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Existing home sales in the nine-county Chicago area rose 19.2 percent in July from their year-ago pace, the Illinois Association of Realtors said Thursday.

Source: Existing home sales up 19% in Chicago area

At 10:35 p.m. Wednesday, three men robbed a couple in the 300 block of Watch Court and made off with a cellular phone, police said. According the reports, one of the men pointed a gun at the couple and demanded money, which they said they didn’t have. The group took the cellular phone instead and were last seen running west on Watch Street.

Source: Fox Valley police reports

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has paid $1.95 million to buy a 6,163-square-foot, newly built contemporary-style house in Bucktown, and he has just sold his three-bedroom, Near West Side town home for $610,000.

Source: Ozzie Guillen buys Bucktown house, sells condo

A DuPage County judge said he aimed to teach a Roman Catholic priest “a little humility” Tuesday in sentencing him to a mix of jail, probation and menial labor for gambling away hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to a Roselle parish.

Source: Roselle priest avoids prison in gambling scandal

Another Chicago-area housing development with lofty ambitions has been stalled, but not just by the cold realities of the real estate market.

Source: Lack of water stunts development

White Sox left-hander John Danks wound up making a quick exit after flirting with a no-hitter in Sunday’s start against the Royals.

Source: White Sox’ Danks thinking no hitter into sixth

Survey finds consumers unhappier this year with the people who service our home loans

It would appear that we are not happy at all with the people we send our hard-earned mortgage payments to. In fact, we’re even unhappier than we were last year, according to a new look at consumer satisfaction by J.D. Power & Associates.

Source: Mortgage servicers fall short

Alaina Giordano has Stage 4 breast cancer, and she says that’s why she lost custody of her children. The court’s decision means the two children, who are 11 and 6, will be heading to live with their father in Chicago.

Source: Mom with cancer decries court’s custody ruling

With financial markets sharply down in the wake of the country’s credit downgrade, Sen. Mark Kirk is calling for Congress to return to Washington to address the debt issue.

Source: Kirk: Congress needs to step up, head back to Capitol

At least one fear was not realized amid Monday’s meltdown: the concern that mortgage rates would immediately shoot higher in response to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities that are the 800-pound gorillas of the mortgage market.

Source: Despite debt downgrade, mortgage rates may fall