You’ll Pay Over $600,000 For a Luxury River North 2/2 Loft: 154 W. Hubbard

This 2-bedroom loft at 154 W. Hubbard in River North just came on the market.

Some of you may remember this 18-unit loft building because it was converted by Studio Dwell to lofts just before the bust hit in 2007.

While the building sold out quickly, after the financial crisis the re-sellers had more difficulties.

See our February 2011 chatter on Unit #404 here.

But that was then and this is now.

If you recall, the lofts in this building have exposed brick and timber ceilings.

The kitchen has Italian cabinets and stainless steel appliances.

The master bath has heated floors.

It appears that the second bedroom doesn’t have a window, however.

The loft has central air, washer/dryer in the unit and garage parking is included.

The listing says it “probably has the lowest assessments in River North.”

The loft is listed $64,900 above the 2008 purchase price at $624,900.

Is $600,000+ the new price point for a luxury River North 2/2 loft?

Duane Shumaker at Prudential Rubloff has the listing. See the pictures here.

Unit #304: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1600 square feet
[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Sold in March 2008 for $560,000
  • Currently listed at $624,900
  • Assessments of $240 a month (includes snow removal)
  • Taxes of $7078
  • Central Air
  • Washer/Dryer in the unit
  • 1 car parking included
  • Bedroom #1: 15×15
  • Bedroom #2: 11×10

[/unordered_list]

34 Responses to “You’ll Pay Over $600,000 For a Luxury River North 2/2 Loft: 154 W. Hubbard”

  1. The 2nd bedroom being very small and lofted with no outside window I think is really hurting the actual sell price of this place. 2008 price will probably get it sold though, the low assessments are a selling point for sure

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  2. The bubble is growing by the day in some neighborhoods

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  3. “The bubble is growing by the day in some neighborhoods”

    Yep. The bubble is baaack….

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  4. This is the way the Cribchatter ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

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  5. sad I miss our bickering days

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  6. “This is the way the Cribchatter ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

    I’m not a big fan of “this sucks” posts, but this sucks. We’re down to CDC hanging around to harass Sabrina, sonies commenting periodically when he’s bored at work, @fo vainly trying to stay on topic. I can’t even get up the energy to bug HD when he stops by.

    Let this be a signal lesson that poor web design can, indeed, kill a site.

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  7. “Let this be a signal lesson that poor web design can, indeed, kill a site.”

    Apparently, this is what we all asked for.

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  8. I agree. I don’t even have the energy to post going through the cumbersome posts.
    We had a nice working format, why did it have to change it is beyond me.

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  9. “why did it have to change it is beyond me”

    I think that G, Clio, Groove, Dan Hof, Joe Z, Riz and Nonny were working the back channels in a sinister conspiracy.

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  10. It changed because we wanted a forum for the off-topic discussions. Now I can’t even find the forum or my password (logged in using anonymous (well, not NSA proof) e-mail address); and I can’t tell what the recent posts are, I can’t figure it out. I kind of just gave up. which is too bad.

    I have so much to talk about too. it’s construction time again around the homedelete household. The overhead sewers dug up the entire basement so we get to start nearly from scratch to build the most awesome retro throwback basement known to man, trying to keep costs around $30 psf! Thank you FEMA and GEICO for the insurance money to help rebuild….

    am I cutting corners? Sure, reusing existing non-abestos basement flooring to the extent possible; forgoing drywall and studding and instead putting up modern wall paneling over old paneling; keeping labor costs low with day laborers from Home Depot parking lot…

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  11. “we wanted a forum for the off-topic discussions”

    Who is “we”? Sabrina and you??

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  12. Yeah its crazy quiet, should do a rollback! Anything to up the speed and have the functionality of the former site, thumbs up/down, most recent comment on post, etc.

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  13. IIRC the general attitude for everyone was generally in favor of a forum. So yes, sabrina and I are included in ‘we’ but you too are included in the ‘we’

    it’s nice to talk to you again anon(tfo); i’ve been gone a while.

    interesting how Dan/Helmet disappears, heitman returns, the site format changes, and then it goes out with a whimper.

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  14. “IIRC the general attitude for everyone was generally in favor of a forum. So yes, sabrina and I are included in ‘we’ but you too are included in the ‘we’”

    Incorrect. There was very little desire for a forum.

    I don’t think the forum is even the main problem. Main issue is this redesign that has made the site very slow and difficult to use.

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  15. Yes the user interface is not very navigation friendly, the one from the old site was far clearer

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  16. “but you too are included in the ‘we’”

    Nope, I was not in favor of a forum.

    Hope the basement reno goes well for you, HD. Keeping the paneling as Groove repellent, I assume. We’re close to wrapping another project ourselves, so I feel your pain.

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  17. ” Main issue is this redesign that has made the site very slow and difficult to use.”

    Yep. The lag time in *any* action would be amazing were it 1998; 15 years later, its completely intolerable for most people.

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  18. “its completely intolerable for most people.”

    Only thing slower and more painful is my son doing his homework.

    He somewhat magically got the hang of addition last night. But now I’m afraid of asking him any Qs today as I fear the ability will have left as mysteriously as it arrived. Onto subtraction, for which I have come to realize I may need this number line business that I have been looking down on so far. (Were there number lines when we were kids?)

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  19. “magically got the hang of addition last night”

    To be clear, “magically” after I’ve been going through things w him over and over again. Maybe the yelling helped…

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  20. “Maybe the yelling helped…”

    “If I hit you with the belt 3 times, and then with the paddle 5 times, how many times have you been hit in total”

    “Were there number lines when we were kids?”

    Certainly were for me. But, iirc, had mastered addition/subtraction before then, with the help of some method not yet mentioned.

    Oh, and: “He somewhat magically got the hang of addition last night”:

    is he computing, or just memorized the ones you were asking him?

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  21. “If I hit you with the belt 3 times, and then with the paddle 5 times, how many times have you been hit in total”

    Okay, no real yelling or hitting, but I’ll confess to some sarcastic/incredulous comments and perhaps a raised voice now and then.

    “some method not yet mentioned.”

    ?? Using representational objects, subtraction as addition, something else? How would you go about it? And how would miumiu do it (I can only assume little mm can fully add/subtract by now)?

    “is he computing, or just memorized the ones you were asking him?”

    computing. I started out trying to get him to memorize but that did not really take (he might remem up to 3+3, though not that reliably, last I tested). Dunno how the mult tables will go.

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  22. The paneling isn’t really paneling per se. It’s more like high quality plywood with a few coats of poly to bring out the grain. Very light colored not dark at all. It was not easy to find the perfect wood and it was not cheap either but it was comparable to drywall and studding/painting costs. Fits in perfect with a 50’s ranch and it’s not Nasty like a1950s paneled basement with a drop ceiling. Yeah, we removed that too and put up drywall instead.

    What’s your major Reno project?

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  23. Sabrina, bring back the old CribChatter! Good times!

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  24. “Sabrina, bring back the old CribChatter! Good times!”

    That would entail there actually being properties anyone cared about which isn’t the case any longer.

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  25. “Incorrect. There was very little desire for a forum.

    I don’t think the forum is even the main problem. Main issue is this redesign that has made the site very slow and difficult to use.”

    I kept getting asked for a forum. Have been asked for one for years and years.

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  26. “Yeah its crazy quiet, should do a rollback! Anything to up the speed and have the functionality of the former site, thumbs up/down, most recent comment on post, etc.”

    1. I can’t add thumbs up/down because any more plug-ins will crash the site. It is bad enough as it is right now. It can’t handle more.
    2. The old site can’t return because it was even more unstable than this one was and routinely broke down.
    3. I’ve been working on the speed but don’t see how it can be fixed. I’ll keep trying with my host.
    4. The most recent comments are visible when you click on a post. There was no way to list them AND the Forum most recent comments on the home page.
    5. The forum most recent comments aren’t showing the name/date of the poster because there is some snafu in the actual forum software that won’t be fixed by the developer until the next version (apparently.)

    There wasn’t an easy way to get a forum built on a wordpress site. Maybe that’s why no one does it. It just doesn’t work well. But I’m tired. I can’t keep making the content. I have a life to lead.

    CribChatter was begun as a hobby because the man who shall not be named kicked off of his site those of us who were housing bears (declaring that real estate could NEVER decline in price.) CribChatter is not a business. It never was. It was meant to be fun and to provide information. And it has.

    I’ve been doing posts for 6 years. In that time, some of you have bought or sold several properties, gotten married, had several kids. Same as I have done. But life gets in the way of a hobby.

    I have events going on in my life that necessitate changes in the site.

    I never envisioned, when I started it, that I would be up at midnight every night writing posts 6 years later and that real estate would be, gasp, boring. But there you have it. Chicago real estate over the last year or 18 months has been really, really boring. There are few properties on the market and not many of them are interesting. Lots of properties have been on the market for years as well. Others are just overpriced. Or well priced properties go under contract in a day so why talk about them?

    When just 6 properties come on the market on a fall day in 7 neighborhoods that I track consistently- you know it’s bad. But that happens routinely now (heaven help those looking to buy.)

    I’ve added the forum site so that you all can still talk about real estate when I can no longer do so.

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  27. “why did it have to change it is beyond me”

    The old site was unstable- so it HAD to change. Many of you wanted a forum, so I added that. There are only so many ways to do it.

    I just spent a lot of money to make these changes and am reluctant to change anything more at this time. I understand your frustration though. The site isn’t really working for me either. But I may be able to bring back the static pictures instead of the rotating ones. I have to think about it though. I’ll be going overseas for my job next year and won’t be able to run CribChatter from there anyway- so it might not be worth it to make any more changes to it.

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  28. “This is the way the Cribchatter ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

    Why would it EVER end with a bang when the real estate market it was created around is a snoozefest? The site reflects the market, does it not?

    And actually, surprisingly, the number of page views hasn’t declined much since the new site. Only the comments have declined. So, yeah, that speaks to functionality in some way but other than a totally new redesign- I don’t know how to address that. I don’t think I can fit the forum on the site going back to the old format anyway. Without the forum, there won’t be any new content because I can’t do it any more.

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  29. R.I.P. CribChatter. Was fun while it lasted. Bringing back the old format won’t make much difference IMO. The market has entered a “boring phase”. Dust off the site in a few more years when things get exciting again.

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  30. “R.I.P. CribChatter. Was fun while it lasted. Bringing back the old format won’t make much difference IMO. The market has entered a “boring phase”. Dust off the site in a few more years when things get exciting again.”

    People want to see the car crash. They don’t want to see a normal housing market. If it crashes again, then people will want to watch again. Otherwise, they don’t care.

    I won’t be dusting it off in a few years. I have way too much going on in my life. None of you have any idea what it takes to run a site day in and day out for even a month let alone for years. There was a housing site that started up here in Chicago a couple of years ago called something like “duplex down”. Does anyone remember this? I think that was it’s name. They started posting on properties a couple of times a day. It lasted two weeks. And then there just weren’t any new posts anymore. LOL.

    Or what about Urban Turf? It still operates in the DC market. But it came into Chicago a few years ago. It was posting daily but had trouble breaking in here in Chicago because CribChatter and the man who shall not be named were already here. But its postings slowed in early 2012. It’s last post was in July 2012- over 15 months ago.

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  31. ThankYouSabrina on October 2nd, 2013 at 3:01 am

    Before Cribchatter disappears, I want to say thank you to Sabrina for creating this site and thank you to the assorted contributors who added comments over the years. I was absolutely one of the people who thought real estate never decreased in value. I came upon this site while scouting South Loop condos for a relative. The discussions of general market conditions and the insider information on specific condo buildings were extremely helpful to me and changed the way I viewed real estate over the years. My spouse and I had watched the housing boom pass us by without buying because we didn’t feel we could afford the huge jump in monthly payments a purchase would have entailed. We felt safer saving a decent sum each month while renting. No one our age was doing this (age 42). We absolutely felt embarrassed to be renting. Then the crash came, and we still didn’t buy and we still didn’t buy. Then life event necessitated a nicer rental building and an eventual second bedroom. We looked for a house to buy for over a year while prices continued dropping and rates followed suit. In great part due to luck, in part due to our solid financial standing from years of saving we were able to buy a beautiful townhouse which was on the edge of foreclosure in early spring of 2012. I am sure that Cribchatter helped me understand the market better and make a more informed choice than I would have if it hadn’t existed.

    -Thank you for creating a site where the bear mentality was expressed and tolerated. I had no exposure to this way of thinking about residential real estate.
    -Thank you for explaining that NAR is a lobbying group, and thank you contributors for challenging their stats and propaganda.
    -Thank you for pointing us toward the rent vs. own calculator
    -Thank you for making fun of realtors and their profession.
    -Thank you for the knowledge and perspective of people outside of our age group and income level. Who knew renting could be a smart choice? Or that saving money rather than spending it as it came in was a smart choice? Certainly no one in our peer group. (I am now 42).

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  32. “Before Cribchatter disappears, I want to say thank you to Sabrina for creating this site and thank you to the assorted contributors who added comments over the years.”

    Yes- it has been very helpful to many people over the years. I’m glad it was able to provide information that otherwise wasn’t really obtainable out there.

    The contributors have all been fantastic. The site could not have existed as long as it has without everyone’s great opinions and the sharing of experiences.

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  33. Thank you too Sabrina. Good luck with your job overseas. The next downturn in the RE market will be a slow bleed instead of a crash anyways. The market these days lacks the zero down investors buying multiple properties at sky high prices; so there’s not too much to blow up.

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  34. Yes Sabrina, thanks so very much for your hard work. I tried blogging for a bit and indeed it gets tiring and it is hard to come up with content after a few weeks LOL! Curbed will have to give me my real estate fix if this site ever shuts down and that will be sad. Hopefully the forum gains some steam, perhaps if its possible, time to go the pure forum route rather than wordpress blog? What i mean is can you take the software you have and just convert it to a forum outside of wordpress.

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