Crib Chatter

Crain’s recently analyzed the downtown Chicago condo market over the last 5 years and put together a report on the Great Chicago Condo Bust. According to Crains, 4 out of 10 condo projects proposed or under way in 2007 wound up in financial distress. In retrospect, 2007 “was the beginning of the end, and stupid deals were […]

I’m going to be out of town at the end of the week and I have other things I have to take care of all week long as well. Therefore, there will be fewer posts this week than normal. Today, there will only be two posts. There will be posts every day however. Thanks- Sabrina. […]

As most of the preliminary data has already shown, August sales in Chicago jumped another 23.6% year over year. The median price was also ticked higher. From the Illinois Association of Realtors: The city of Chicago saw a 23.6 percent year-over-year increase in home sales in August 2012 with 2,209 sales, up from 1,787 in […]

Recently, the RedEye had an article about Chicago’s luxury apartment market. It’s what we have discussed before. Generation Y want “new” and amenities and they don’t want to be locked into home ownership. As we know, developers are responding by building thousands of new apartments downtown. No one knows better than Jeremy Dubin that now […]

Crain’s has the scoop on why there haven’t yet been any closings in the new luxury high rise on Michigan Avenue, the Ritz Carlton Residences. The building’s actual address is now 118 E. Erie and I’m calling it River North because it’s on the west side of Michigan Avenue. Apparently there is a lawsuit preventing […]

Crib Chatter burst onto the Chicago scene on September 3, 2007 with a post on a West Loop pre-foreclosure loft in 17 N. Loomis otherwise known as the Heartbreak Lofts. (Foreshadowing of things to come about the overall market?) See the very first property post here. There were no comments on those first posts because no one knew Crib Chatter existed. […]

I came down with a really nasty virus last night that knocked me out of commission. I thought I might be able to post at least one new post today, but I still feel equally as terrible and don’t want to even sit in front of a computer (my couch is calling instead.) So Crib […]

High rise condo development might be dormant, but the apartment market is alive and well. From Crain’s: Marquette Cos. has taken control of Catalyst, a proposed 223-unit rental tower in at 630 W. Washington St., from developer Gary Rosenberg, who was facing foreclosure while trying to secure financing for the project, one of several planned downtown […]

Without further ado, the Illinois Association of Realtors released the July sales data yesterday: In the city of Chicago, July 2012 home sales (single family and condominiums) totaled 2,088, up 26.2 percent from 1,655 homes sold in July 2011. The city of Chicago median home sale price for July 2012 was $205,000, down 2.4 percent […]

Since the big debate recently has been renting versus buying (and what a deal it is to buy), I thought we should take a look at what is happening in the downtown apartment rental scene. I predicted a few years ago that we wouldn’t see a new condo high rise built in Chicago for 10 years. […]