Did you go without Yo last week? Here’s what you may have missed:
• We posted up the rest of our Superior 110 video tour with @properties agent Greg Eldridge. Eldridge showed Joe Zekas around a half-floor unit, talked about the tower’s competitors, showed off some balcony views and the units’ glassy living rooms, and discussed the building’s design from ground level.
• Mark and I drove Ashland Avenue from Taylor Street to Lawrence Avenue in search of new-construction condos. We checked out a couple of six-flats near Chicago Avenue and passed a couple of slow-moving projects on Division Street and Fullerton Avenue.
• The 2Q 2009 Appraisal Research Counselors Downtown Chicago Residential Benchmark Report came out, and the big news is that sales in the downtown market from April through June were up dramatically from the past few quarters. There are lots of positive signs, but there are a number of challenges on the horizon as well, including the fact that 39 percent of homes under construction still aren’t under contract.
• Using the Appraisal Research report as a starting point, I wondered what the future holds for Museum Park Place South, which is supposed to start delivering units in September.
• In the latest chapter of a story about a disappearing developer and dozens of lost contracts, the bank-owned Pure in the West Loop finally went rental.
• In our ongoing attempt to cover more South Side developments, I spent an afternoon in North Kenwood-Oakland, Douglas, and Grand Boulevard looking at several new developments built with help from the Quad Communities Development Corporation. My first stops: Oakwood Shores and The Renaissance.
• Contributor Jeff Baird of Lakeshore Analytics crunched some numbers and found that condo prices continued to fall almost everywhere in the first half of ’09.