In an effort to manage its overwhelming supply of vacant and abandoned properties, the Cook County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance to create a “land bank” to manage and repurpose the properties. The largest such land bank

Heavy price reductions were one of the ugliest side effects of the housing downturn, but a new study by Trulia suggest that price reductions may be happening with fewer frequency as the housing market

A Cook County Circuit Court judge has sided with Prism Development, the Chicago-based developer behind the embattled Ritz-Carlton Residences on North Michigan Avenue, in a legal squabble with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago that clears up

First-time homebuyers, as any agent knows, are one of the most important demographics to a healthy real estate market, and the increasing market share of first-time homebuyers has been one of the many positive developments of the housing recovery

Proponents of renting have often argued that renting is less expensive that owning, and admittedly, the argument makes sense; after all, renters do not have to worry about repairs, insurance or property taxes, among the other additional costs owners

The National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Improving Markets Index, a key measure of the housing markets in the U.S.’ largest metropolitan areas, rose for the fifth consecutive month in January, increasing to a total of 242 cities – one

One of the defining traits of the post-bubble housing market was the excess supply of new housing units, many of which languished on the marketplace for months, if not years. Few areas in Chicago better demonstrated this fallout than

Asking prices increased 0.7 percent from November to December and 5.1 percent year-over-year in the latest Trulia Price Monitor, which studied the asking prices of for-sale homes listed on Trulia in

Who is making headway in the real estate industry in 2012? Who are the people whose names you should know, because they are making names for themselves this year? This past summer, our latest Who’s Who issue provided the

Have you ever wondered by chrome seems so common in New England homes? Or why the shiny, shimmering textures of bronze always pop up in Texas dwellings? The NAHB Research Center just combed through 15 years-worth of construction materials

Chicago Agent magazine’s REAL DATA is the residential reference book, an invaluable source of important stats about the Chicagoland real estate market that is provided every year for realty professionals. Our most recent book covered information from January 2011 to November

Chicago home prices fell by 1.5 percent from September to October in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s. In addition, Chicago home prices were down 1.3 percent from October 2011; though a number of other

If your client is worried about delinquent tax bills, fear  not – there is now a database to look such things up. Buyers of residential and commercial properties in Cook County can now search an online database to find out

Move over New York City! According to a new study by the folks at Realtor.com, Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood was the hottest neighborhood in America in 2012, with more users of the site searching for Old Town than any

There was nothing but good tidings and cheer in the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) existing-home sales report for November, which found existing-home sales to have increased 5.9 percent from October to November and 14.5 percent from November 2011.

Home sales in suburban Chicago increased by 35.6 percent year-over-year in November as the market continued to show signs of a recovery, according to the latest stats from the Mainstreet Organization of Realtors (MORe). Altogether, MORe’s data covered 200