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Housing Bulletin—The Link Between Housing and Schools

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As a real-estate agent in a family of real-estate agents, state representative Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) knows all about the close connection between house values and school quality. “When I work with [homebuyers],” she says, “the single most important thing they always ask is, ‘How are the schools?’ You could show them a Frank Lloyd Wright house with all kinds of architectural amenities, but if the community’s schools aren’t good, they will pass it by. There are two basic building blocks of healthy communities: good schools and good housing.” 

That’s why Yarbrough took the lead with state senator Iris Martinez (D-Chicago) in sponsoring the Good Housing Good Schools bill (SB 220) that both houses of the state legislature passed last spring and that…

Freeze Frame

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As Chicago’s real-estate market began to experience the big chill, homeowners worried that this was the beginning of the next ice age. But as our annual house survey demonstrates, there were a few bright spots in a year that was more frustrating than desperate.

Sale of the Week—Shingles and Shade in Lake Bluff

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List Price: $1.25 million Sale Price: $1.17 million The Property: With its shingle siding and crisp white trim, this 11-room house—built in 1998 and surrounded by tall trees—contributes to the feel of a small New England village that characterizes the east side of Lake Bluff. The welcoming arch over the front steps is repeated in … Read more

New on the Market—Roomy Contemporary in Chicago’s Bucktown Neighborhood

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List Price: $2.499 million
The Property: This spacious, newly completed four-story home is one of a planned string of five houses and an eight-unit condo building going up on the 1600 block of North Wolcott Street in Bucktown. The first one finished, this house is a joint project of JODI Development and Ranquist Development. The latter, run by the husband-and-wife team of Bob and Karen Ranquist, has been responsible for some of the finest contemporary architecture in this architecturally savvy…

This Week with Spike—Links from the program

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Dennis Rodkin appears regularly on WGN’s Spike O’Dell Radio Program to discuss properties not mentioned in the Deal Estate blog. Check back here each week to find links to those listings. From the 9/26/07 show: Near West Side/UIC area ($295,000) Flossmoor ($299,000) Forest Park ($299,000) From the 9/20/07 show: Plainfield ($234,900) Elk Grove Village ($229,999)

Housing Bulletin—Correction of Lincoln Square Data

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It turns out housing prices in the Lincoln Square neighborhood (on Chicago’s Northwest Side) haven’t been on the two-year roller coaster ride suggested by Chicago’s October issue. Because of a problem with our data, the magazine’s annual real-estate charts reported an artificially large jump in prices in Lincoln Square in October 2006; as a result, the October 2007 charts indicated a dramatic (and false) decline…

Sale of the Week—Hinsdale

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List Price: $2.95 million Sold Price: $2.325 million The Property: Built in 1996, this 11-room house in Hinsdale has a contemporary grand foyer and stairs, a media room with its own ticket booth, and a backyard lap pool and waterfall. The house first went on the market a year ago, with an asking price of … Read more

New on the Market—Going to the Chapel in LaGrange

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List Price: $1.299 million The Property: This prim Swedish Evangelical church, built in 1900, was redone in the past two years as a serene, spa-like three-bedroom house, complete with a master bath hanging inside the steeple and a front hallway of ancient stone salvaged from Jerusalem. The house now has a sharp contemporary kitchen whose … Read more

Housing Bulletin—The Biggest Drops

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This is the third installment of our close analysis of the real-estate charts that appeared in Chicago’s October issue. This week we are looking at the neighborhoods and towns where price drops were the biggest in the 12-month period covered by our charts—July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007. Over that time, as reported in … Read more