Among the many losses resulting from the recent real-estate downturn, John Wasik’s may be unique: he lost the premise of his latest book. Near the tail end of the housing boom, Wasik—a personal finance columnist for Bloomberg News and the author of a dozen books—was working on a book arguing that…
List Price: $919,000
Sale Price: $916,000
The Property: At a time when Chicago appears to have the nation’s biggest logjam of unsold homes—enough to supply 19 months worth of sales, according to a recent Wall Street Journal survey of 28 major metro areas—a savvy investor has done his part to advance the…
List Price: $1,175,000
The Property: This two-level penthouse unit is at Aspen 6, a Bucktown building. Its distinguishing feature (not visible from the street) is an enclosed second-story courtyard, shaped approximately like an eye, that all the condos look into.
The auctions of a couple of big-ticket properties—the old main post office and a Burr Ridge mansion—have been getting lots of press lately, but there are many other, less pricey properties up for auction in Chicago and the suburbs. By my count, auction houses will…
Former Ward’s headquarters gets a stylish upgrade
List Price: N/A
Sale Price: $2.85 million
The Property: Jim McMahon, the quarterback who led the Chicago Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX, has quietly sold his Northbrook home of more than 20 years to a neighbor. McMahon and his wife, Nancy, raised their four kids in the house; the youngest, Zach, was a senior at Glenbrook North High School last year.
List Price: $1.2 million
The Property: This foreclosed house is different from most—and not just because of the distinctly 1980s look of the geometrical stucco panels on the exterior or the pipe handrails and cutout fireplace inside. The other difference is…
Maybe it’s not auspicious to launch a website that lets house-hunters find real estate listings near their preferred transit stops in the same week that the Chicago Transit Authority threatens a new round of service cuts and fare increases. Fortunately, Tom Brown is taking the long-term view…
List Price: $2.699 million
Sale Price: $1.400 million
The Property: This 27-room house, once priced by its builder at about $4.5 million but sold unfinished and with various contractors’ liens against it, was bought on October 2nd by an investor—who put it right back on the market, priced at…
Our annual survey of home prices in 288 Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs. Plus: Eight true-life stories that reveal the perils and pluses of the volatile local housing market
