Almost a bigger story than the recovery in the real estate market has been rising apartment rents in Chicago and the construction of thousands of new luxury rental apartments in the GreenZone. Crain’s reports that occupancy rates and rental rates in Class A buildings appear to be softening just as 5,000 more apartments are due […]
Crib Chatter was going to go on hiatus as of November 1 but with the market so slow there’s no time like the present. I have major projects going on in November so this is a good time to take a break. I will still be posting periodically, mostly on market conditions, including monthly sales, until […]
The Illinois Association of Realtors is out with the September 2013 home sales. Both sales and prices continued to rise. The city of Chicago saw a 23.4 percent year-over-year home sales increase in September 2013 with 2,352 sales, up from 1,906 in September 2012. The median price of a home in the city of Chicago […]
One thing that’s different about this housing market versus the 2005-2006 frenzy is that we never used to mention “private equity” and “home buying” in the same sentence before. But now that is common place. The Chicago Tribune reports that the number of flips in the Chicago area doubled in the first nine months of […]
The latest monthly sales numbers are in from the Illinois Association of Realtors. August remained hot with the highest number of sales since 2007. “The city of Chicago saw a 22.0 percent year-over-year home sales increase in August 2013 with 2,797 sales, up from 2,293 in August 2012. The median price of a home in […]
I saw a lot of rental moving vans around Chicago over the weekend even though October 1 is the big move-in/move-out day. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the red hot apartment market is now starting to cool as fall approaches. We’ve been chattering about this for several weeks- with just anecdotal stories- to back […]
I posted two articles over the weekend in the comments about the slowdown in the rental markets in Los Angeles and New York City. In LA, about 6,000 apartments are being built. Here in Chicago, according to Crain’s, it’s about 5300 apartments with the possibility of another 3,000 on deck by 2015. Some are saying […]
Housing is big news this week. Chicago’s real estate experts and some agents have been chiming in about July’s hot sales. The Sun-Times even put rising real estate prices on the front page. From the Tribune: Despite the positive report, the local housing market’s recovery continues to be uneven. Unlike eight to 10 years ago […]
It’s that time again. As expected, July sales soared year over year. Median prices also jumped by double digits. From the Illinois Association of Realtors: The city of Chicago saw a 31.1 percent year-over-year home sales increase in July 2013 with 2,838 sales, up from 2,164 in July 2012. The median price of a home […]
The 10-year treasury hit a 2-year high yesterday of 2.89%. That is pushing mortgage rates up over 4.5%. Many people who were looking to buy properties this summer have already locked in lower rates. Many locks are good for up to 3 months so properties that went under contract even 60 days ago that haven’t […]