Check Out Yo Chicago

This site features the latest on trends and news in Chicago real estate; check it out here.

It's latest feature is on an apartment complex on the lake that was selling like hotcakes in the summer but may be slowing down now.

Rental Fight

Check out this story from Fox News.

Cities and property rights groups across Minnesota are watching a court case challenging the constitutionality of a first-in-the-nation rental crackdown. The Winona, Minn., ordinance prohibits homeowners from renting their property in the college community.
Three homeowners went before the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Dec. 12 to challenge the law. 

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Rental reincarnation: Developer gives former gym, dorm new life

Check out the story here. 

Matt Phillips is giving the Lake Shore Athletic Club in Streeterville its third life in 86 years.
The 19-story building at 850 N. Lake Shore Drive opened in 1927 as a fitness and social club and became a dormitory for Northwestern University graduate students in the late 1970s. For the past year or so, Mr. Phillips has been busy converting the building into 198 high-end apartments.

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Put North Side Neighborhoods on the Open House Chicago Map

Here's an interesting story from DNA Chicago.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation wants to know what buildings people would like to see included in its annual Open House Chicago tour — a kind of free, all-access pass to some of the coolest places in the city.
Not a single structure in Lincoln Square, North Center, Roscoe Village, Albany Park, North Park, Ravenswood, Ravenswood Manor, Mayfair or Irving Park made the site list in 2013.

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Latest Housing Numbers Disappoint

Here's the story from CNBC

Signed purchase contracts for newly built homes were down slightly in November, according to government data, but only after an unexpected upward revision to October's reading and a strange sales surge in the South.
October's national numbers were already up 25 percent from September, so some had expected the revision to go the other way. These readings, based on contracts rather than closings, are highly volatile and have a 20 percent margin of error. Sales are now at an annualized rate of 464,000, the highest in five years.

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HUD Releases Latest Housing Numbers

Check out the link from HUD. 

Sales of new single-family houses in November 2013 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 464,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

            This is 2.1 percent (±21.3%)* below the revised October rate of 474,000, but is 16.6 percent (±29.4%)* above the November 2012 estimate of 398,000.  The median sales price of new houses sold in November 2013 was $270,900; the average sales price was $340,300. The  seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of November was 167,000. This represents a supply of 4.3 months at the current sales rate.  New Residential Sales data for December 2013 will be released on Monday, January 27, 2014, at 10:00 A.M. EST. 

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Tips for Staging a Home Up for Sale

Check out this CNBC story for some helpful hints for home sellers.