the southeast corner of Madison Street and Western Avenue and file for building permits, says 2nd Ward Ald. Robert Fioretti. In ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on February 21, 2011
They used to say that you could swap a pair of 501s for a car in Prague. In Austin, you should be able to swap a car for a home. The median sale price of a home in the West Side neighborhood in 2010 was $44,900; 37 of the 301 homes sold went for $15,000 ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 10, 2011
Mount Greenwood has never been Chicago’s best model of diversity, but the 2009 American Community Survey data do show signs of change amongst its population. The community area on Chicago’s far Southwest Side now counts among its ranks of almost 20,000 residents 918 African-Americans and 1,135 Hispanics. Not a lot, you say? Remember that the ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 10, 2011
Despite seeing thousands of white and African-American residents leave, the Southwest Side neighborhood of Garfield Ridge actually grew in size by a modest 1.5% over the last decade, due to a doubling of its Hispanic population, according to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey. The neighborhood is currently home to 20,323 white residents (55.5% ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 7, 2011
There have been 114 home sales in North Lawndale over the past two years, and ninety-two of them were below $100,000, according to Redfin. In 2010, no home sold for more than $150,000, but right now there are nine single-family homes and two condos listed above that price. In several cases, sellers are wanting more ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 6, 2011
The Hispanic population of Humboldt Park fell by 4% in the past decade, dropping from 31,607 to 30,337, according to new Census data. But due to a steeper rate of decline in the community area’s total population, Hispanics actually became the majority demographic in Humboldt Park, rising from 48% in 2000 to 52.5% in 2009. ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 4, 2011
Joe Zekas’ Block 37 walk-through may have been the most-viewed video on our YouTube channel in 2010, but it actually dates back to late 2009. The most popular video that was actually shot this year was my trip down 26th Street in Little Village, shot in mid-May. Traffic to the clip has picked up considerably ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on December 29, 2010
“The building, which was built in 1926, is located directly in the path of progress,” says the website for Bold L&H Lofts. In the path? No wonder East Garfield Park is suffering! Get out of the way, and let that progress through! I kid. Sometime in the past couple of years, LK Growth and Bold ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on December 9, 2010
…and the West Side might not, either. This week, the city’s longest-serving black alderman submitted his resignation, effective at the end of November. In February 2007, Smith told YoChicago’s Barry Pearce that the 28th Ward, which covers much of East Garfield Park, was “coming back,” and discussed his efforts to bring more banks, grocery stores, ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on November 18, 2010
Jeff Baird is a real estate valuation consultant based in Chicago. He founded Lakeshore Analytics to bring comprehensive, understandable housing data and analysis to Chicago-area readers. The site features a blog with free market news and charts, summary data on 20 top neighborhoods, and quarterly data subscriptions. Many neighborhoods have faced a rocky road during ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on November 8, 2010
Ground has broken on the first phase of Park Douglas, a new 137-unit mixed-income development at 12th Place and Talman Avenue in North Lawndale that will replace the neighborhood’s old Lawndale Gardens public housing complex. The CHA, in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital and B-M Ogden LLC, will build 60 apartments reserved as public housing, ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on October 27, 2010
Jump in the Yo-mobile and take a ride through Marycrest. Joe and Val Zekas drove through the residential and commercial parts of this 1990s subdivision in Ashburn in January 2007; Joe later recorded the video’s narration about the community’s history and housing stock.
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Posted by Joseph Askins on October 6, 2010
I look at this listing and ask two questions: Why was someone building a 5,600 square-foot single-family home in West Garfield Park in 2008, and what exactly do you do with a brand-new board-up in West Garfield Park in 2010? I’m not touching the former. In the case of the latter, the answer is: You ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on October 5, 2010
What’s moving? Here are the top three closing prices for two-bedroom condos, single-families, and / or townhomes in each region of the city over the past seven days: Downtown / Loop Unit 44H at Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago (pictured), 401 N Wabash Ave in River North: 25 baths, 1,961 square feet, built in ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on September 21, 2010
Last week Frank Lloyd Wright’s old studio at 25 E Cedar St in the Gold Coast went on the market for $1.7 million. Wright didn’t design the 6,000 square-foot single-family home, but he did live there following a deadly fire at Taliesin. As Blair Kamin reported last month, the home allegedly suffered some structural damage ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on August 25, 2010
What our staff said about East Garfield Park in 2007: The streets are still tough here, but the tide has started to turn in recent years, with residential development pushing west from the West Loop along Madison Street. Small developments, such as the six-unit Flats on Fulton and a 10-unit conversion at 2809 W Washington ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on July 20, 2010
The Austin community area came in first among in foreclosures in 2009 and continues to be the leader of the pack going into this year. According to the latest report from the Woodstock Institute, Austin saw 208 foreclosure filings in 1Q ’10, down more than 27 percent from 1Q ’09 but still ahead of all ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on June 14, 2010
Participants in the Chicago Neighborhood Stabilization Program have spent the past year purchasing and rehabbing dozens of bank-owned buildings comprising almost 300 units on Chicago’s South and West sides, with the help of $153 million in federal funds allocated by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Eight of those renovated properties, all in ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on June 9, 2010
After running out of shops to look at along 26th Street, I spent the rest of my time in Little Village driving around some of the residential streets located between 26th and the river. What I saw was a variety of home styles — especially two-flats, three-flats, and frame houses — but absolutely nothing resembling ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on May 19, 2010
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