Between 2009 and 2011, about 10 percent of Chicago’s rental housing passed through some stage of foreclosure, often leaving paid-up tenants in a gray area when a building’s foreclosing lender didn’t resell the place to a new landlord quickly. That’s where Nancy Enopena found herself this past winter after the Albany Park house where she rents a bedroom was without heat or hot water for five months—and without any water at all for several weeks…
Readers ask questions, and our real estate expert answers. This week, a reader named Joshua from Lincoln Square asks if current home prices need to come down in order for young adults—well-off or otherwise—to afford fairly modest homes.
List Price: $525,000
Sale Price: $525,000
The Property: Kurt and Mary Jane Neumann, who will move into Ernest Hemingway’s childhood home this week, feel ties not only to the famed novelist but also to the layout of the house where he grew up…
Foreclosures increased again in the Chicago area, threatening to push housing prices down even further, which are already at pre-2001 levels. Meanwhile, rent is going up—and rental incomes have vastly increased.
List Price: $2.395 million
The Property: In the early 1980s, John and Sarabess Cahill fell in love with New Mexico—only John’s business was in Evanston. What to do? “We brought New Mexico here,” Sarabess says…
As the warmth and ease of this sunny season kick in, many people dream of owning a summer home. In Benton Harbor, Michigan, an ambitious residential development around a golf course, also comes freighted with dreams of healing entrenched poverty and racial division and of restoring spoiled industrial land…
Readers ask questions, and our real estate expert answers. This week, a reader named Danny from Portage Park asks if it’s a good idea to continue making improvements on their home for when he and his wife want to sell it a few years, even though it has been decreasing in value.
List Price: $875,000
Sale Price: $840,000
The Property: “Northbrook is a subdivision town,” says Nancy Gibson. “Almost everything is boxes…
List Price: $1.85 million
The Property: Although it’s now jammed with strollers and baby boutiques, west Lincoln Park wasn’t nearly as family-friendly 20 years ago, when Jonathan Peabody and Lindsey Stewart decided they didn’t want to move to the suburbs to raise their kids…
A 14,000-square-foot penthouse atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower snagged lots of media coverage last week for being the loftiest home in the western hemisphere and, at $32 million, Chicago’s highest-priced home. But will it sell for that much?…
