Feb. 23 at 11:05 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate,
Updated
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
Sales of existing homes in the Chicago area fell last month, and plunged dramatically within the city of Chicago, but consumers who did close transactions were able to buy a lot of house for their money.
The Illinois Association of Realtors said Wednesday that 3,844 single-family homes and condominiums were sold in January, a 2 percent drop from January 2010. Sales activity within the collar counties mitigated the anemic performance within the city of Chicago, and especially in the condo market. Get the full story »
Feb. 22 at 12:28 p.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate,
Sports
Elite Street | By Bob Goldsborough | Retired Chicago Cubs catcher Todd Hundley has put his six-bedroom home in Glenview on the market for $1.799 million.
Hundley, 41, played in the major leagues from 1990 until 2003, including with the Cubs in 2001 and 2002. Get the full story »
Feb. 22 at 10:10 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate,
Updated
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
Signs advertising homes for sale in Naperville in August 2010. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune)
Home prices in the Chicago area in December hit a new low since the housing market’s peak in 2006, falling 30 percent to levels not seen since March 2002, according to a widely-watched housing index released Tuesday morning.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed that Chicago was one of 11 markets in December that hit their lowest level since home prices peaked, which locally was in September 2006.
In the Chicago market, according to the index, December home prices slipped 1.4 percent from November, slightly less than the 2.2 percent drop in November. On a year-over-year basis, Chicago-area prices were down 7.4 percent. “Chicago’s been surprisingly weak,” said Karl Case, a professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley College and one of the economists who created the index. Get the full story »
Feb. 22 at 6:21 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate
By Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal
One of the nation’s largest owners of trailer parks has quietly entered Long Island with the purchase of a 328-lot property near the Hamptons and the Long Island Sound.
Hometown America Corp., of Chicago, paid nearly $22 million for the 101-acre Thurm’s Estates community in Calverton, about $66,000 per lot. That’s more than double the national average, says Buddy Martin, one of the deal’s brokers. Get the full story »
Feb. 17 at 12:16 p.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
There’s a note of optimism in the air about the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate.
The number of mortgages that were past due in the fourth quarter was at its lowest level since the end of 2008 (excluding homes that are already in foreclosure.) Meanwhile, the number of U.S. mortgages that were one month late last quarter fell to its lowest level since the end of 2007, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday. Get the full story »
Feb. 16 at 7:40 a.m.
Filed under:
Construction,
Housing,
Real estate
By Reuters
Partially completed townhouses in Des Plaines, Ill., in March of 2010. (Tim Boyle/Bloomberg)
U.S. housing starts rose more than expected in January to their highest rate in four months but permits for future home construction dropped sharply after hefty gains the prior month, according to a government report on Wednesday that showed the housing market still bouncing along the bottom.
The Commerce Department said housing starts jumped 14.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 596,000 units, the highest since September. December’s starts were revised down to a 520,000-unit pace from the previously reported rate of 530,000 units. Get the full story »
Feb. 16 at 6:11 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Dow Jones Newswires
The volume of mortgage applications filed in the U.S. last week fell a seasonally adjusted 9.5 percent from the previous week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday, as higher interest rates versus late last year discouraged recent activity.
Refinance activity was down 11 percent to its lowest reading since the week ending July 3, 2009, according to the MBA’s weekly survey, which covers more than half of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications. Purchasing activity fell 0.9 percent in the week ended Friday. Get the full story »
Feb. 15 at 11:36 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate,
Sports
Elite Street | By Bob Goldsborough | Former Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Scott Linebrink has listed his 11-room house in Hinsdale for $825,000.
The Sox traded Linebrink, 34, on Dec. 3 to the Atlanta Braves. Now, the middle reliever has decided to sell his home, which he bought in 2008 for $815,000. Get the full story »
Feb. 11 at 8:00 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Associated Press
The Obama administration on Friday declared the public-private housing finance model in place for the past four decades was dead but pledged to continue backing exisiting obligations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“The GSE model is dead,” an Obama administration official told reporters as the Treasury Department released a long-awaited report on options to revamp housing reform. Get the full story »
Feb. 11 at 7:50 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Real estate,
Sports
Cubs starting pitcher Ryan Dempster on the mound in August. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Tribune)
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster has reduced the asking price of one of his homes near Wrigley Field from $2.25 million to $1.95 million.
In December 2009, Elite Street broke the news of Dempster’s $2.25 million listing of the 13-room Lakeview mansion, which he purchased in early 2006 from its builder for $1.715 million. Dempster placed the five-bedroom home on the market because he traded up to another, newly-built house a few blocks away that he had purchased in late 2008 for $2.69 million. Get the full story »
Feb. 10 at 1:40 p.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Dow Jones Newswires
Mortgage rates rose in the latest week, with the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages climbing to the highest level since last April, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of mortgage rates.
“Long-term bond yields jumped on positive economic data reports, which placed upward pressure on mortgage rates this week,” said Freddie Chief Economist Frank Nothaft. Get the full story »
By Ameet Sachdev
The co-owners of a Chicago realty company that managed dozens of condominium properties have been charged with fraud for allegedly stealing more than $2 million in assessment payments, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago said Thursday.
Donald Doering of Wilmette and Jay Strauss of Scottsdale, Ariz., were each charged with three counts of wire fraud in a federal indictment returned by a grand jury Wednesday. Get the full story »
Feb. 9 at 5:50 p.m.
Filed under:
Construction,
Earnings,
Housing,
Real estate
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
As earnings reports from homebuilders have dribbled out over the past few weeks, only one company gave a very specific and very positive shout-out to the Chicago market.
That company was M/I Homes Inc., the Columbus, Ohio-based builder that broke ground on its first suburban Chicago home less than three years ago and just finalized the purchase of its seventh local project, one designed to bring 146 town homes to Naperville.
Nationally, the inventory of new homes for sale dropped to 191,000 in December, the lowest number since 1968, according to the National Association of Home Builders. It dropped locally too, but at year’s end, there remained more than a year of available new homes on the market. Get the full story »
Feb. 9 at 6:06 a.m.
Filed under:
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal
The White House will propose a path to wind down and eventually eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and specify a range of options to replace the mortgage companies that have played a central role in the housing market for decades, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Obama administration is due to release its proposal for the future of the nation’s $10.6 trillion mortgage market as soon as Friday, outlining steps to gradually reduce the government footprint in the mortgage market. Together with federal agencies, Fannie and Freddie have accounted for nine of 10 new loan originations in the past year. Get the full story »
Feb. 8 at 11:07 a.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate
By Reuters
The White House budget proposal to be unveiled next week includes an increase in borrowing costs for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, industry sources said Tuesday.
The move is part of a broader revamp of the U.S. housing finance system to reduce the role of the government in the mortgage market, including a gradual wind-down of government-controlled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
