Chicagoania

KHANNNNN! (another member of a continuing series)

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The ice storm that clipped both KC and Chicago today, coming as it does after several days of nasty weather, has a lot of us holed up inside and thinking wintry thoughts. We might wonder how the natives of one of the climatically harshest places on Earth deal with it. Or, perhaps, deel with it. So, after considering for a moment whether any other blog can provide puns in Mongolian, graze (Midwesterners [and Mongolians] don’t surf) on over to NYCMongol.com for all your clothing and shelter needs for when you “steppe out.” For those Chicagoan, er, Siberian winters, there’s the cotton quilted deel for a mere C-note-and-a-half, and don’t forget to pick up a pair of (somewhat more steeply priced) boots. Shelter? Get yer yurt right here. You’ll fit right in when our horde (another Mongolian-derived word) of genetically-engineered Temujin-class warriors conquers the world.

Or just pick up a few books. Whatever.

Previous members of series:

CTA At Work… Not

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On Saturday morning I was out meeting some friends for lunch and we walked by Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up a housewarming gift. Out front of the building at State and Grand was a CTA truck parked halfway up on the sidewalk, with its usual lack of respect for the city or pedestrians.

And why barge up on the curb and park your truck? To take a nap, of course. This hard at work CTA employee was sleeping on the bench in the Bed Bath and Beyond lobby… it wasn’t just a quick nap, either – he was down there when we went upstairs, selected our gift, paid for it, and came back down. In this picture you can see the reflection of his truck on the corner – usually the glare from store glass hurts the photo but in this rare case it worked in my favor.

Cross Posted at LITGM

Real Estate Purchasing… and Wishful Thinking

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Like much of the USA, Chicago and in particular my neighborhood (River North) has had an immense construction boom in housing over the last decade or so. Condos have sprung up everywhere, and some buildings that initially started out as high-end apartments converted over to condominiums.

Not only has there been an increase in the number of units, the turnover in units once purchased by the buyer is quick. If our building is any guide, perhaps 25% of the units are resold on the secondary market every year. We are a medium sized building, which I consider anywhere between 75 – 150 units, and not a weekend goes by without a couple of Realtors in the lobby and a few open houses. The Chicago Tribune has a decent real estate section and you can select a given building (by defining a unique address) & see the turnover across a period of time, along with the gain (or loss) in pricing on units that have been purchased more than once in that time period.

The boom seems to be coming to an end. There is a lot nearby that was going to have a 19 story condo building; now there is a sign on the lot saying that a ground level lease is available. Some other buildings that were proposed seem to be moving quite slowly, as well.

I would broadly segregate the condo real estate market into the following groups: 1) developers that haven’t started yet 2) developers for which construction is substantially committed and units are being sold 3) units available for resale from owners who own / occupy the unit.

This advertisement is from a developer in category #2 – the building is up, many of the units have been sold, and now the developer is trying to clear out the rest of the inventory. This building in particular (I can see it outside my window, picture below) was an apartment building that converted over to condos; the process is pretty far underway (I think that they have sold most of the units) and the developer apparently is pretty committed to unload the rest of the units. In the fine print of the ad you can see the straightforward comment:

“We’ve lowered our prices to give you the kind of deal that you’ve been waiting for. If you think you can do better, tell us. We’ll see what we can do.”

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State Liquor Control Taxes

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On Saturday night, I was doing what I usually do, which is head over to the giant and amazingly well-stocked BINNY’S liquor store right by my condominium in Chicago (as documented in this “action” post) and roam the aisles a bit like a kid in a candy store before settling on some type of purchase. To my surprise, Binny’s was completely packed, with people who had shopping carts filled to the brim with every type of wine, beer and liquor. When I finally got up to the cashier (sadly enough, they recognize me and even let me in if I happen to be down there when the store is about to close) I asked what was going on and they said a tour bus pulled up out front from out of state and everyone was stocking up on liquor. The cashier said that this happens all the time. I asked the person behind me in line and she said that they were from Michigan and that she takes the tour every year around the holidays. I asked if this was legal and she kind of chuckled and that was that.
Sure enough, when I walked past the “Binny’s Booze Bus” the side doors facing the sidewalk under the seats were open and the spaces where the luggage was supposed to go were full of liquor of every variety, efficiently packaged by the case. (As an aside, I am switching back to cameras and kind of giving up on my Flip Video… because my posts were too boring w/out photos and the video software was too time consuming to mess with).

The first thought that crossed through my head was “I can’t believe that any taxes for anything are better in Chicago than anywhere else (other than our flat state income tax rate)” since we have the highest sales tax rate of any big city in the nation, and I figured we taxed liquor to death, too. But this bus full of booze-seeking Michigan residents offered tangible proof that the situation existed, so I decided to do some research.

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