A Woodstock study released last summer shows that over half of private-sector workers in Illinois lack access to an employment-based retirement plan. In many cases, this means that individuals aren’t saving enough for their retirement and could become overly...
Two things are evident: The demand for quality rental homes has risen sharply, and communities must adapt to rapidly increasing numbers of single-family rental homes. In addition, many investors are new to the market and lack the experience managing...
February 22, 2013 The foreclosure crisis left many communities with a dilemma: Vacant homes are accumulating quickly at the same time as fewer and fewer people can qualify for mortgages to buy those homes. What can be done with...
Some relief, such as principal reduction, is not counted as a dollar-for-dollar match under the terms of the settlement, accounting for the total relief provided being larger than the settlement amount. Many commentators have questioned the disproportionate amount...
In housing policy, this means that policies that are neutral on their face, but have disproportionately negative effects on a protected class in implementation, can be considered in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Over more than forty years,...
The forum, co-hosted by the Regional Home Ownership Preservation Initiative, Home Ownership Preservation Initiative, and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s Housing Committee, laid the groundwork of vacancy trends in the Chicago area and beyond, presented current strategies for making...
CITY HALL — Despite the support of an overwhelming majority of the City Council, an ordinance to “Keep Chicago Renting” in foreclosed properties has stalled in committee. “We deserve a hearing,” Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno (1st) said this week....
Vacant foreclosed properties dot the map of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. So think of the new Cook County land bank as housing’s Georges Seurat; it’s trying to arrange all those individual dots into something new and better (much...
By Mary Ellen Podmolik February 14, 2013 Almost 3,800 homes in the six-county Chicago area went into foreclosure last month, a 10 percent increase from December but down dramatically from a year ago. The 3,778 homes in Cook, DuPage,...
In this edition of Woodstock Developments, Dory Rand expresses her cautious optimism for 2013, completed foreclosures skyrocket in the Chicago area, Cook County establishes the country’s largest land bank, Woodstock co-hosts a forum on single-family rental housing, and more.