List Price: $1,850,000
The Property: The colorist behind this “painted lady”—a 120-year-old Queen Anne with 14 different hues of paint accentuating its intricately detailed exterior—is Tracy Hurst, Lake View’s painting lady. Hurst, who has lived in the house since 1987 with her husband, Taylor, and their kids, painted the entire exterior herself over three summers in the late 1990s. She did a terrific job, bringing out the…
The builders who completed a new 4,000-square-foot house on Pine Street in Winnetka last year had hopes of selling it for around $3.2 million. But the real-estate market fell progressively downward, until eventually the builders had no idea what the house was worth anymore. In March, they found out: It sold for $1,926,000, or 39 percent less than they had hoped.
The real-estate auction house Sheldon Good & Co. sold the property for the builders in an unusual way…
List Price: $2,099,000
Sale Price: $1,975,000
The Property: It’s only four years old, but with its low arches, brick corner quoining, and hefty, detailed chimney, this ten-room home in Lake Forest looks as if it might have been plucked out of the English countryside a century ago. That’s what makes it so well suited to its surroundings, a hilltop neighborhood of about 50 gentry homes that overlook one of the prettiest pieces of countryside…
Fountain View’s Ranney carries on a family tradition
Three real-estate agents provide Deal Estate with their assessments of an energy-efficient house
List Price: $350,000
The Property: For about five months in 2006, this 11-room house on a cul-de-sac in southwest suburban Homer Glen was home to an aspiring rapper who went by the name Blaxican. The embellishments included gargoyles and security cameras across the front of the roof, a shark tank in the dining room, a recording studio and two baby alligators in the…
In January 2003, a modest three-bedroom red brick bungalow in Jefferson Park sold for $269,000. Last Thursday, at a foreclosure auction in a suburban hotel ballroom, that same Northwest Side bungalow sold for $209,625 (which included an auction fee of $14,625). Although he declined to provide his name, the buyer was positively jubilant. “I know it’s worth…
Plus: Video from the auction
List Price: $1,124,000
Sale Price: $1,051,282
The Property: After years of working separately on rehabbing vintage buildings, two Lake View builders, Bryan Hansen and Sharon Pratt, have come to “believe in details,” says Hansen. In their first collaboration on a new house, they indulged that belief, creating a warm, distinctive house that sold relatively quickly in…
List Price: $1,390,000
The Property: When Kevin Fitzpatrick bought this 12-room hilltop house in St. Charles two years ago, the entire thing was white, inside and out. “It was right out of Raging Bull,” he says…
Plus: A video walk-through with Dennis
Hoping to avoid foreclosure, some financially strapped homeowners are taking advantage of what until recently had been a little-used option. When they find they can no longer afford their homes, they negotiate with their lender to accept a short sale—a transaction where a bank or other lender allows the house to be sold for less than the amount owed on it.
According to the records of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED, which until recently was known as the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois), at least one of every ten houses that sold in the Chicago…
