You might expect the guy who built and sold one of the more expensive “green” houses in Chicago to be a lifelong environmentalist whose crusade is finally paying off. But no: Paul Ahlrich initially jumped onto the green housing bandwagon for the potential payoff. “I did these [houses] to learn how to build green so I could keep making money in a bad market,” Ahlrich says of the houses at 2652, 2656, and 2658 West Walton Street; the westernmost house (2658) sold on July 27th for $923,000...

" /> You might expect the guy who built and sold one of the more expensive “green” houses in Chicago to be a lifelong environmentalist whose crusade is finally paying off. But no: Paul Ahlrich initially jumped onto the green housing bandwagon for the potential payoff. “I did these [houses] to learn how to build green so I could keep making money in a bad market,” Ahlrich says of the houses at 2652, 2656, and 2658 West Walton Street; the westernmost house (2658) sold on July 27th for $923,000...

" /> You might expect the guy who built and sold one of the more expensive “green” houses in Chicago to be a lifelong environmentalist whose crusade is finally paying off. But no: Paul Ahlrich initially jumped onto the green housing bandwagon for the potential payoff. “I did these [houses] to learn how to build green so I could keep making money in a bad market,” Ahlrich says of the houses at 2652, 2656, and 2658 West Walton Street; the westernmost house (2658) sold on July 27th for $923,000...

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Housing Bulletin—Going for the Green

You might expect the guy who built and sold one of the more expensive “green” houses in Chicago to be a lifelong environmentalist whose crusade is finally paying off. But no: Paul Ahlrich initially jumped onto the green housing bandwagon for the potential payoff. “I did these [houses] to learn how to build green so I could keep making money in a bad market,” Ahlrich says of the houses at 2652, 2656, and 2658 West Walton Street; the westernmost house (2658) sold on July 27th for $923,000…

Sale of the Week—A Fox Lake Retreat

List Price: $1,399,000 Sale Price: $1,376,420 The Property: At the northern tip of Stanton Point, a slim peninsula that juts half a mile into Fox Lake, this newly built five-bedroom house is one of four new homes planned for the site of the old Jukebox Saturday Night bar. “It’s a one-of-a-kind point, the best place … Read more

Housing Bulletin-How One Developer Outsmarted the Condo Market

Six years ago, when Golub & Co., the Chicago-based real-estate development company, announced plans to build a high-rise rental-apartment building at 345 East Ohio Street, it seemed like a distinctly contrarian choice. At the time, virtually everyone with a piece of land downtown was building condo towers.

Look at how things have changed: Completed a year ago and dubbed the Streeter, the 481-unit building, now almost fully rented out, was sold last week to the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, reportedly for about $210 million…

Sale of the Week-A Beachfront House with Prairie Style – Wilmette

List Price: $7,495,000 Sale Price: $7,250,000 The Property: This Prairie-style house-whose art glass and other decorative details have a beach grass motif that references its Lake Michigan shoreline setting-sold July 30th for the highest price on record in Wilmette. Built in 1915 on a street that is still cobbled in bricks, the house was the … Read more

New on the Market-Mies (Almost) Slept Here

List Price: $650,000 The Property: This two-bedroom condo in one of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s revolutionary steel and glass towers on Lake Shore Drive turns out to be the very apartment in which the great architect himself planned to live. Known as the “Glass Houses,” the pair of buildings at 860 and 880 North … Read more

Housing Bulletin-Will Foreclosures Reverse Neighborhoods’ Progress?

The growing number of foreclosures has already wiped out several mortgage companies and many families’ financial footholds. Now some observers say it could turn back the clock in some inner-city neighborhoods and moderate-income suburbs that had shown improvement over the past decade. Although foreclosures are occurring at every income level, they tend to be isolated … Read more

Sale of the Week–Motorola Co-Founder’s Oak Park Home

List Price: $1,199,000 Sale Price: $1,070,000 The Property: This handsome brick Mediterranean-style house was the home of Joseph Galvin, who with his brother, Paul, founded the radio company that became the technology giant Motorola. The house was built in the late 1920s, according to James Collins, the agent for the house’s sellers, Sam and Kathleen … Read more