Chicago Real Estate Journal

Bubble' in housing not inflating locally

2005-06-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

Bubble' in housing not inflating locally
State nears record in home sales with 6% rise over past year, but experts see area as safe from feared bust in real estate

Chicago Tribune news : Business

Will Wrigley Building turn high-end condo?

2005-06-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

Future of Chicago icon in question as growing corporate giant looks at options for office space

Chicago Tribune news : Nation/World

Income up, rates remain low, Chicago Fed notes; Likelihood of bubble discounted Homes more affordable than in '90s

2005-06-12T19:28:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg News
Originally published June 5, 2005
Low interest rates and rising incomes have made houses more affordable than they were 10 years ago, suggesting that talk of a national real estate bubble might be exaggerated, according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

It took less than 16 percent of the median household's income to cover the monthly mortgage payment on a home with the median sale price last year, the study by senior economist Richard Rosen found. That compares with 20 percent in the mid-1980s and 18 percent in the early 1990s.
'The increase in housing has come at the same time as mortgage rates have declined and incomes have increased,' Rosen wrote in the Chicago Fed Letter published last week. 'These two factors have kept housing affordability for the United States as a whole roughly constant as housing prices have increased.'
The study echoes comments by other Fed officials including Chairman Alan Greenspan that, while some housing markets appear to be overheated, it's unlikely there is a national housing bubble that will burst, sending real estate values plummeting.
If mortgage rates rise to 6.5 percent from last year's average 5.8 percent, and people continued to spend 15.8 percent of their income on monthly payments, housing prices would probably fall 6.5 percent, Rosen wrote in the study. If rates go higher, values could decline further, he said.
The overall rise in house prices also does not take into account the trend toward larger, more luxurious homes, said Brian Bethune, director of U.S. financial"

Chicago Crime Statistics mapped by neighborhods

2005-06-12T19:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Adrian Holovaty, 24, who overlayed Chicago Police Department crime statistics on a Google map, house-hunters in the Albany Park neighborhood can pinpoint all the sexual assaults in the district between May 19 and April 19 on a single map. With each crime marked by a virtual pushpin, Chicagoans can quickly learn what dangerous train stations, pool rooms and alleys to avoid.

Holovaty hopes to make the maps more current by persuading Chicago police to provide the data directly, rather than forcing him to glean it from the department's Web site. Police seem amenable -- he's got a meeting with them next week. But community activist James Cappleman is already impressed with Holovaty's Chicagocrime.org -- no longer do citizens have to trust politicians crowing about safer streets.

"We've never been able to track trends before," Cappleman said. "Now, when we tell police there is a problem, we'll know what we're talking about."

http://www.chicagocrime.org

Housing 'Bubble'? How Chicago Area Home Prices Are Holding Up

2005-06-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

Real Estate Lust

2005-06-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

Real Estate Lust

By Eugene Robinson

Tuesday, June 7, 2005; Page A23

When, precisely, did real estate replace sex as the object of America's basest, guiltiest, most voyeuristic impulses? When did it come to enjoy dominion over our days and our dreams? When did a house or an apartment become not just a place of shelter or an emblem of status or even a considered investment but an obsession that haunts us no less intensely than Vladimir Nabokov's nymphet Lolita tortured the imagination of poor, sick Humbert?

Come on, don't be coy, you know you want it. You want it bad. You clipped the ad out of the back of the newspaper with shaking, sweaty hands. It went something like this: "Close-in location, 4 br, 3 full ba plus 1/2 , fam rm w/cath clng, hdwd flrs thruout, nu kitchen w/Sub-Zero and Vkng, granite tops, full bsmt f/ home thtr, deck, 1/2 acre lot, good schools, curb appeal, must see to believe!"

But even without seeing, you believed, you fool. And later you believed with all your heart and soul as you drove past the house five times while leaving a half-dozen voice mails for the seller's agent. You believed even when she told you the price -- a king's ransom. You believed at the Sunday open house, which was such a crush of yearning humanity that when you went to look inside one of the bathrooms you had to fight your way back out. You believed when you wrote the contract for more than the asking price, figuring it was the only way to be sure of getting the house.

And then your belief system crumbled when you lost out to, say, a lawyer who matched your bid and threw in a new Porsche for the sellers, an elderly couple now pricing villas on St. Barth and wondering how best to ship their new ride to fantasy island.

Yes, okay, I've been reading the papers and listening to the news. I know that, according to the conventional wisdom, the hot housing markets may be ripe for a thorough hosing down; that the run-up in prices in and around some cities -- including Washington -- is unprecedented and looks, to some economists, unsustainable. I've also read the counterarguments that factor in baby boomers' retiring to Florida, boomer-echo kids entering the market, regional disparities and other variables to prove that as far as housing prices are concerned, the sky isn't really the limit at all. If I knew for sure what would happen, I'd make lots of money and follow that couple to St. Barth.

But at the moment, I'm more fascinated with the psychology and sociology of the housing boom. In Chicago, where housing prices are up by 6.9 percent over last year, it's not such a big deal. In Fort Lauderdale, where they climbed by 31.8 percent, or Sacramento (26.9 percent), or here in the nation's capital (22.7 percent), people are being driven mad.

Take the case of a friend and colleague who just returned from years overseas as a foreign correspondent. He covered revolution in Indonesia, anarchy in Somalia, war in Afghanistan and Iraq and a half-dozen other combat zones with a kind of devil-may-care insouciance that became the stuff of legend. But condo prices in attractive neighborhoods in Washington, which run north of half a million, have left him with a glassy-eyed, thousand-yard stare. "And they're so small," he keeps saying. "So small."

The horror, the horror.

Those who bought in hot neighborhoods before the boom walk with the swagger of newly minted millionaires. They can't cash out, though, unless they're ready to retire, because where would they go? To a bigger house that costs $2 million? Among neighbors, there is no other topic of conversation: That dump down the street sold for how much? When the figure is announced, there's a moment of silence as everyone calculates how much his or her own lovingly renovated Cape Cod has instantly grown in value -- or, in the case of those on a fixed income, how much more they'll be paying in property taxes next year.

Developers around here are buying cottages and bungalows to tear down and build McMansions, big, tall, baronial things, estate-worthy dwellings lacking only the estate. They look ridiculous standing cheek by jowl, just a few feet apart. For the baron and baroness to survey their grounds will take all of a minute and a half.

New Yorkers are used to this madness; Angelenos, too, but the rest of us are taking some time to get adjusted. It seems almost Freudian. Square footage, appreciation potential, built-up equity -- it's as if we're all playing a game of mine's bigger than yours.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

2005-02-26T13:04:00.000-06:00

Illinois real estate sales climb in 4th quarter
Chicago's median condo prices approach $200,000
Monday, February 14, 2005

Inman News

Chicago, Ill.
Single-family home sales in Illinois continued strong in the fourth quarter, with Realtors reporting 21,600 closings, up 5.1 percent from 20,552 sales in the fourth quarter of 2003, the Illinois Association of Realtors reported today.

In the fourth quarter of 2004, the statewide median price was $184,800, up 7.8 percent from $171,400 during the same period in 2003.

In the Chicagoland Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA), fourth-quarter, single-family home sales increased 3.3 percent to 18,810, from 18,201 in the fourth quarter of 2003. The Chicagoland PMSA includes the counties of Cook, DuPage, Lake, McHenry, Kane, Will, Grundy and Kendall. The median price of single-family homes sold in the Chicagoland PMSA increased 9 percent to $241,800 in the fourth quarter of 2004; it was $221,900 in 2003.

Statewide, median home prices in the fourth quarter ranged from $490,800 in the North Shore to $52,500 in the Kewanee area (Mid Valley Association of Realtors). A sample of the areas that reported year-to-year price appreciation in the Chicago metro region include Aurora, up 11.5 percent to $205,200; McHenry County, up 10.2 percent to $243,500; Oak Park, up 14.5 percent to $395,800; Three Rivers (Will and Grundy counties), up 12 percent to $209,800; and West Towns, up 11.5 percent to $212,700. Areas around the state that saw median price increases include Rockford, up 10.9 percent to $124,000; Greater Gateway, up 4.2 percent to $101,700; Bloomington-Normal, up 8.9 percent to $149,200; Quad City Area, up 4 percent to $87,700; Capital Area (Springfield), up 7.9 percent to $95,800; and Peoria area, up 3 percent to $93,700.

Fourth-quarter condo sales across the state were up 7.8 percent to 12,743 condos sold compared to 11,821 in 2003. In the Chicago PMSA, condo sales increased 8.9 percent to 12,116 units sold during the fourth quarter of 2004, compared to 11,129 in the same period of 2003.

Fourth-quarter 2004 condo prices were $192,900 statewide (up 6.3 percent) and $196,900 in the Chicago area (up 6 percent).

The Illinois Association of Realtors is a voluntary trade association whose 50,700 members are engaged in all facets of the real estate industry.

NBC5.com - News - Trump: Spire Could Still Be Fired

2005-02-26T12:58:00.000-06:00

Trump: Spire Could Still Be Fired
Mogul Says Plans Could Take A Couple Of Months To Be Finalized

POSTED: 7:49 am CST February 25, 2005
UPDATED: 8:57 am CST February 25, 2005

CHICAGO -- A decision on whether Donald Trump will build a taller spire on his ritzy 92-story condominium and hotel tower in downtown Chicago could take up to two months, the real estate mogul said.

"I think we'll make a decision along with the representatives of the city and the mayor over the next 60 days as to whether or not we want to go to the extra height," Trump said Thursday while in Chicago to meet with financial backers of the tower. "It will be a little bit different top. It builds up -- not very different -- and the spire would be taller."

Trump has been in discussion with the city of Chicago about new design plans that could make Trump's skyscraper surpass Chicago's 1,450-foot Sears Tower.

As recently as last fall, Trump had tried to delete the spire from the drawing board. But Chicago Mayor Richard Daley wanted the city's skyline to include a Trump tower spire and said so when he met with Trump in December.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, which will be built on the grounds of the former Chicago Sun-Times building, boasts 696-square-foot studios that start at $636,000.

Trump also said Thursday that about $600 million has been raised so far for the $750 million tower.

"The caissons are very beefy caissons," he said. "The caissons are enough to support whatever we put on top."

Chicago Real Estate Careers

2004-12-22T09:33:00.000-06:00

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Buyers Utopia - Chicago Real Estate Search Engine

2004-12-21T23:19:00.000-06:00

Chicago Real Estate

2004-12-21T23:13:00.000-06:00

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