The Chicago 77

12 August 2009 ? Presidential Towers is reconfiguring its retail spaces and two new tenants are already on board: Fitness Formula health club and the South Loop?s popular Yolk restaurant. Both are Chicago-based companies: Fitness Formula Ltd. has leased two levels on the Clinton Street side of the building that equal approximately 52,043 square feet. […]

29 July 2009 ? PrivateBank & Trust Co. has filed to foreclose on Pearson on the Park (222 E. Pearson St.) a 219-unit condo conversion that as of late has been struggling to sell its remaining twenty percent of units. According to records found in MLS (Multiple Listing Service), three developer units have sold since […]

15 July 2009 ? According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Stan Liebowitz, University of Texas Economics Professor, shared his findings on mortgage foreclosure trends since 2007. Overall, Liebowitz learned that sub-prime mortgage lenders are not the primary cause of current market conditions, and in essence, debunked the prevailing belief that these […]

Have you read the latest news that home sales are down? Pretty much everyday, right? According to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (PDF), released on Monday, Chicago experienced an 18.7% decline in home prices from April 2008 to April 2009, but did not experience a percentage change from the prior month, March 2009 […]

1 July 2009 ? The Dow Jones Equity All REIT (Real-Estate-Investment Trusts) Total Return Index issued its quarterly report on 114 publicly traded REIT stocks and the findings were positive: on average these stocks rose 28.9% by the end of the 2nd quarter (April-June 2009), the biggest quarterly gain since the index debut in 1989. […]

This year is a whole new ball of wax. Buyers are thinking short sales, foreclosures, and taking advantage of buyers who have to sell. They are thinking depreciation and buying at prices prior to the “boom.”