Existing-home sales declined a bit from August to September, though housing inventory continued to show promising signs. After hitting their highest level in nearly four years, existing-home sales came back down to earth in September, declining 1.9 percent to

Housing activity remained very strong throughout Chicagoland in September, with both the city and suburbs posting strong numbers. Homes sales in the nine-county Chicago Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area rose 25.6 percent year-over-year in September, rising to an impressive total of

When we think luxury, we generally think “BIG,” but a new survey shows that bigger it not always better with luxury homebuyers. You hear the words “luxury home,” and many things come to mind – high-end finishings, exclusive neighborhoods

Builder confidence had been on a tear recently, but new data from the NAHB suggests a cooling off period. Builder confidence for the newly built, single-family home market stumbled a bit in October, with the National Association of Home

There are many ways that homeowners can improve their residences, but what projects are the most popular? Home improvement projects are among the key tenets of homeownership. You purchase a home, renovate certain aspects of it, and then, several

The components of new homes in 2013 are pretty consistent, but how is space distributed across those various components? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce the components of a typical newly built single-family home. From the family

What are Vampire REOs and Zombie Foreclosures? And what problems do they pose for the housing market? Last week, we reported on the latest National Foreclosure Report from CoreLogic, and the news was uniformly good: foreclosure inventory was down a

The U.S. prides itself for its strong middle class, but how many options does that middle class have for housing in the nation’s largest cities? Homeownership has long been a cornerstone of the modern American Dream, the ultimate symbol

Housing affordability has been on the decline this year, but by how much? And what will affordability look like when rates increase? It’s been an interesting year in the world of housing affordability. Record low mortgage rates and competitively

Foreclosures are a persistent problem in Chicago’s housing market, but not in all the city’s neighborhoods. Every month, CoreLogic and RealtyTrac release new data on foreclosures in the nation’s housing market, and every month, Chicago is near the top

The nation’s foreclosure markets have been showing considerable improvement in 2013, but did that trend continue in August? The good news continued for the nation’s foreclosure markets, according to CoreLogic’s latest National Foreclosure Report, with foreclosure inventory, completed foreclosures

Consumer sentiment on the housing market has gone nowhere but up in the last few months, but does the latest survey from Fannie Mae suggest a slowdown? Baby, we had a great run. Though consumer confidence on the housing

The nation’s rental markets have been quite hot in the post-boom housing market; did that trend continue into the third quarter? There have been two distinct memes in the housing market since 2008, both involving the nation’s rental market.

Asking prices may have slowed nationwide in September, but here in Chicago, prices put up strong numbers on both yearly and quarterly measures. Asking prices in Chicagoland’s housing market were up a robust 14.5 percent year-over-year in September, along

Strong school districts are often a top selling point for certain neighborhoods, but how do they translate to the median price of the area? It’s gotta be among the most common of questions that real estate agents receive –

Construction in the Windy City remains historically low, but it’s made quite a bit of progress thus far in 2013. First, the bad news – residential construction in Chicagoland remains historically low, and is among the lowest of all