Filed under: Real estate

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Northwest Side cemetery under new ownership

A prominent Jewish cemetery on the Northwest Side of Chicago has changed hands after the previous owner could no longer operate and maintain the 50-acre property, according to the new owner. Get the full story »

Chicago-area home sales up from February

"For sale" signs line a Chicago street. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune)

The median price of a condominium sold in Chicago last month beat its year-ago comparison for the first time in two and a half years, new data shows.

The median price of a condo within the city rose to $275,000, up 2.8 percent from $267,500 a year ago, according to a monthly sales report released Wednesday by the Illinois Association of Realtors. The last time Chicago condo prices recorded a year-over-year gain was in October 2008, when the median sales price of $315,000 was a 3.3 percent gain from October 2007. Get the full story »

Northern Trust CEO sees more mortgage activity

Northern Trust Corp., which caters to wealthy consumers, said it’s beginning to see more demand for mortgages as housing prices firm up.

“The mortgage pipeline is beginning to fill up,” Chief Executive Frederick Waddell told reporters Tuesday after his Chicago-based bank’s annual shareholder meeting. “There’s more interest in housing,” including refinancings. Get the full story »

Zillow files for $51.8M IPO

Real estate and housing data company Zillow Inc. filed with U.S. securities regulators on Monday for an initial public offering of up to $51.8 million. Get the full story »

Former Hawk Daze buys $1.68M Hinsdale mansion

ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | Bucking a recent trend of former Chicago Blackhawks players listing their area homes and leaving town, retired Blackhawks winger Eric Daze has paid $1.68 million for a newly built, six-bedroom, New Orleans four-square house in Hinsdale. He also has a contract to sell his longtime four-bedroom house in Hinsdale, which has been listed for $795,000. Get the full story »

Bank of America posts 37.5% decline in 1Q profit

Bank of America posted a 37.5 percent decline in first-quarter earnings Friday and named a new chief financial officer. Get the full story »

Banks, SEC in talks to settle mortgage charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission is in talks with major Wall Street banks to settle fraud allegations relating to the sale of toxic mortgage bonds to various investors that helped unleash the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Get the full story »

Illinois, Chicago foreclosures on the rise again

A boarded-up house in foreclosure, left, in the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, July 13, 2010. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)

Foreclosure activity in Illinois was on the rise again last month, after a slowdown earlier this year caused by investigations into lenders’ foreclosure processes.

During March, lenders filed notices of default and started foreclosure proceedings against 7,428 homes in Illinois while scheduling court-supervised auctions against 1,919 properties and repossessing another 2,706 homes that became bank-owned. The overall number of properties caught up in the foreclosure process last month, 12,053, was a decline of 15 percent from March 2010 but up 25 percent since February. Get the full story »

Wintrust Financial buys River City Mortgage

Lake Forest-based Wintrust Financial Corp., which operates 15 community banks in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, said its mortgage unit has acquired certain assets and liabilities of River City Mortgage LLC. Get the full story »

Feds cite 14 banks for mortgage ‘misconduct’

Major U.S. banks and thrifts filed foreclosures with improper documentation and lacked sufficient staff to properly handle distressed borrowers, federal bank regulators said Wednesday as they ordered lenders to overhaul their foreclosure processes. Get the full story »

Fannie Mae brings back HomePath deal

Fannie Mae is bringing back its offer to help pay closing costs to move some foreclosed homes from its books into the hands of owner-occupants. Get the full story »

Illinois’ top court forms foreclosure commission

The Illinois Supreme Court on Monday announced the formation of a special committee to investigate the fairness of mortgage foreclosures in Illinois and perhaps change the rules that govern the process. Get the full story »

Homebuilder Pasquinelli files for bankruptcy

Pasquinelli Homebuilding LLC, the Burr Ridge-based homebuilder whose business started in Chicago’s south suburbs but expanded to seven other states, has filed documents with U.S. Bankruptcy Court to liquidate the company. Get the full story »

Groupon gets into real estate with Dream Town

On Friday, Chicago real estate brokerage Dream Town Realty launched a week-long deal on Groupon, hoping to tap the popular social buying model to attract clients. Get the full story »

JPMorgan Chase helps CEO Dimon on sale of Gold Coast mansion

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, right, listens to a question from the media after a speech at a conference on global capital markets in Washington, March 30, 2011. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

When Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., finally sold his Gold Coast mansion at 25 E. Banks St. in 2010 after it had been on the market three years, the real estate crisis prevented him from getting the more than $13 million he originally wanted.

But he did get help from JPMorgan, which paid $421,458 in expenses related to the sale, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made public yesterday. Get the full story »