Housing Bulletin

Housing Bulletin—Riding the Foreclosure Bus

Housing Bulletin: Riding the Foreclosure Bus
It’s only a matter of time until some enterprising Chicagoan emulates the Stockton, California, real-estate agent who dreamed up this idea: a bus tour that takes potential buyers all over town to view the foreclosed houses for sale. It’s a long tour.

And if the real-estate forecasts play out as prognosticated by some—that is, if hundreds of thousands of over-extended U.S. homeowners have to bail out of their houses in the next 18 months as their once-cheap Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM) reset at dramatically higher prices—that Stockton bus tour might become a national franchise.

Nationwide, foreclosures are spreading like a bad rash. On November 1st, the California-based Realty Trac reported that...

Posted Nov. 7, 2007, at 8:47 a.m.

This Week on Spike

This Week on Spike—November 7

Dennis Rodkin appears regularly on WGN's Spike O'Dell Radio Program sometimes discussing properties not mentioned in the Deal Estate blog. Check back here each week to find links and information for those listings.

From the November 7th show - Foreclosures

These representative listings were all found at foreclosure.com.
Estimated values are from zillow.com; they should not substitute for a...

Posted Nov. 7, 2007, at 8:41 a.m.

Sale of the Week

Sale of the Week—Après le Déluge — Winnetka

List price: $3,999,900
Sale Price: $3,550,000

The Property: This two-year-old, 16-room mansion with French styling sits on a secluded site within the already secluded Indian Hill Club, a 90-year-old residential enclave that winds around a golf course in Winnetka. With stone quoining on the exterior corners and a mansard roof, as well as five fireplaces (four of them made of hand-carved stone), a curving staircase, and a cherry-paneled library, this relative newcomer fits in congenially with the refined older houses in this rarefied community of about...

Posted Nov. 5, 2007, at 7:11 a.m.

On the Market

New on the Market—A Steel and Glass Landmark on Chicago’s Lincoln Park

List Price: $6.575 million
The Property: Pointedly opaque to passersby, this three-story, 6,300-square-foot house opens up inside as a series of light-bathed rooms whose walls and ceilings, staircases and cabinetry appear to float past and through one another. Designed by the architect Perry Janke and completed in 1992, the house has at its center a 43-foot-high atrium, with steel staircases climbing its sides, assorted rooms overlooking it through glass or through wall cutouts, and a roof terrace at the top. Hung throughout is the sellers’ collection of art, including a sculpture of a woman walking a tightrope 30 feet above the living room.

The house’s exterior windows use a commercial-grade glass that from the outside appears to be covered with a dense screen but is transparent from the inside. “We wanted to see [Lincoln Park] without having the park see us...

Posted Nov. 1, 2007, at 7:19 a.m.

Housing Bulletin

Housing Bulletin—On the Block — North Center, Chicago

Yesterday afternoon, the day before Halloween, several real-estate agents and their children went on a special trick-or-treating route on the 4100 block of North Bell Avenue in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. Stopping at five of the six houses that are for sale on the block, the kids picked up treats—but what their parents saw was pretty scary.

On this block alone, there are four new replacement houses in the $1.2-million to $1.4-million price range, all finished (or nearly finished) and unsold. Also listed for sale are...

Posted Oct. 31, 2007, at 8:19 a.m.

This Week on Spike

This Week on Spike—October 31

Dennis Rodkin appears regularly on WGN's Spike O'Dell Radio Program sometimes discussing properties not mentioned in the Deal Estate blog. Check back here each week to find links and information for those listings.

From the 10/10/07 show - Elmhurst Homes...

Posted Oct. 31, 2007, at 8:19 a.m.

Sale of the Week

Sale of the Week—Libertyville’s Two-Time Market Beater

List Price: $1,149,000
Sale Price: $1,113,000

The Property: This shingle-sided house on a tree-shaded street has sold twice this year, and very quickly, flouting the slow market that has irked so many sellers. Built five years ago by the prolific Nick Lazzaretto, the house is far larger than it looks, extending way back into its lot; that allowed the façade to fit comfortably among the neighboring, mostly mid-size older homes. The house has five bedrooms and four-plus baths, a big third-floor family room, and lots of old-style millwork, including wainscoting, mantels, and cabinetry...

Posted Oct. 29, 2007, at 7:46 a.m.

On the Market

New on the Market—Breezy Hill-Hugger in St. Charles

List Price: $1.299 million

The Property: Perched on a hilltop in St. Charles, this 16-room house was built in the mid-1960s for a psychiatrist who didn’t care for air conditioning. That and the oak woods all around prompted the architect Robert Cantrell to create a series of rooms that jut out from one another, thus maximizing both the natural ventilation and the views. Energetic and angular, the all-white house appears to sprout from its hillside site...

Posted Oct. 25, 2007, at 6:04 a.m.

Housing Bulletin

Housing Bulletin—A New Owner for Pickell’s Lakefront Property in Highland Park

Wendy and Jim Abrams are the new owners of a coveted parcel of land on Lake Michigan in Highland Park. Last week, the developer Orren Pickell announced that he had sold the A. G. Becker estate (better known lately as the Mickey Segal estate) to a buyer who intends to keep intact the 17.5-acre parcel—with its Jens Jensen landscaping—rather than subdivide it as Pickell had planned. “[The estate] dodged a bullet and is now out of the hands of developers for at least another generation,” says Daniel Kahn, head of Highland Park’s historic preservation commission.

Pickell would not identify by name the buyer, who bought the property through a land trust. But a source told Deal Estate...

Posted Oct. 23, 2007, at 5:10 p.m.

Sale of the Week

Sale of the Week—Putting the Park(ing) in Lincoln Park

List Price: $3.25 million
Sale Price: $3.15 million

The Property: This lavish townhouse has splendid views across the street into Lincoln Park, a nice perk for a house that itself was built to block an unsightly view. In this case, it's the view of a two-story parking structure on a block lined with handsome old co-ops and apartment buildings.

The association of owners in the vintage condo building immediately north of this house had a slim ground-level parking lot that they wanted to expand without fouling up the block. They enlisted the architect Lucien Lagrange to design the parking structure with two townhouses...

Posted Oct. 22, 2007, at 7:47 a.m.