Wells Fargo has been ranked the world’s most valuable bank brand on Brand Finance’s Banking 500 list. The list, compiled annually by leading brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance, ranks the world’s biggest banks by their brand value. The results,

An optimistic outlook from current and potential homeowners will make 2014 an active year in the housing market, predicts a recent LendingTree survey conducted by Research Data Technology, Inc. Of the 609 current and potential homeowners surveyed, more than two-thirds

The Counselors of Real Estate, an international group of high-profile real estate, financial and legal professionals, is pleased to announce the 2014 officers for its Midwest Chapter. David Hooks of MarketHooks Consulting, Inc., will serve as the chapter’s chairman. The co-vice

Chicagoland’s housing market showed some definite positivity in 2013, according to CoreLogic. Home prices in the Chicagoland marketplace rose 12.5 percent in 2013, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index. That was the fifth strongest yearly increase of

Last year proved a very positive one for residential new construction, according to the final Census Bureau numbers. Residential construction spending finished out 2013 at a very fine $352.6 billion, according to the final number crunching by the U.S.

Has Chicago’s housing market picked up any steam in the last year, or is it moving sideways? We’ve been reporting with marked regularity on how the nation’s housing market has slowed down, but is that trend consistent here in

Housing inventory is something we follow pretty closely, and realtor.com’s latest numbers suggest quite a bit about the current housing market. Oh housing inventory, how we love you. One of the major narratives of the housing recovery, it seems

Chicagoland’s foreclosure inventory continues to improve, according to the latest research by CoreLogic. Chicago: Chicagoland’s foreclosure marketplace continued on the path to recovery at the end of 2013, according to CoreLogic’s latest National Foreclosure Report. In Dec. 2013, 3.6

Last year closed out on a sour note for pending home sales, according to NAR’s final tally. Dec. 2013 was a rough month for pending home sales, with the Pending Home Sales Index dropping 8.7 percent from November to

The number of “flipped” homes in Illinois increased by 38 percent in 2013 compared to the previous year, and by a whopping 309 percent from 2011. A total of 5,388 homes were flipped in Illinois – homes purchased and

Even the most loyal Chicagoans might have considered fleeing the Windy City for good during the cruel polar vortex that recently froze Chicago. Like the winter, however, such thoughts don’t last forever. As the temperature warms to a balmy

Existing-home sales enjoyed a very healthy 2013, though it’s unlikely the market will repeat that performance in 2014. The housing market capped off a successful year in existing-home sales in December, with sales rising 1.0 percent from November to

The Census Bureau’s latest report on new home sales was a bit weak, but that does not mean that the sky is falling. We’ll get the bad news out of the way first: the sales of newly built single-family

November 2013 was a good month for home prices in Chicago, according to the latest Case-Shiller report Home prices in the Chicagoland housing market rose 11.0 percent year-over-year in Nov. 2013, the strongest yearly increase for the market since

We may complain about high housing costs in the U.S., but internationally speaking, we don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s a common complaint among consumers that their rent/mortgage payments are too high, but if they only knew

We’ve looked at how newly built homes are priced and how those prices have changed in recent years; now, we look at costs. The last couple weeks, we’ve looked at both how a single-family home is priced and how