The Chicago 77
Comprehensive Chicago Real Estate Information

2 July 2009 – The mortgage bonds have opened up 22bps this morning and briefly went down to 16 bps however they have really started to heat up and are now up 31bps. Investors are moving to the safety of the bond market due to the unemployment numbers coming in at 467,000 versus expectations of job losses of 365,000. The job loss report is not even that accurate as they use a birth to death ratio to determine job losses for this forecast. The actual number of job losses may be as high at 670,000. This would seem more accurate as the unemployment number jumped to 9.5% and this number is determined by actual phone calls that survey 60,000 households. The Dow Jones is down 176.

The 30 year fixed rate has once again hit 5% and this is with no points or origination fees. The markets are closed tomorrow so enjoy the holiday weekend and I will return on Monday, July 6th, 2009.

2 July 2009 – First ward alderman Manny Flores has proposed an ordinance to cap the city’s liability for the 2016 Summer Olympics here in Chicago at $500 million. This proposal was in response to Mayor Daley’s meeting with the Olympic Committee in Switzerland on June 17. In that meeting Mayor Daley said as host city of the Summer Olympics, he would sign a contract that Chicago would be burdened with all loses incurred. As of today, ten other city alderman have signed on to the Flores proposal and will act as co-sponsors. Many people are concerned that if Daley were to sign such an agreement and there were cost overruns, the likely source to make up the difference would be real estate taxes in the City of Chicago.