Archive for the 'Chicago Info/News' Category
Loop Storefront Numbers Prove That Chicago Is One Resilient City
March 8th, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Economic Recovery
No one would deny that the recession and housing slump both hit Chicago homeowners hard. After all, the median selling price of Chicago condos and single-family homes stood at $195,000 in January of this year, down 4.9 percent from where it was in the same month one year earlier.
But Chicago has weathered the economic crisis about as well as any big city. And new numbers regarding the city’s downtown business district back me up on this.
Crain’s Chicago Business recently reported on new data provided by Baum Realty Group that show that the Loop’s storefront businesses are actually doing pretty well, despite the dismal economy.
According to the report, the Loop’s storefront vacancy rate actually dropped in 2009, falling to 7.8 percent last year from 13 percent in 2008. At the same time, the number of new deals rose. The Baum report said that 57 storefronts opened in 2009. That compares favorably with 2008, when 53 storefronts opened.
And in good news for building owners, average asking rents in 2009 rose 3 percent to $60.56 a square foot.
Of course, the report didn’t bring only good news. The number of new storefronts in the Loop paled in comparison to the 91 that opened in 2007 and the 99 that came in 2006. Of course, those businesses opened before anyone realized just how powerful of a recession the country would experience.
The Loop numbers give me even more hope that Chicago is coming out of the recession and will be stronger than ever. They also give me hope that the local housing market’s recovery will only continue.
We’ve already seen housing sales increase throughout much of the latter part of 2009 and into 2010. I understand that the Loop is only one small part of our city. But it’s an important part. And a vibrant downtown shopping district, filled with restaurants, shops and theaters, is one reason why people want to live in Chicago.
When you’re fortunate enough to live in a city as diverse and strong as Chicago, you can always take comfort in one fact: Yes, we will experience economic down times. But the city is strong enough to always survive them.
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Single Buyers Becoming A More Significant Part of Home-Buying Market
March 3rd, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, For Buyers
First-time homebuyers have been given a lot of credit, including in this blog, for helping home sales rise in Chicago throughout much of 2009. But the Chicago Tribune, in a story on Sunday by Mary Ellen Podmolik, revealed that there’s another group of buyers that has done its share to boost the sale of local condominiums and single-family homes: single buyers, especially women.
According to the Tribune story, the number of unmarried single buyers has been on the rise since the Chicago housing market first began booming about seven years ago. Since then, there have been twice as many single female buyers as there have been single males.
The Tribune cites data from the National Association of REALTORS® that says that for the fiscal year ended in June, single buyers accounted for 38 percent of all home purchases in the Chicago area. And single women accounted for 26 percent of these sales.
In Chicago itself, not counting the suburbs, 44 percent of buyers for the 12 months ended in June were single, the REALTORS® association data said. Single females accounted for 29 percent of the condominium and single-family home sales in Chicago during the 12-month period.
That’s higher than the national average, where single women accounted for 21 percent of all home purchases. Nationally, single men accounted for just 10 percent of home sales.
These numbers don’t surprise me. After all, Chicago is a great place for singles of any gender to live. Every neighborhood in the city boasts its own character, and the trendiest, places like Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, and Lakeview are alive with high-end restaurants, independent theaters, hip shops and busy nightspots.
At the same time, housing in Chicago’s top neighborhoods is affordable today. The city’s average median sales price is down from last year, and down even more significantly from where it stood just three years ago. This means that single buyers suddenly have more sales power. Many of them can also take advantage (for the time being, at least) of the federal government’s first-time homebuyer tax credit of $8,000.
No, the fact that Chicago is attracting single buyers doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, I’d be more surprised if the number of single buyers went down.
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High Percentage of Chicago-Area Home Sales Were Distressed Properties in 2009
March 1st, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Chicago Neighborhoods, Economic Recovery, Foreclosures, Housing Market
The good news about 2009 is that housing sales began rising again in Chicago during much of the second half of the year. The bad news? A large portion of these home sales in the Chicago region last year were of the distressed variety.
A local real estate company reported that distressed properties accounted for at least 34 percent of home sales reported in the Chicago area in 2009.
This continues a trend that started in late 2007. And it’s not one unique to Chicago. As the nation’s economy began to falter, a growing number of homeowners lost their jobs or saw their annual incomes plummet. Many of these homeowners suddenly began struggling to make their mortgage payments for the first time in their lives.
In 2009, U.S. households received 2.8 million foreclosure filings, according to online real estate data company RealtyTrac. This figure represents an all-time high for the country.
It’s little surprise, then, that so many of the Chicago area’s housing sales last year were of foreclosed and distressed properties. Fortunately, there is help for homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgage bills. The federal government in 2009 launched its Home Affordable Modification Program, which provides financial incentives to encourage mortgage lenders and banks to somehow lower the monthly mortgage payments of struggling homeowners.
If you are having difficulty making your mortgage payments, call your mortgage lender immediately. Even if your lender isn’t participating in the federal program, it might still be willing to modify your mortgage loan. After all, your lender does not benefit from seeing you lose your home to foreclosure.
I’m glad that home sales seem to be rising steadily these days. But I’ll be even happier when a much smaller percentage of these sales comes from distressed properties.
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Chicago Condo Sales Show Some Life, But For How Long?
February 17th, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Economic Recovery, For Buyers, For Homeowners, For Sellers, Housing Market
I believe that the Chicago housing market is in the middle of a turnaround. Some might accuse me of being overly optimistic; after all, I am a REALTOR®. A revived housing market is certainly in my best interests.
But more and more, the local housing numbers are backing up my optimism.
For instance, Crain’s Chicago Business last week reported that the sales of condominiums in downtown Chicago rose in the fourth quarter of 2009. This is especially significant, as city condo sales dropped dramatically as the Chicago real estate slump worsened. To see condo sales rising, even slightly, is as good a reason as any for optimism.
The Crain’s story, of course, wasn’t all good news. It’s true that builders sold 148 condominiums and townhomes in downtown Chicago during the last three months of 2009. And it’s also true that this number is a nice increase from the 56 condo and townhome sales made in downtown Chicago in the third quarter of the year.
But Crain’s does throw in some sobering news: The story quotes researchers from Chicago’s Appraisal Research Counselors who say that the Chicago condo market won’t make a true rebound until the local unemployment numbers fall. The story also says that the number of condo sales won’t rise more dramatically until local buyers gain faith that the prices of downtown condominiums will no longer continue to drop.
Gail Lissner, vice president of Appraisal Research, said it best when she was quoted as saying that Chicago buyers still have to be convinced that the local housing market has finally bottomed out and that housing prices will soon start to appreciate at a faster rate.
Still, it’s hard not to get excited by these latest Chicago housing numbers. I’m still confident, in fact, that next year we’ll look back at 2010 as the start of our city’s housing recovery. I’m not sure when, or if, downtown condo sales will again approach the sales numbers they registered during the days of the housing boom. But I am confident that buyers will begin purchasing these units again. Downtown Chicago is simply too enticing and strong of an area for it not to feature a condo revival.
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Home Equity Numbers Not As Sobering As Thought
February 16th, 2010 categories: Chicago Info/News, Economic Recovery, For Homeowners, Housing Market, Mortgage Info
Late last year, data company First American CoreLogic released a report saying that one in every four homeowners were underwater on their mortgage loans in the third quarter of 2009. These homeowners owed more on their mortgage loans than what their homes were worth.
It was a sobering statistic, especially considering how important home equity is to the wealth of most U.S. homeowners. You’d think from news like this that the total value of U.S. homeowners’ home equity would have plummeted during the recession and housing slump.
Surprisingly, though, you’d be wrong.
Syndicated real estate columnist Ken Harney recently reported on the fact that the net equity of U.S. homeowners actually grew from the first quarter of 2009 through the third quarter of that same year. It grew, in fact, by nearly $1 trillion during this period. Harney also reports that it grew by $418 billion from June 30 of 2009 through Sept. 30 of the same year.
These numbers pale in comparison to the way home equity grew during the boom years of the housing industry. But Harney points out that the most recent data suggest something positive: Prior to this report, the net equity of U.S. homeowners fell for three straight years. Perhaps the rising numbers, even if they aren’t rising as quickly as some would like, are more proof that the worst of the U.S. housing slump is over.
As far as I’m concerned, the numbers are positive. And these aren’t the only positive ones I’ve seen lately suggesting that the housing market, both locally and nationally, is finally on a rebound. Home sales continued to rise during the second half of 2009, both in Chicago and across the United States. At the same time, Crain’s Chicago Business recently wrote that even downtown Chicago condo sales rose in the fourth quarter of 2009, and that market had suffered greatly during the housing slump.
I’m not suggesting that the country’s housing market has recovered fully. But I do believe that numbers such as those showing that home equity has risen are a good sign that not only has the recovery begun, but that it’s picking up steam.
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