Deal Estate - December 2008

12/31/08

Housing Bulletin: And now, the rest of the story

Every Thursday except holidays, I post a short tour of a home that is for sale, including the sellers’ asking price. But the asking price is only half of the story, as the past year’s market drop has clarified for all of us; the other half is the final selling price.
So, as Paul Harvey would say, now here’s the rest of the story on several properties I posted on Thursdays in 2008...

Posted at 07:17 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/29/08

Sale of the Week: Swingin' with the Rat Pack in Park Ridge

List Price: $1,450,000
Sale Price: $1,011,500
The Property: “It’s a home that was built for the kind of people who loved the Rat Pack,” says Dan Delano, the real estate agent who recently sold this Park Ridge house, built in 1961. “I thought that would be a selling point, but I guess we live in a world of...

Posted at 11:19 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (1)

12/24/08

Housing Bulletin: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Realtors Have Left the Building

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring—not even a real-estate agent eager to show off the granite countertops in the kitchen or the triangular Jacuzzi for two in the master bath. Instead, with home sales down more than 40 percent from the height of the market in 2006, agents have been departing the industry in large numbers. At the end of November, with roughly 57,100 members, the Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR) had experienced a...

Posted at 07:54 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (1)

12/22/08

Sale of the Week: A Patient Buyer Prevails in Oak Brook

List Price: $1,995,000
Sale Price: $1,595,000
The Property: The rear of this 12-room house looks across a swimming pool and enormous back lawn toward a small lake (part of Ginger Creek) and, beyond that, to homes on the other side of the water. Approximately 35 years old, this house has a soaring peaked ceiling in the main living rooms, four bedrooms, and a...

Posted at 08:04 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/18/08

On the Market: A Franglish Manor in Highland Park

List Price: $1,099,000
The Property: With its mix of crisp, orderly limestone on the lower walls and rusticated stucco and half timbers above, this mansion, built in 1927, isn’t sure whether it’s French or English. But instead of feeling confused, the eclectic exterior makes an apt container for what’s inside: a 13-room collection of materials and craftwork from...

Posted at 09:21 AM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (1)

12/17/08

Housing Bulletin: Cancelled Condo Tower Gets a New Lease on Life

Last week an apartment developer announced that it is starting construction on a 21-story River North building whose site, architectural plans, and name—Parc Huron—it bought from the condo developer Lennar, which cancelled the project eight months ago. But that doesn’t mean the project will change all that much. “It had already been through...

Posted at 08:15 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (1)

12/15/08

Sale of the Week: Toning Up a Glencoe Teardown

List Price: $1,299,000
Sale Price: $820,000
The Property: The builder who replaced an older home with this house did not complete it before his lender ended up selling it in November—for less than the builder had paid to buy the lot in 2005. The new owners are not only completing construction, but they are re-doing some of what...

Posted at 05:58 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/11/08

On the Market: High Above Morgan Park

List Price: $675,000
The Property: Perched beneath towering oak trees atop a steep ridge, this Italianate house on an enormous parcel of land is within the city limits but feels more like something you would find in a small country town—maybe Galena, where...

Posted at 12:09 PM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (1)

12/10/08

Housing Bulletin: First Sale in Obama-Wood

While there is pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to help resuscitate the nation’s moribund real-estate scene, he has already helped at least one very localized segment of the Chicago market: Kenwood. Obama’s historic election has drawn worldwide attention to his....

Posted at 08:53 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/08/08

Sale of the Week: In Good Hands, in Lake Forest

List Price: $6.255 million
Sale Price: $5.55 million
The Property: Set apart from its Lake Forest neighbors by a private wooden bridge, this 19-room mansion sits on two and a half acres alongside a sylvan ravine. The house sold in November after its owners, Joseph and Sarah Tripodi, dropped their asking price by ten percent as part of Coldwell Banker’s nationwide sales-stimulus...

Posted at 02:12 PM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/04/08

On the Market: Letting Go in Chicago’s St. Ben’s Neighborhood

List Price: $1.25 million The Property: A collaborative effort between the architect Nate Kipnis and a pair of clients dissatisfied with the houses they had seen on the market, this three-bedroom home has an abundance of environmentally friendly features and a distinctly family-style floor plan. The house, which has a green roof, thickly insulated walls and windows, and a layout that maximizes natural ventilation and daylight, was completed this past June in the Northwest Side neighborhood that is alternately known as St. Ben’s and Bell School District. But even before they moved in...

Posted at 03:54 PM in On the Market | Permalink | Comments (2)

12/03/08

Housing Bulletin: Auction Bargains and a New Web Site

In this season of extreme markdowns, everybody is offering closeout prices—including the developers of two South Side real-estate projects. The McKinley Park Lofts and Jazz on the Boulevard, a condo and townhouse complex in Bronzeville, have both seen sales slow down dramatically, so the last blocks of units are going up for auction next week....

Posted at 08:48 AM in Housing Bulletin | Permalink | Comments (0)

12/01/08

Sale of the Week: Home, Home on Lagrange—River North

List Price: $1.499 million
Sale Price: $1.3 million
The Property: This three-bedroom condo is on two upper floors of Erie on the Park, an ultramodern steel and glass structure at 510 West Erie Street. The 24-story building is one of two condo high-rises (along with Kingsbury on the Park) designed by the...

Posted at 10:40 AM in Sale of the Week | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 2008