Condo building auctions not popular in Chicago these days

Evan Gladstone

With the Chicago housing market still struggling, and with unsold condo units glutting the city market, you might think that lenders would be selling a lot of multi-unit condo buildings at auction these days.

You'd be wrong.

Evan Gladstone, executive managing director of Chicago's NRC Realty & Capital Advisors -- a national real estate auction company -- says that the city has seen just two auctions of multi-unit condo buildings so far in 2010.

That seemed low to me. But Gladstone had a good reason why there haven't been more auctions of these buildings: Banks and lenders are doing everything they can to avoid having to sell these struggling properties.

"Lenders are much less likely to foreclose on developers in this cycle," Gladstone said. "They are giving developers more time to work through issues. They are giving them time to reset their prices to see if that can make a difference."