Dennis Rodkin comes home to Crain’s

Dennis Rodkin

Dennis Rodkin

Dennis Rodkin, who stepped down last fall after more than two decades as Chicago’s premier residential real estate reporter, soon will be back on the beat for Crain’s Chicago Business.

Rodkin, 53, said Wednesday he’s moving back to Chicago after six months in Monterey, California, where he’d relocated to run a plant nursery with his brother. “That didn’t work out,” he said of the venture. “Let me put it this way: Everybody says not to work with family and I found out that you shouldn’t.”

Starting in mid-March, Rodkin will pick up where he left off last September, reporting on residential real estate for Crain’s Chicago Business. Rodkin initially joined the weekly publication and website in early 2014 from Chicago magazine, where he’d been covering the high-end housing market since 1991.

“I have so many ties in Chicago,” Rodkin said. “I have 30 years of reporting in Chicago — over 23 of them on real estate. When this didn’t work out [in California], it only made sense to try to come back. I love the city, I love the people, I love everybody at Crain’s, I love covering real estate. I’m very lucky and very grateful that they were willing to welcome me back."

Michael Arndt, editor of Crain's Chicago Business, called Rodkin “the most connected guy in residential real estate,” adding: “He really lit up our coverage when we did have him last year. I was really happy when we were able to lure him here then. And I’m heartened that we could welcome him back, and that Dennis wanted to come back to us now.”