Oct. 11, 2010 at 5:14 p.m.
Filed under:
Commercial real estate,
Real estate,
Updated
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
Three years after it was hired for work at the Chicago Spire site, a Des Plaines-based company’s effort to get paid $512,000 may be the final unraveling of Shelbourne Development Group’s plan to build what was supposed to be the tallest U.S. skyscraper.
Earlier this month, Anglo Irish Bank Corp., Ltd., the bank that gave Shelbourne funds to acquire the property at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Shelbourne. Anglo Irish said Shelbourne defaulted on its $77.3 million loan.
The bank is asking the court, among other things, to order a judgment of foreclosure and sale, and to put its claims ahead of all others. In the past two years, numerous firms that have worked on the project have placed liens against it, claiming they are owed more than $46 million for completed work.
Get the full story »
By Reuters
A U.S. labor economist awarded the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday said a “dysfunctional” lending environment has made it hard for small service businesses — the source of most jobs — to finance hiring.
Northwestern University professor Dale Mortensen, whose work focused on labor market inefficiencies that make it difficult for workers to match up to job openings, said employers have fewer jobs to offer and government can do only so much about it.
“To bring unemployment down we need to create service jobs,” Mortensen said, speaking to reporters from Aarhus University in Denmark, where he is a visiting faculty member. Get the full story »
Oct. 11, 2010 at 12:31 p.m.
Filed under:
Airlines,
Commercial real estate,
Real estate
By Associated Press
United Airlines has started moving its operations center employees into a new home — the Willis Tower in Chicago, formerly known as the Sears Tower.
United, which formally combined with Continental on Oct. 1 to form the world’s largest airline, is moving the first 280 employees into the skyscraper on Monday. This is the first phase of the move of more than 2,500 people who currently work at the company’s operations center in the suburb of Elk Grove Village. Get the full story »
Oct. 11, 2010 at 12:05 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Housing,
Real estate,
Retail
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | A 19-room, 17,000-square-foot mansion in Hinsdale that is owned by the founder of the Addison-based Pampered Chef kitchenware company has just come on the market for $6.8 million.
Doris Christopher founded the Pampered Chef and then sold it in 2002 to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company. Now, Christopher and her husband on Oct. 9 placed their mansion, which sits on a 1.9-acre hilltop in east Hinsdale, on the market. Get the full story »
Oct. 11, 2010 at 5:55 a.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Real estate
By Associated Press
Karl Case, the co-creator of a widely watched housing market index, was upbeat three weeks ago. Mulling the economy while at a meeting at a resort near the Berkshires, Case thought the makings of a recovery were finally falling into place.
Today, Case’s mood is far more subdued. In scarcely two weeks, he and other housing analysts have watched as the once-staid world of back-office bank procedures has spawned a scandal that threatens to further unhinge the housing market. Get the full story »
Oct. 8, 2010 at 5:26 p.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Reuters
U.S. lawmakers pushed for the country’s largest mortgage lenders to suspend foreclosures in all 50 states after Bank of America Corp announced on Friday it would temporarily halt evictions nationwide.
BofA, the largest U.S. mortgage servicer, is the first U.S. bank to institute a nationwide freeze on foreclosures, expanding on a 23-state suspension announced last week while it conducts a review of its procedures. Get the full story »
Oct. 8, 2010 at 10:29 a.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Dow Jones Newswires
A Bank of America branch in Charlotte, N.C. (AP)
Bank of America Corp. is placing a moratorium on all foreclosure proceedings and sales across the U.S. due to mounting political pressure on large U.S. banks to examine foreclosure-documentation problems.
The nation’s largest bank by assets is the first financial institution to stop all foreclosure actions due to revelations that the banking industry had used “robo-signers” — people who sign hundreds of documents a day without reviewing their contents — when foreclosing on homes. Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc. last week postponed foreclosures in 23 states where a court’s approval is required to foreclose on a home. Get the full story »
Oct. 7, 2010 at 12:28 p.m.
Filed under:
Commercial real estate,
Fashion,
Real estate
The Chicago Reader | Local designer Michelle Tan has opened a boutique in Block 37, and Claudia Kleiner is set to join her there next week.
Oct. 7, 2010 at 9:37 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Housing,
Mortgages,
Real estate,
Updated
By Reuters
A sign offering a lot for sale is planted next to a sold home under construction in Nebraska. Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to a new low for the ninth time in 12 weeks. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
U.S. mortgages reached new record lows in the latest week as economic data raised the appeal of safe-haven government debt, according to a survey released on Thursday by Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. mortgage finance company.
While rock-bottom rates offer a glimmer of hope for a housing market struggling to find its footing in the aftermath of the expiration of a popular home buyer tax credits, their effect on home loan demand has been modest as a weak jobs market and flailing economy weigh on consumer confidence.
Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the most widely used loan, averaged 4.27 percent for the week ended Oct. 7, down from the previous week’s 4.32 percent and the lowest on record, according to the survey Rates were also below their year-ago level of 4.87 percent. Freddie Mac started the survey in April 1971. Get the full story »
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
At least 531 Illinois homeowners will be offered mortgage loan modifications by Wells Fargo Bank after an investigation into allegedly deceptive marketing of payment option adjustable rate mortgages.
Illinois and seven other states investigated Wachovia and Golden West’s marketing of pay-option ARMs, potentially risky loan products because they allow borrowers to pay only a minimum payment, with the rest of the funds due added to the balance of the loan, which eventually resets at much higher required payments. Wells Fargo owns Wachovia and Golden West. Get the full story »
Oct. 5, 2010 at 4:44 p.m.
Filed under:
Politics,
Real estate
By Clout Street
Rahm Emanuel’s residency in Chicago is likely to be a legal as well as political issue in the race for mayor, but since he returned last weekend from Washington there is a more simple question: Where is Emanuel living now?
The answer, according to his spokeswoman, is that Emanuel is leasing a condominium on the edge of West Town and River West.
By Chris Jones | A group of investors have purchased the Mercury Theatre at 3745 N. Southport Ave., and plan to reopen it for live entertainment. The theater has been closed since its owner suffered a serious stroke in January.
By Reuters
General Growth Properties Inc. on Tuesday named the nine members of the board of the company that will emerge from bankruptcy protection and take the No. 2 U.S. mall owner forward.
General Growth said Bruce Flatt, chief executive of Brookfield Asset Management, will be the chairman upon emergence from bankruptcy in early November. Get the full story »
Oct. 4, 2010 at 9:50 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Housing,
Real estate
By Reuters
Pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in August to a four-month high, indicating the housing market was regaining some stability after recent steep declines.
The National Association of Realtors said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in August, increased 4.3 percent, to 82.3, from July. Get the full story »
Oct. 1, 2010 at 6:26 p.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Real estate
By Reuters
Amid growing public anger over U.S. home seizures, Bank of America Corp has suspended some of its foreclosures and JPMorgan Chase & Co has come under investigation in California and Connecticut. Get the full story »
