A recurring meme among some North Shore real estate agents of late has been concern about the impact of what they view as a pending wave of foreclosures in the area. When I sat down with Matt Garrison yesterday, I asked him to comment on that possibility.

Garrison’s blunt, direct answer goes a long way toward explaining why he’s become CNBC’s go-to guy for real estate market commentary: “There’s a massive amount of inventory on the market – not selling … Nothing appears to be selling.”

Note: Matt Garrison’s CondoShark and ShoreShark Web sites are YoChicago advertisers.

Can’t keep up with Yo during the week? Here’s what you may have missed:

• All about the Michigan Avenue Tower II auction: results, reflections, the developer’s take, and new post-auction prices
• All about the Motor Row Lofts auction: results and reflections
• Lake Point Tower, past and present: a history through the architect’s eyes,
• The state of retail in Bucktown
• How to use MoveSmart.org’s neighborhood finder
• Proper pricing: get it right the first time
• A walk through Oz Park
• Touring Terrazio: looking at a model and talking about the South Loop market with Jameson’s Mike Hulett
• Links for The Park Monroe and its neighborhood
• West Loop condo prices hit the chopping block
• Rental rates emerge for Flair Tower’s apartments
• Touring Union Row’s neighborhood with Belgravia Group’s Zev Salomon
• Aldi builds an oasis in Auburn Gresham’s food desert
• Nearly new homes for sale in Montclare
• A home staging before-and-after at the ParkView Condominiums
• Aqua closings slow due to Fannie Mae snag
• Price cuts on Wrightwood Neighbors condos, courtesy of CondoShark

Lincoln Park 2520 offers the chance of a lifetime, for a building such as this on Chicago’s lakefront will not be built for a generation or more.

- Chicago Agent Magazine, demonstrating either a sly sense of humor or a poor choice of words in the writeup for its Favorite Overall New Development (City) for 2009.

Not that we can snark too much — New Homes did name X/O the best new high-rise development of 2007. It happens.

A few weeks ago we brought you some info on price cuts at three Lincoln Park single-family homes, courtesy of CondoShark.com. Today I’m turning to the neighborhood once again to see what’s available in the condo market. The three listings below — a loft at 2407 N Surrey Ct and two condos at 2734 N Mildred Ave — have seen the biggest price cuts by percentage in recent weeks, and they all happen to be in Wrightwood Neighbors.

• Unit #2407 at 2407 N Surrey Ct: a two-bedroom / 2.5-bath loft with 2,000 square feet; was $595,000, now $449,900 (a reduction of 24 percent)
• Unit #2 at 2734 N Mildred Ave: a three-bedroom / two-bath condo with 2,066 square feet; was 885000, now 675000 (a reduction of 24 percent)
• Unit #1 at 2734 N Mildred Ave: a three-bedroom / two-bath condo with 2,066 square feet; was 875000, now 675000 (a reduction of 23 percent)

Visit CondoShark and ShoreShark for a look at more of the steepest price reductions in popular Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs.

It hasn’t put the brakes on closings, but it certainly changed from a green light to a yellow light. It’s not a red light, but without Fannie Mae approval and a stable of portfolio lenders that are easily obtainable, it has definitely slowed down the process.

- From a source close to Magellan Development regarding Fannie Mae’s classification of Aqua’s 474 apartments as commercial property, which, along with its still-empty hotel component, raises the development’s non-residential-to-residential ratio above what Fannie Mae’s guidelines permit.

This has kept a lot of buyers away from the closing table in recent months. According to Redfin’s MLS data and Cook County sales records, 11 homes have closed at Aqua since mid-September. Understand that this number represents the minimum homes that have sold — there is a lag of a few weeks in the Tribune’s Cook County records search, so it’s possible that units that were never listed on the MLS have closed since mid-October but have not made their way into the paper’s database.

In the meantime, Magellan is putting together a list of portfolio lenders who will be able to give buyers 80-percent loans. These lenders should be ready to go starting next week, meaning we should see an uptick in closings at the tower very soon.

Obviously, Magellan views Aqua’s apartments as residential units and plans to reapply for Fannie Mae approval, but the developer believes it has a better chance for reconsideration after it has resolved its hotel situation. No word yet on how much longer that will take.

We should tip our hat to the crew at the SkyscraperPage forum, who started discussing this issue earlier in the week.

Have you heard of any other developments that have had trouble with closings lately?

It’s the Friday after the Michigan Avenue Tower II auction, which means it’s time for the development’s sales team to roll out a new pricing schedule for its unsold units at the high-rise, located at 1400 S Michigan Ave in the South Loop.

Right on cue, I received an e-blast from Accelerated Marketing Partners and Weichert, Realtors – Frankel & Giles promoting “auction pricing without the auction,” with new sample listings showing cuts of 23 to 28 percent off recent asking prices.

Frankel & Giles won’t give out a full price list by unit and tier, but agent Rhonda Hoff says most of the remaining one- to three-bedrooms range from the $180s to the $550s. A couple of penthouses are also available at $1.8 million and $1.9 million.

The three samples in today’s e-blast are:

• Unit #1312, a 692 square-foot one-bedroom / one-bath priced in the $180s, down from the $250s. Homes in this tier all sold at auction in the $180s.
• Unit #1508, a 751 square-foot one-bedroom / one-bath with den priced in the $190s, down from the $260s. Units in this tier all sold at auction from the $190s to $220s.
• Unit #2701, a 1,259 square-foot two-bedroom / two-bath priced in the $370s, down from the $490s. Units in this tier all sold at auction in the $320s and $330s.

Last weekend’s auction did away with roughly half of the developer’s inventory, meaning that 40-something homes were still available coming into this week. However, Hoff says Frankel & Giles is only marketing about 15 units for now.

Several agents in recent weeks have told us that proper staging is vital to selling a home in this market. Several weeks ago, Joe Zekas and Prudential Rubloff agent Francesca Rose shot video of a resale at ParkView Condominiums, 505 N McClurg Ct, prior to its being staged. The transformation, as you can see in the “before” video above and the “after” video below, is striking: A relatively unappealing unit has become comfortable and inviting.

In the “after” video, Kim Baker and Karen Fike of Chicago Home Staging talk about the importance of color and the paradox of how adding furnishings can make an empty space feel larger.

Why Montclare? Why not? This “neighborhood for the rest of us” on the Northwest Side has a lot of older homes for sale, but look close enough and you can find some nearly new condos, townhomes, and single-family homes on the market. I came across nine listings (including four short sales) in this nabe of “N” avenues that fit the bill:

• Unit #11 at 2935 N Natoma Ave: a 1,727 square-foot two-bedroom / two-bath townhome priced for short sale in the $190s (reduced from the $270s)
• Unit #4 at 2931 N Natoma Ave: an 1,800 square-foot two-bedroom / two-bath townhome priced for short sale in the $190s (reduced from the $280s)
• Unit #2D at 7043 W Grand Ave: a three-bedroom / two-bath condo priced in the $220s
• Unit #3W at 7162 W Grand Ave: a 1,450 square-foot three-bedroom / two-bath condo priced in the $220s
• 2438 N Newcastle Ave: a 2,500 square-foot four-bedroom / three-bath single-family priced for short-sale in the $220s (reduced from the $320s)
• Unit #4W at 7170 W Grand Ave: a 1,450 square-foot three-bedroom / two-bath condo priced in the $240s
• 2533 N Neva Ave: a three-bedroom / two-bath single-family home priced for short sale in the $250s (reduced from the $290s)
• Unit #5 at 2935 N Natoma Ave: an 1,800 square-foot two-bedroom / two-bath condo priced in the $290s
• Unit #6 at 2919 N Natoma Ave: a 1,727 square-foot two-bedroom / two-bath condo priced in the $310s

For a “food desert” like Auburn Gresham, the arrival of a new Aldi grocery store is a reason for celebration. This morning I drove down to the South Side neighborhood to see the store open for the first time and afterward talked to Carlos Nelson, executive director of the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, about the impact it and other new developments will have on the community.

In early 2007, Joe Zekas met up with Carlos in Auburn Gresham to talk about the neighborhood. You can watch videos of their visit on the YoChicago YouTube channel.

The Terrazio condos at 1935 S Wabash Ave will be ready for delivery late this year or early next year, putting them well behind the market in the eyes of some onlookers. I asked Mike Hulett of Jameson Real Estate how sales are holding up, what his expectations are as closing notices start to go out, and why he thinks the development will stand out in a South Loop neighborhood that’s already flush with inventory. Mike also talks about his experiences working with developer Sedgwick Properties.