About Chicago's Lawndale

It is a common fact that Cook County in Ilinois has the highest foreclosure rate in the entire country. Not something to write home to mother about, but what is interesting is that Cook County spent $3,500,000 to save 216 homes. When one does the math, it appears that the average "save a home from foreclosure" here in Cook County ran $162,000 per home. Now, if one does the figures of what was owed on those mortgages, it wouldn't surprise me if we found out that the mortgages could have been paid off with that same amount vs keeping them from foreclosure.

With 75,000 homes pending in Cook County Chancery Court, one would think that the program would be run more efficiently and higher numbers would be obtained with that amount of money. It's not like we are doing a heart transplant program here but we are trying to keep people in their homes.

In the movie, The Guardian, the lead character is asked how many people he saved while in the Rescue Swimmer Program for the Coast Guard. The response was, 22. That was the number he lost. 75,000 pending foreclosures vs 216 saved at a cost of $3,500,000 with another $3,000,000 that may also be in that figure and they are now asking for another $3,500,000. Something is clearly wrong with a figure of 216 homes saved at such a high cost of $162,000 per home.

Has to be a more efficient way to cut that dollar number down per homes and save more homes here in Chicago, Cook County, IL.

Okay, here's the interesting factor: I just ran this as a test to see if anybody would catch the number as it only costs $16,200 per house in Cook County, Illinois to keep them out of foreclosure. So, does local have more success the national?

I applaud the real estate community in the Gulf Region for standing up and sticking BP with a bill in which they are responsible for (among others). This spill is a gigantic mess that will take years to deal with economically, and more importantly environmentally.

Among people trying to collect compensation from BP for income loss caused by the oil spill are real estate practitioners.

Four states-Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida-have opened claim centers where residents who lost income due to the spill can request compensation.

Only Florida is reporting its numbers. Over the last three weeks, BP has paid $75,725 to begin settling 446 claims against it for income lost from rental properties. It paid another $5,000 to begin settling losses due to stalled real estate sales.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said in a TV commercial, "We will honor all legitimate claims, and our clean-up efforts will not come at any cost to taxpayers."

China's housing bubble may be the next market to explode. How will that effect the world's economy? One has to wonder, since they do have the world's largest population.

Chinese Housing Bubble Called Huge
Anyone who thought the U.S. housing bubble was bad should take a look at what's happening in China.

Official Chinese data shows real estate prices in 70 cities climbing 12.8 percent in April, an unsustainable rise for the country, according to Standard & Poor's.

A typical 970-square-foot apartment in Beijing cost $278,160 in 2009, 111 times the average household annual income in the city of $2,514. In comparison, the average U.S. home sold for $316,800 in 2007, 5.4 times the median household income of $58,480.

"The housing market problem in China is actually much, much more fundamental, much bigger than the housing market problem in the U.S. and U.K. before your financial crisis," Li Daokui, a member of China's Central bank monetary policy committee, told the Financial Times.

Source: Daily Finance, Peter Cohan (06/02/2010)

"Arm-Chair" Investors are those who do NOT want to live in the property they buy (a more precise term for this would be "NON-owner occupied"). The question we ask here is: Where have ‘arm-chair' investors like that been concentrating their investments?

Our work with arm-chair investors has led us to believe that SEVEN Chicago neighborhoods are particularly popular for those buying non-owner occupied, cash-flow property. For instance, Bill Bein, Chicagoland2to4Flats.info's founder, owns property in Grand Crossing (a south side neighborhood)-and he has now helped many different buyers buy in all of these areas.

• The west side neighborhoods are: Humboldt Park (census tract 23), East Garfield Park (census tracts 27), West Garfield Park (census tracts 26) and North Lawndale (census tract 29)
• The south side neighborhoods are: Woodlawn (census tract 42), South Shore (census tract 43) and Greater Grand Crossing (census tract 69).

We will look at each of them in previous and future posts. In this post we look at the fourth one: the northern end of North Lawndale (census tract 29).

The Encyclopedia of Chicago, compiled by the Chicago Historical Society, has an article on it:

"... In the past, North Lawndale boomed as a haven for refugees from the Great Fire of 1871 ..."
See more at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/901.html

And, remember, at http://www.chicagoland2to4flats.info/, you can see all the ways we are prepared to support you in the purchase of your investment property.