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dennisrodkin.bsky.social

@dennisrodkin.bsky.social
224 followers 99 following 121 posts

I cover residential real estate for Crain's Chicago Business and do the "What's That Building?' segments on WBEZ.

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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
National Association of Realtors is cutting 37 jobs at its Chicago headquarters, part of cutting 61 positions as it reorganizes in the wake of recent sexual harassment scandal, turmoil in the office and fundamental change in commission structure. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Scandal-rocked Realtors' group cutting jobs in Chicago as it looks to restructure
The cuts are part of a wider restructuring at the Chicago-based organization that includes layoffs at its Washington, D.C., office.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
She bought a Wicker Park greystone in 1998 and over the years space, beauty, daylight and a prairie on the roof. Now moving to Italy, she's asking $5.5 m for it. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
This Wicker Park home started as a greystone and grew in both size and beauty
Since buying a 19th century greystone in Wicker Park 27 years ago, Amy Lehman has added room and charm to the home, now for sale at $5.5 million.
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Reposted by @dennisrodkin.bsky.social
dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Trump housing officials rescinded a Biden-era rule designed to combat racial bias in home appraisals. The impact could be big in Chicago, where the racial gap in appraisals is among the largest. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Trump reversal of anti-racism tool in home appraisals could hit Chicago hard
Chicago has one of the nation's widest gaps in appraisals between homes in majority-white neighborhoods and majority-minority neighborhoods.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Trump housing officials rescinded a Biden-era rule designed to combat racial bias in home appraisals. The impact could be big in Chicago, where the racial gap in appraisals is among the largest. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Trump reversal of anti-racism tool in home appraisals could hit Chicago hard
Chicago has one of the nation's widest gaps in appraisals between homes in majority-white neighborhoods and majority-minority neighborhoods.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
A Bear sold this condo to a Bull, who's now selling it. Any Cubs, Sox or Blackhawks looking for a condo? Zach LaVine, whom the Bulls traded last month to Sacramento, is asking $6.9 million, same as he paid for it. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Ex-Bull Zach LaVine lists Gold Coast condo for the same price he paid ex-Bear Khalil Mack for it
LaVine, whom the Bulls traded to Sacramento last month, is asking $6.9 million for the condo.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
In the first quarter of the 21st century, Chicago-area home prices a little more than doubled, new data show. Nation's home prices more than tripled in that time, and in some coastal cities, prices quadrupled. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Chicago home prices are spiking. Here's how they've changed in 25 years.
Despite recent spikes, Chicago has seen some of the slowest home price growth among large U.S. cities over the last 25 years.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Dick Portillo, who's not in the hot dog business anymore though his name is on the restaurants, has 3 homes he developed in Naples Fla on the market at a combined total of more than $57 million. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Dick Portillo, out of the hot dog business, selling $57 million in Florida homes he developed
Two of the properties are new-construction mansions and the third is a renovated high-rise penthouse. In all three cases, Portillo is an investor and developer.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
A 100-story tower will be built on North Michigan Avenue and named for source of its financing, John Hancock life insuranve company, Trib reported OTD in 1965.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
A new block of shops at Bryn Mawr and Winthrop will have a modern style, clad in black marble and metal, Trib reported OTD in 1935.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
There's now an $86 m gap betw what the Wirtz family's Ivanhoe project believes it shoud pay the elementary school district as impact fees and what the district is asking for. School district is now exploring kicking the Wirtz land out of its boundaries. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Fee dispute over Wirtz family's Ivanhoe Village project heats up
With an $86 million gap between what the Wirtzes are offering and what the school district wants, school officials are now investigating whether another local district might want the roughly 700-acre ...
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Hey, if you remember this Gold Coast building that stood puzzlingly empty for decades, there's news. Longtime owner sold it for $10 million last week to a developer who's going to finish its 8 condos and put them up for sale. No prices announced yet. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Gold Coast’s long-vacant 'phantom building' sold to condo developer
Puzzlingly vacant or mostly vacant since 1990, the building sold last week for $10 million.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Builder’s sale of a $600,000 W Garfield Park house is 1st step in his planned ecosystem of improvement. Lawon Williams hopes to build about 20 houses + condos on vacant lots of a block on Fifth Avenue, a block from the elementary school he attended. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
This homebuilder wants to revitalize his West Garfield Park neighborhood. He just had his first sale.
Lawon Williams has sold the first of what he hopes will be about 22 new-construction residential units on Fifth Avenue, a long-disinvested part of the West Side.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
"A must in every teenager's life," Polk Bros proclaimed about the 48-inch, 4-stringed Polk-a-lay-lee in a Tribune ad OTD in 1965.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Another week, another Chicagoan buying a megabucks mansion on the ocean in Florida. This week it's a co-founder of SRAM, the billion-dollar bike components firm based in the West Loop. He paid over $15.6 m for the orange house in the photo. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Co-founder of Chicago bike parts maker SRAM pays $15.6 million for Florida mansion
F.K. Day, a co-founder of the billion-dollar SRAM bike components firm based in the West Loop, bought the oceanfront home in Hillsboro Beach.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Chicago-based National Association of Realtors is one of the least-liked players in the real estate space, accdg to a survey from ResiClub. Real estate professionals and regular people both rank it near bottom. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Chicago-based Realtors group takes a drubbing in new survey
A survey by ResiClub showed the embattled Chicago-based trade association still has ground to cover in its effort to put scandals and setbacks behind it.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
I just walked through some new houses where from the front balcony you can see both the original + later Sears towers, and from the back balcony, former John Hancock. That's very Chicago-y, but it's not the main reason I went to see these houses. That'll be in a story Monday.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
$400,000 price cut today on the Old Town home of Nick Kokonas, former co-owner of Alinea. Started at $6,840,000 in October 2023 (the story I did then is below). Today's price cut, the 3rd, take it down to $5,494,000. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
5 months later, Alinea co-owner puts a price on his Old Town house
Alinea co-owner Nick Kokonas, who in May started his own sales effort with no agent and no asking price, has now listed his Old Town house with both.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
The former CEO of Ferrara Candy, makers of Lemonheads, Atomic Fireballs and so much more, has his Gold Coats condo on the market at almost $4.8 m. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Former CEO of Chicago candy industry leader Ferrara selling Gold Coast condo
Todd Siwak and his wife, Gianna Jacobson, bought the condo in 2018 for just over $4.61 million, one of the 50 highest-priced home sales that year.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
This story has been corrected. The asking price is $1.9 million, not the figure I originally reported. (The incorrect information came from the real estate company.)
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
She built a tranquil riverside retreat in McHenry that only a new marriage could take her away from. It's really nice, sandwiched betw the Fox River and Moraine Hills State Park, one of my favorites. Asking $1 million. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
Outdoor living spaces abound in this Fox River retreat
The home right on the Fox River 54 miles from the Loop is only three years old. She's asking $1 million for it.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
First 2 houses on this site I wrote about in December hit the market today. One, on Paulina, is $4.1 m, the other, on Hermitage, is <$2.7 m. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Multimillion-dollar houses coming to a Wicker Park site, each with a pool
The four homes, with prices starting at $3.8 million, will go on a contiguous set of six lots near the Division Street nightlife hub.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Kankakee sold for the first time since 1976. The buyer, a Chicagoan, plans extensive renovations, incl replacing a long-lost terrace along south side of the house. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Frank Lloyd Wright house in Kankakee sold for first time since 1976
The buyer, a Chicagoan, plans extensive restorations of the house, built in 1900 on the bank of the Kankakee River.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
You know those billboards and Super Bowl commercials for WeatherTech floormats for cars? Founder and CEO of that firm, based in Bolingbrook, is spending $94 million to assemble an oceanfront estate in Florida. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
CEO of Bolingbrook’s WeatherTech assembling $94 million Florida estate
David MacNeil, whose suburban firm makes floor mats for cars, is buying a $55.5 million property in Malanapan next door to one he bought last year for $38.5 million.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
This Lincoln Park mansion sold for more than $2 million off its 2022 price. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Lincoln Park mansion sells for $2.3 million off its 2022 price
Designed by architect Dirk Lohan with a clever tribute to his grandfather, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the house sold for $5.8 million.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Pay property taxes on the same home for 30 years and you're done, is what a downstate legislator is proposing. Like paying off a 30-year mortgage, you'd be free and clear of property taxes when you hit that benchmark. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Legislator proposes '30 years and you’re done' property tax law
Longtime homeowners would be exempt from paying property taxes when they reach that benchmark under a bill introduced in Springfield last month.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Zach Filkins of the band OneRepublic cut the asking price on his house in La Grange to $3 million today. Started at $3.75 m in June (my story from then is below), later cut to <$3.5 m. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
Zach Filkins composes and plays guitar for OneRepublic. Here's the house he designed.
Filkins borrowed from hotels the band has stayed in, Ralph Lauren and the Walnut Room at Macy's designing this house in La Grange for his family. He's selling it as he and his wife move to Michigan.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
The food coop that leased the rehabbed Uptown Station 7 yrs ago aims to be open by the end of 2025. Researching the site for WBEZ's Reset, I learned it has a "grandpappy" on the site. A previous station, designed by F L Wright, also had a grocery store. www.wbez.org/architecture...
wbez.org
What’s That Building? The Gerber Building and former Uptown Station
A structure that used to house what is now the Wilson Red Line stop could soon be a grocery store owned and operated by customers.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Talks are re-starting betw team working on Wirtz family's Ivanhoe Village project in Lake County and local school district leaders. Last week I reported schools were feeling sidelined by village leaders over Ivanhoe's impact fees. Now they're talking. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Wirtz family renews talks with Mundelein schools over impact of Ivanhoe Village
The Mundelein Village Board pulled two agenda items from its meeting tonight related to a massive development planned for more than 700 acres on the town's northwest corner.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
This cool midcentury Catholic church went up for sale today at $3 m. Santa Maria Addolorata, 1315 W. Ohio. Parish opened in 1903. This church built in 1960 and closed in 2021. I haven't seen the name of the architect. The site is 4/10 of an acre.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
The former CEO of Fortune Brands sold a condo on the Gold Coast for a little over $10.1 million. It's the highest Chi-area home price so far in 2025. As of now, the 8 top prices are downtown--a sign of renewed interest in downtown homes www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Gold Coast condo sells for $10.1 million, top price of the year to date
The sale of a top-floor unit on Elm Street by the former CEO of Fortune Brands is the latest sign of renewal in the market for high-end downtown condos.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
A Chicago couple built their modern, nature-infused weekend getaway in Beverly Shores 19 yrs ago. Now retired, traveling and less in need of a weekend retreat, they're putting it on the market at $950k. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
A Chicago couple's longtime 'great escape' in Beverly Shores hits the market
The pair designed the house as a nature-infused retreat from their downtown Chicago condo two decades ago.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
The Wirtz family's plan to develop 700-plus acres in Lake County that they've owned since the mid-19th century has set off a feud among taxing bodies--the school districts and Mundelein village officials--over millions of dollars in impact fees. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Wirtz family’s proposed Ivanhoe Village has local officials feuding over fees
Potentially millions of dollars in upfront impact fees are at stake in the development of more than 700 acres the Wirtz family owns in suburban Mundelein.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Two buildings that have fallen into decrepitude but represent pillars of Chicago’s history—one of 1st structures built in the Loop after the 1871 fire + a house in Austin designed by F L Wright—are among 7 spots deemed most at risk by Preservation Chicago. www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-r...
chicagobusiness.com
Here are the 7 Chicago buildings most in need of a rescue
At the top of Preservation Chicago's annual list of endangered buildings is one built on Randolph Street just after the Chicago Fire whose rehab has been blocked for years by McDonald's.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Carson Pirie & Scott plans to move out of the building at State and Madison where it's been since August 1904, Trib reported OTD in 1955.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
After this story was published, a spokesperson for the seller said the mansion was listed prematurely and they're pulling it off the market. No further details provided.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
he CEO of Reyes Beverage, the nation's largest beer distributor by volume, is asking a hair under $10.3 million for his blufftop Winnetka home. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Reyes Beverage CEO asking $10.3 million for Winnetka home
Tom Day, who runs the Reyes family-owned beer distributor, the nation's largest, and his wife, Amanda, bought the blufftop house three years ago.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Former Caterpillar CEO sells a Four Seasons condo at below its 1996 price. This is the 3rd deeply discounted condo sale in that building in recent months. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Ex-Caterpillar CEO sells Michigan Avenue condo for less than its 1996 price
It's the third condo at the Four Seasons to go below a decades-ago price in recent months.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
n Michigan City, where a much-anticipated remake into a beachy resort town has been gathering steam for several years, condo sales have started at a development that's a linchpin of the change. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
The next big piece of Michigan City’s pivot to resort town is underway
SoLa, the combined condo and hotel development from a Sterling Bay alumnus, recently began listing condos from the $400,000s up.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
The Lincoln Park house where outsider artist Henry Darger lived in 2 rooms for almost 4 decades has sold. Listed for sale April at a little under $2.6 m, it sold Friday for $2.4 m. My April story on the building: www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
The home where Henry Darger created his acclaimed outsider art is going up for sale
In a former Lincoln Park boarding house, reclusive hospital janitor Henry Darger spent 40 years creating art that now hangs in museums.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
In June I showed you this sharp midcentury in Skokie, on the market for 1st time in 68 years, designed by the seller's mom with assistance of an architect. Price was $850,000. Sold yesterday for $765,000, or 90% of original ask. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
He just rehabbed the house his mom designed in the mid-1950s
With vintage features intact and all new kitchen, baths and utilities, the house in Skokie feels as new as it did when the Kermans moved in 68 years ago. It's for sale at just under $850,000.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Vintage Bath of the Week! It's in a 1927 house on Hermitage in Rogers Park that sold this week for $737,000.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Boka Group restaurateur Kevin Boehm sold a condo on Elm Street for $3.8 million, a loss of about 7% from what he + wife paid for it in 2017. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Boka Group restaurateur Kevin Boehm sells $3.8 million condo at a loss
The co-CEO of the hospitality firm behind some Chicago's best-known restaurants took a loss of about 7% on the condo he had owned since 2017.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Jeannine Dal Pra, longtime co-owner of the Elements design boutique, is selling the Lakeview condo she redid for herself + partner in the early 2000s. The details are exquisite, as you'd expect. Asking just below $1.33 m. www.chicagobusiness.com/it-hits-mark...
chicagobusiness.com
Jeannine Dal Pra brought the elements of style to this Lakeview condo
Dal Pra, who was the longtime co-owner of the esteemed design boutique Elements, and her partner Barb Bancroft are asking about $1.33 million for their home of two decades.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
There's not a lot of inventory coming to ease our price crunch, I told host @amyguth.bsky.social on the @crainschicago.bsky.social podcast this week. We also talked about some great properties. www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-daily...
chicagobusiness.com
New inventory won't dispel Chicago's home price crunch: Crain's Daily Gist podcast
Crain’s residential real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin talks with host Amy Guth about news from the local housing market, including insights from the latest monthly round of data.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
In 2024, some of the nation's biggest home price growth was in Lake County IL + Kenosha County WI. Prices up 11.1%, more than 95 of 100 metro areas tallied by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Chicago metro: up 7.58%, well above nation's 4.5%. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Lake and Kenosha counties saw huge home price growth in 2024
The two-county metro area had the fourth-highest price growth of 100 metro areas, according to a federal agency's new report. The Chicago metro area also saw growth well above the national average.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Larry Bell, a pioneer of the craft beer movement who built Bell's Brewery into one of the nation's biggest craft breweries, is selling his home in the Southport Corridor. He told me he and wife bought it because it was 4 blocks from Wrigley Field. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Bell’s Brewery founder Larry Bell selling Southport Corridor home
Bell, a pioneer in the craft brewing field in the 1980s, sold his Kalamazoo-based company, the nation's sixth-largest craft brewer, in 2021.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
n 2023, we headlined a story of mine, "Can a magazine's splashy rehab save this Hinsdale mansion from demolition?" The answer is no. Demolition permit issued Feb. 13. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Even a magazine glow-up couldn’t save this Hinsdale mansion
A little more than two years after getting a $2 million makeover that was featured in House Beautiful, the mansion is scheduled to be torn down.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
A Palmolive building condo sold for less than what it went for in 2006. Also less than the seller, top executive at Discount Tire, paid for it in 2018. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
Palmolive condo sells for less than its 2006 price
At $5.15 million, the buyers paid less than the condo's past two prices. Despite that, the sale adds to evidence of a revival of the high-end condo market downtown.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
At 36th and Dearborn, you can stand where the first Black Catholic church built west of Baltimore was and consider the extraordinary accomplishments of the priest born in slavery who got it built. I talked about Augustus Tolton on @WBEZreset yesterday. www.wbez.org/architecture...
wbez.org
What’s That Building? Site of the former St. Monica Roman Catholic Church
This small park used to be home to the first Catholic Church for African Americans west of Baltimore, served by the first openly Black priest.
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dennisrodkin.bsky.social @dennisrodkin.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
If you were hoping a big influx of homes for sale would come to rescue us from fast-rising prices, the data say it's not coming. That's 1 of my 5 lessons from the latest housing market data. www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-...
chicagobusiness.com
New inventory isn’t coming to rescue Chicago homebuyers from rising prices
That's one of five lessons to draw from the most recent monthly data on the Chicago-area housing market.
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