Chicagoland Home prices by neighborhood

The interactive tool is at least a little interesting, but lacking lots of data. Its fun to look at for a couple minutes at least.

LINK

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Look out below.

LINK

Rents going up in Chicago?

Rent vs. buy is a little bit out of whack here in Chicago.

Of course the media spin is that the rent/buy gap is narrowing, but look at the numbers. Its up 3% from the lowest been in at least 15 years.
Would you want to buy when you could rent for 60% of the price? Would you want to buy with the real possibility of losing 10-20% over the next 5 years?
The numbers are likely reflecting landlords increased property tax payments. Some secondary factors could be higher mortage costs putting pressure on landlords who own property with ARM's, and landlords who purchased rental property in the inflated price world of the past 4 years.

LINK

Chicago home sales fail to pick up in 2007

Though local observers say the slumbering Chicago housing market has started to stir, it snored right through January, when sales slid by nearly 11 percent from a year before, according to data released Tuesday by the Illinois Association of Realtors.

LINK

Zillow Quarterly Housing Report

Zillow has released an Excel spreadsheet with housing data for the Chicagoland area. Lots of fun data on this, and you can make graphs to show whatever you like. Play around with it some, see how we compare to other cities.
LINK

Downtown condo glut

The number of unsold downtown condos and townhomes either completed or under construction totaled 2,887 at the end of the fourth quarter, up 10% from the third quarter and 44% from fourth-quarter 2005, according to Appraisal Research Counselors, a Chicago-based real estate firm that tracks the downtown residential market.
LINK

IAR presents their economic forecast for 2007

"All real estate is local. Illinois is a solid state and there should be nothing to worry about," Yun said. He added that new home sales are beginning to pop up with home builders cutting back on construction in order to boost sales of current inventory. He reported a net gain of 50,000 in new jobs in last year for the Chicago metro region and expects a similar such gain this year with overall economic growth increasing at a respectable pace and with consumer spending remaining very healthy. He noted only modest declines in activity in Illinois as compared to other states who are witnessing sharp decreases including Virginia, Nevada, California, Florida and Arizona.
LINK

Movin' On Up!

Mark and Michelle Jahnke were so pleased with their town house at Hampton Glen in Plainfield that when they decided to move up to their first single-family home, they selected the same builder.

The couple wanted to remain in the southwest suburbs, and they found exactly what they were looking for -- at Sable Ridge, a master planned clubhouse development in Joliet.

"We purchased a quick-delivery home, but were still able to choose our options and finishes. So it worked out perfectly for us, because our town home sold very quickly," Michelle said.

LINK to story..

Basically a glorified advertisement for the homebuilders disguised as a news story.

Welcome to the Windy City Housing Bubble Blog!

I'll be posting relevant content to the Chicago housing market, it seems that the midwest is behind in just about everything, including the realization that we too are affected by the national housing bubble. There are many sites that look in great detail about the most obvious bubble markets such as Florida, Phoenix, SoCal, etc. I'd like to give a perspective on the Chicagoland market that is often left out of the discussion in favor of the sensationalism of the "big" bubble cities.
Even though we did not see price appreciations of the magnitude of San Diego or Phoenix, things are still out of whack in many of the desirable neighborhoods in the city, as well as certain suburbs.
Stay tuned!