I may as well start with the good news. This morning S&P Dow Jones Indices released the March CoreLogic Case-Shiller Chicago area index of home prices and it shows single family home and condo/ townhome prices rising over the last year by the largest percentages in 8 months. If you look closely at the graph below you can see that.

So what’s the bad news? Well, the Chicago area’s annual home price appreciation has sucked so badly lately that it wasn’t hard to beat the last 7 months. All it took was for single family homes to rise by 1.5% and condo prices to rise by 0.6%. Meanwhile, all the other 18 metro areas covered by S&P Dow Jones (they actually cover 19 but Detroit was unavailable) did better than Chicago and the nation as a whole appreciated by 4.4%. The second worst metro area was New York with 2.1% growth.

Chicago area single family home prices have shown annual gains for 89 consecutive months but condo prices fell once again

Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, pointed out that this data does not yet reflect the impact of the Coronavirus shut down on economic activity:

Importantly, today’s report covers real estate transactions closed during the month of March. Housing prices have not yet registered any adverse effects from the governmental suppression of economic activity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As much of the U.S. economy remained shuttered in April, next month’s data may show a more noticeable impact.

Personally, I don’t even think that April indices will reflect the impact because homes that closed in April were mostly under contract in March and, if I recall, Case Shiller shows a 3 month average of home prices. I think we might see an impact in the May numbers.

Now to make matters worse the Federal Housing Finance Agency released their house price indices this morning also. They track 100 metro areas across the country. Anyone want to guess how Chicago ranked? No, not at the bottom but damn close to the bottom at #93. Sad.

Case Shiller Chicago Area Home Price Index By Month

For historical perspective on where home prices have been check out my graph below that shows the actual index levels along with a red trend line for single family homes that was based on the pre-bubble years. Single family home prices rose 1.5% from the previous month and condo prices rose by 1.8%, both of which are consistent with the typical seasonal increase.

You can see how prices are flattening out, how they haven’t recaptured the bubble highs, and how they are falling further and further behind the trendline. Single family home prices are 14.3% below the peak and condo prices are 7.1% below the peak. In fact, single family home prices are still lower than they were during the entire period from August 2004 – October 2008 and condos are still lower than their levels from June 2005 – November 2008. As for that trendline, single family home prices are now 28.7% below it.

Of course there’s been a lot of recovery from the depths of the housing crisis. Single family home prices have bounced back by 40.7% while condo prices are now 53.8% higher.

The Chicago real estate market still has a long way to go before catching up to bubble peak prices.

#CaseShiller #ChicagoHomePrices #HomePrices

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

There is a saying that goes “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Considering the current state of the world economy, what does a financial plan look like?

In this economic climate there are 3 types of people, which do you identify with most?

• The financially prepared sitting on capital with great credit waiting to capitalize on an investment opportunity
• The financially perplexed have no clue of what is going on and are simply awaiting government handouts
• The financially piqued those realizing that getting their finances in order and are looking for money-making opportunities outside of their current jobs

Recessions and pandemics have been known to produce millionaires and billionaires, Jeff Bezos is perfectly positioned to possibly become the first known trillionaire as demand has increased for online shopping.  In the Chinese language crisis means opportunity and danger, the world is experiencing both meanings of the world simultaneously.

What Does a Financial Plan Look Like?  Here is an example of a Financial Pyramid:

The financially perplexed and piqued share similar struggles as neither of them have the proper financial foundation focused on protection.  Most skip protection and savings and go right to growth and risk in the form of stocks and real estate investment.   Could you imagine building a house from the roof down? Of course not, having a solid foundation is a key to any and everything one does especially as it pertains to their finances.

Take time to ponder is your financial foundation solid? The best way to answer this is by examining the current state of your economic affairs in the midst of this pandemic.  If you can confidently answer yes, awesome.  If you can confidently answer no, it is time to take the first steps to build your financial pyramid properly.

In right-wing bubbles a Biden gaffe

Is always  fodder for a laugh.

But it’s so ironic

That for gaffes Trump’s iconic

And out on the golf course a perfect Falstaff.

A big shout-out from Toyota Motor Company on May 18 that they will be introducing two all-new hybrid models. According to the leader in all things automotive, 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicle. To commemorate the anniversary, Toyota will produce two all-new Hybrid models, offering two 2020 Prius Editions, in two colors with unique blackout trim and features. Also new will be the Toyota Safety Sense 2.0, and manufacturer preliminary-estimated 52 combined miles-per-gallon.

In two decades, Toyota sold more than 6 million Prius vehicles worldwide and more than 3.6 million total hybrid models in the U.S. And it just keeps getting better. Difficult at first, for some, to get accustomed to, the Prius has engendered many true believers, some who won’t drive any other vehicle. This writer took a Prius on the road a few years back, from Chicago to Vermont. The handling, quiet and mpg were all very satisfactory. And the biggest plus was how much we packed into that Prius. It’s unusual (for the time) shape allowed for packing stuff from floor to ceiling.

Readers might remember when the Prius arrived, the year 2000 and Y2K…another unsettling time in history. The 2001 Toyota Prius was at that time, the world’s first production hybrid car. No question it did a lot to change how the automotive industry did business and what they could now offer.

Marking a special anniversary, Toyota’s Prius 2020 model will include 2,020 special models based on the well-equipped XLE FWD grade. Buyers can choose a Supersonic Red or new Wind Chill Pearl color, with black exterior trim and unique features like a color-keyed rear spoiler.

Something else to look for in the anniversary Prius are the black inserts for the 17-inch alloy wheels, blackout headlight components and trim B-pillars and mirror housings. Unique to this edition are a 2020 insignia key glove/fob and floor mats, a black shift knob and interior A-pillar trim and smoked HVAC vents.

Also looking ahead to 2021, the Prius, which already has Toyota Safety Sense (TSS-P) standard, will get the TSS 2.0, the latest version of the advanced safety system which includes Pre-Collision System w/low-light pedestrian detection (offering automatic braking capability); full speed range dynamic radar cruise control, bicycle detection, lane departure alert, automatic high beams, and road sign assist. Blind Spot Monitor with rear cross traffic alert and intelligent clearance sonar with intelligent parking assist will also be standard. Also for 2021, all but the Prius Limited add Android Auto compatibility. (Apple CarPlay compatibility was already standard on 2020 Prius models.)

Joining the Toyota lineup will be 9 other hybrid models and one of 11 electrified vehicles with Mirai a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (2021). Corolla will be offered in a hybrid for the first time, joined by Camry Hybrid, RAV4 Hybrid, Avalon Hybrid, Highlander Hybrid, RAV4 Prime and Prius Prime.

Both sporty and elegant, the 2020 Prius will stand out, telling the world it’s still here and here to stay. The name Prius is Latin for “first” or “original,” also meaning “to go before.” Both sporty and elegant, the new Prius offers 54 city MPG/50 highway MPG/ 52 combined. Get your front row seat at the link before. There’s so much to tell about the upcoming Prius. Give it look online at: https://livestream.com/accounts/1607005/events/9122935

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While the world is dealing with a history-shaping pandemic that threatens to topple governments, collapse economies, and terrorize millions of people who are being threatened by an invisible, cunning, relentless enemy known as COVID-19, commonly called the Coronavirus,  many Chicagoans are facing another added threat. It is clearly visible and to some just as lethal. This past Memorial Day weekend was Chicago’s deadliest since 2015 with 56 attempted murders, 10 murders, 42 people shot and wounded, and 4 seriously stabbed.  Imagine if you will, prowling through a minefield not knowing if the next step will be your last. A reality that thousands of Chicago residents face every single day. Not an unseen enemy but just as virulent and as bitterly hostile as the killer virus. The murder numbers certainly don’t compare to the virus’s numbers but they are a steady stream of added horror that is escalating in a city that seems helpless to stop it.

Imagine a slow leaking faucet that just never gets turned off, Chicago’s steady unrelenting murders and shootings. The victim lists just keep haunting a city already paralyzed by the fear of COVID-19. The stay at home orders, the social distancing orders, the shelter in place orders, nothing slows down the gang thugs from the daily routine of the stalk and kill agenda. Think back a few years at all the GAS BAG speeches by the local politicians and the agenda people, all leaping and preening before any cameras they could shove their way in front of, in the so-called fight against violence.

There was more bullshit on the expressways than a bullfighting ring in Spain. Recall the many so-called leaders and assorted buffoons marching on and shutting down expressways miles from the killing zones of their neighborhoods. The sight of the since disgraced Chicago Top Cop marching hand in hand with the marchers in full uniform probably was one of the most despicable scenes any of us in Law Enforcement has ever witnessed. He since has been exposed for the buffoon he was.

Before the start of the Memorial Day Weekend, there was the usual press conferences mostly by the unfortunate Cop Command staff ordered to announce plans on just how their plan (9 million and 68,000 close anyway) was going to combat the expected mayhem of violence. Along with the cops there was of course a local alderman gassing about, READY! loud motorcycles and cars on Lakeshore Drive.  After all! the residents of those high rises are voters and those noisy motorcycles and cars speeding on Lake Shore Drive are annoying. Police manpower was going to be beefed up to deal with this horror and the culprits were going to be dealt with for sure. This had to be in my opinion the SUPERBOWL of misplaced priorities. The alderman probably never heard of Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned but it crossed my mind, and the big Command Cops just kinda went along with the whole dog and pony show. Not a mention of how to deal with the elephant in the room (DEATH AND MAYHEM BY GUNFIRE AND VIOLENCE). The Ostrich theory has been in full force in Chicago, keep your god damn heads in the sand and it will eventually go away.

There has been from time to time many instances of Chicago’s Mayor yelping about people of faith congregating in places of worship.  Somehow the Governor and the Mayor have declared churches and other places of worship nonessential establishments, and the Mayor has ordered the police to assess heavy fines and in some cases allegedly sending as many as 3 cars filled with cops and a member of the Mayor’s office to pound on doors of suspected churches holding services. I’m including a photo above as a source.

Imagine the Reverend’s point of view on this. Liquor stores, and marijuana dispensaries, and Walmart stores all deemed essential and open for business, food, liquor, and weed for the body but no food for the soul. Hard to imagine the logic in all that but one thing I do know is when a ruling government says it’s stopping you from exercising basic rights by saying it knows better, it makes one think, IS THE KGB laughing?  Armed police banging on church doors to stop a service begs the question where is the ACLU? Where are all the Civil Rights groups?   Who really holds that power, the PEOPLE as we have been told by our Constitution, or a politician who says they know better? Chicago desperately needs help in a lot of areas and leadership is a top priority. Stay safe and listen carefully to people who say they know better.

MONDAY, MAY 25

7:00 p.m. Volumes Bookcafé holds its audiobook book club discussion of Bubblegum.  Q&A with author Adam Levin follow at 8:00 p.m.

TUESDAY, MAY 26

11:00 a.m.  American Writers Museum presents a discussion with Catharine Arnold  about researching and writing her book Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History and what it’s like to publish during a pandemic.

7:00 p.m. Major book launch at Women & Children First! Attend on Facebook Live. Tara Conklin talks with Elizabeth Wetmore about her new book Valentine. More about Elizabeth Wetmore here.

7:00 p.m.  Quimby’s presents Zine Club Online: Screens Edition! “We’ll be discussing self-published works about the moving images that keep us riveted to big and small screens alike.”

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27

6:30 p.m. City Lit’s Weird and Wonderful Book Club meets to discuss The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

THURSDAY, MAY 28

12:00 p.m. Bookends & Beginnings presents Literary Lunch Break. Short sample readings by contributors to Fury: Women’s Lived Experiences During the Trump Era, including editor Amy Roost, Dawn Marlan, Suzanne Clores, Lea Grover and Dina Elenbogen.

5:00 p.m. Chicago Ideas presents A Virtual Happy Hour with Samantha Irby. “Irby will sit down to talk through life in quarantine, using Irby’s new book Wow, No Thank You, as a jumping off point.”

6:30 p.m. City Lit presents John Warner, the Chicago Tribune’s Biblioracle in conversation with Kevin Guilfoyle. The Biblioracle will make persona book recommendations. Your chances of a personal “reading” are better if you email him in advance. Follow the link for instructions.

6:30 p.m. The American Writers Museum presents Dr. Manisha Sinha, scholar, historian and winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for her book The Slave’s Cause. She will discuss the infinite legacy of Frederick Douglass in celebration of the Museum’s virtual exhibit, Frederick Douglass: Agitator

FRIDAY, MAY 29

7:00 p.m. Major book launch! Women & Children First presents Sonali Dev discussing Recipe for Persuasion with Alison Hammer on Facebook Live.

SATURDAY, MAY 30-SUNDAY, MAY 31

BookConline: National conference BookCon is online this year and it’s all weekend. Follow link for more information on panels, ARC giveaways and more.

I’m not exactly an optimist. Not really a fully committed pessimist either. Somewhere in the gray space in between. I want to believe in the best and sometimes I succeed. When depression descends I can see only the worst. Most days I waver between the two. I try hard to be rational, though I know I’m driven by passion, loyalty, and intensity that burns inside. These are the engines of living my life, and the rationality is the oil.

I guess I predict that we’ll see another spike of CV-19, more hospitalizations and more deaths. I wonder if the second round will be worse than the first. I dread and I fear that it will be.

Still, I’m trying hard to live in this moment, to find some peace amidst the boredom and chaos, odd bedfellows in the time of a pandemic. It seems like all I hear is outrage. Since 2016 the space in my brain and heart devoted to outrage has grown and pushed out a lot of the hope that grounds me.

But, 2020 has brought me outrage fatigue. I’m exhausted by it, depleted, and I have to turn my eyes to something else. Last fall, I gave myself one Tweet per week to send out to our *president. Those tweets matted together and became a bezoar in my gut, held together by sticky fear and hard hate.

If I’m to live in anything approximating peace, I have to give this up—the hate and the outrage, the fear and the dread. The “Serenity Prayer” challenges me to act courageously when I can and to accept when I can’t. So many things fall into the latter category. I cannot change other people. I cannot stop a virus. But I can stay home, wear a mask, distance myself socially.

The photographs this week of folks in Wisconsin, maskless and bunched together, going about their lives as if life were normal are an assault on rationality. It makes no sense to live this way. Images of protesters, with guns, fighting for the right to assemble, maskless, in large groups makes no sense either.

But outrage doesn’t make a lot of sense either. Wishing that these people contract the virus, that they spread it to their elderly family members, that they are wiped out by the virus extend far beyond outrage. Death and suffering are just not things we should wish on others. It depletes us, strips us of our humanity.

And, it doesn’t make any sense. The virus isn’t Republican or a MAGA supporter. It just is. If these people get the virus, they create spikes of death and suffering for all of us.

I think it all boils down to fear. We are terrified. I am terrified. And fear so easily morphs into anger and rage. It is the flip side of fear. And they are easily nurtured when we have no control, when we are confused, when we face the unknown.

My neighbors gather most nights around their fire pit. They entertain their neighbors. I can’t see them and don’t know if they’re wearing masks, if they’re sitting six feet away from each other. But, I doubt they are. Part of me wonders what the hell they’re thinking. Another part enjoys their laughter and their friendships. I can tell you sincerely that I don’t wish them harm, however much I judge their choices.

I’m trying to nurture that gentleness. I’m trying to practice lovingkindness. I meditate regularly, and lately I’ve turned to lovingkindness meditations. I try wishing happiness and safety not just to myself and to my family and to my friends. But to my neighbors. To protestors, to maskless Wisconsinites.

I cannot with words or actions change their behavior. But, I can change mine. I can choose hope, gentleness, kindness. I can scroll past the images that trigger fear and anger.

I can dwell on my backyard and watch the blue jays fight with squirrels. I can sit very still as a chipmunk scurries just past my feet to her destination in the bushes behind me. I can hear my neighbors’ three kids squeal and splash sprinkler water on each other. I can feel a breeze on my arms and the warmth of the sun.

I can be grateful for the frontline workers, the docs and nurses, the grocery store clerks, the delivery people. I can miss my daughter and workout with her via Zoom. I can talk to her on the phone and talk about cooking and the details of our days, apart from each other.

I can sit here as I write, feeling sadness and worry and allow them to just be. I can let the fear and hate unspool.

Mary Gauthier is a favorite singer/songwriter of mine, and she wrote a song that I need to hear because we could all use a little mercy now.

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“So glad to have Lizzy now,” I wrote in my journal in early April as the second week of Illinois’s stay-at-home order was ending. Human company and touch were off limits for the indefinite future, but I had my sweet kitty.

Now Lizzy is gone, and I’m writing through tears.

In my last post I said that Lizzy’s inflammatory bowel disease had worsened abruptly. Last Tuesday her vet advised that it was time to let Lizzy go.

It’s always hard to lose a beloved pet, but it particularly stinks now during social isolation. Friends and family members can console me only by phone and email; even if we were to get together, hugging would be taboo.

The living being on whom I relied to get me through seclusion is gone. I’m on my own at home.

When I lie down in bed, there isn’t a furry body snuggling at my shoulder, reaching her paw over my arm and drawing it closer.

The furry body isn’t on my lap when I read the morning newspaper. We had a routine. If she finished her breakfast before I did mine, she would go to the reading chair and wait, jump down when I approached to sit down, and jump into my lap, where she would stay until I folded up the paper.

Never again will I hear a sassy meow when I’m at my desk and look down to see Lizzy staring up at me, wanting attention or food. Never again will she plop down in the center of the yoga mat as soon it’s unrolled. Never again will I see a lump under the bedspread (I never figured out how she burrowed under the cover of a made bed).

Lizzy was a special cat, one of the vet techs consoled me after the euthanasia last Thursday. I agreed. Lizzy was feisty yet chummy, affectionate but not clingy. She chose when to be cuddly, which was often, but she wouldn’t stay on my lap if I put her there. She fought her daily pilling but forgot about it and returned to me soon after. Other than her IBD problems, she never caused trouble.

She talked to me like we were having a human face-to-face conversation. We could go back and forth several times, her meowing in different tones that I tried to interpret.

Coronavirus or no coronavirus, I’d miss her dreadfully. There’s an extra sting now, though. I’m more conscious of the isolation. A layer of personal grief has landed on top of the feelings of anxiety, worry, and uncertainty.

The loss of Lizzy comes after 11 difficult months in my family’s life: My parents’ stays in the hospital and nursing homes for rehab. Moving them into assisted living, and my dad’s unhappiness with the move. Cleaning out and selling their home. My dad’s death in December. Worrying about my mom in assisted-living lockdown only three months after she lost her husband.

A silver lining is that losing Lizzy has made me more empathic to my mother. Earlier I couldn’t begin to understand how devastating it is to come into an empty home after losing the person with whom you lived for nearly 72 years. Perhaps it’s insensitive to compare the loss of a cat with the loss of a husband, but I think I understand a bit more how Mom feels.

I’ll get through one day at a time, propped up by consoling phone calls and emails. I long to see my friends, but even when we can get together, it will be six feet apart. It will be weeks before I again feel the touch of a living being.

Last Wednesday, instead of curling up on my lap, Lizzy sat facing me and staring at me. I figured she was trying to tell me something, which I chose to interpret as agreeing it was time.

It was the right time, but what a bad time. Lizzy, how I miss you.

*****

ANTI-TRUMP COMMENTS: 115TH IN AN ONGOING SERIES

“[During intelligence briefings] the president veers off on tangents and getting him back on topic is difficult. He has a short attention span and rarely, if ever, reads intelligence reports, relying instead on conservative media and his friends for information. He is unashamed to interrupt intelligence officers and riff based on tips or gossip he hears . . . Mr. Trump rarely absorbs information that he disagrees with or that runs counter to his worldview . . . Directly challenging him, even when his numbers are wrong, appears to erode Mr. Trump’s trust, and ultimately he stops listening. . . . [G]etting Mr. Trump to remember information, even if he seems to be listening, can be all but impossible, especially if it runs counter to his worldview.”
—New York Times

Katie is SO lovely! She has settled into the apartment really nicely.

To meet her, write to us at [email protected] !

Hyde Park Cats is a local, all-volunteer group dedicated to helping stray and homeless cats in and around Chicago’s Hyde Park. We received our 501(c)(3) status in 2014 and have had over 1,200 adoptions since our founding in 2008. See all our adoptable kitties on our webpage: http://hydeparkcats.org/adopt/

All of our cats are in loving foster homes, which means the cat you adopt will be familiar with the sounds, smells, and movements of life in a home and accustomed to living with humans. He or she has been interacting on a daily basis with people who know this particular cat intimately, and the foster mom or dad can tell you all about the cat’s individual personality, habits, preferences. You can’t judge a cat by its cover! And while we can’t predict the future or know everything about a cat, we can help you choose the cat who is right for you. We have an adoption application and an adoption fee, $125 for the adoption of one cat, or $250 for a pair. This fee goes towards covering their vet costs. All cats adopted out by us are neutered/spayed, micro-chipped, tested for FIV/FeLV, and treated with Revolution.