Crib Chatter

    The Olympics are hot.  Craigslist has dozens of ads telling you to buy in now before the Olympics.  This is especially true of the area around Washington Park on the South Side of Chicago near Hyde Park where, if Chicago is awarded the 2016 games, the temporary Olympic arena will be built. But […]

    Not every building is a sure fire winner in Chicago over the last five years, even in the once booming loft market.  One River Place, or 758 N. Larrabee in River North, was a conversion of one of the old Montgomery Ward storage buildings in 2002.  It sits on the North Branch of the […]

How does someone who buys a condo for over a million dollars get into financial trouble barely a year later? I am seeing more and more of this.  The foreclosures are not just buyers with a subprime loan in a so-so neighborhood.  Many of them are also richer people living above their means, and also […]

According to the Chicago Tribune, foreclosures in Cook County, which is Chicago and some surrounding suburbs, are up 30% so far compared with a year ago.  From the Tribune: “There were 28,000 foreclosure filings in all of last year, and now we’ve already had 28,000 in Cook County through the third quarter of this year,” […]

    400 N. La Salle was originally an apartment building in River North which was then converted into condos soon after it opened.  It’s one of those buildings you may have walked or drove by a million times and not noticed it.  Not that there is anything inherently wrong with it.  But it looks […]

        This is another home in the category of “they just don’t build them like this anymore.”  Yes, new construction is nice, but you’ll never get anything that looks anything remotely like this beautiful mansion at 1501 W. Jackson. The Jackson Historic District is a strange few blocks of beautiful European row […]

  The Farallon at 600 N. Dearborn in River North is famous in Chicago housing market history if only because it was the building that seemed to set off the condo boom in River North and Streeterville.  When the sales center opened in the late 1990s after years of little new construction, condo units sold […]

  340 on the Park, the massive 58 story tower along Millennium Park at 340 E. Randolph continues with its closings as flippers continue to try and re-sell units (or, in some cases, rent them out.) I’m counting 17 units on the market as re-sales with the one bedrooms starting at over $600,000 (which includes the parking space.)  Some of […]

  The first flip has appeared on Craigslist for MoMo, the new Smithfield building at Randolph and State Street across from the Borders and Macy’s (aka Marshall Fields) in the Loop. If you walk by on State Street, the lobby looks completed.  The Joffrey Ballet will have its headquarters in the base of the building […]

   The second million dollar foreclosure has appeared in 33 W. Ontario at Millennium Centre. Unit #51E: Sold in December 2004 for $1.45 million Sold in January 2006 for $1.8 million Auction price of $1,452,350