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In the week that ended May 13, buyers put 874 homes under contract in the city, according to data posted Monday by the Chicago Association of Realtors. (It's the latest week for which data is available.) The contract figure is on pace to end May as a record-setter. Both weeks of May have had more contracts than any week in March, which saw more contracts signed than any month going back to 2007. If the momentum continues through the later weeks of May, the monthly total will eclipse March's 3,141 contracts.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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