Have Home Price Increases Stalled? A 3-Bedroom at 2919 N. Burling in Lakeview
This 3-bedroom penthouse at 2919 N. Burling in Lakeview came on the market in March 2018.
If this building looks familiar, it’s because we chattered about it, and this very unit, back in 2015. You can see our chatter here.
If you remember, it was built in 1998 and has 9 units. In 2015, I couldn’t tell if it has an elevator (consensus last time was “no”) and this listing doesn’t list one either.
This unit has 11 foot ceilings and skylights along with a marble fireplace.
The listing says the unit has a chef’s kitchen, with white cabinets and white subway tiles along with stainless steel appliances, including a double oven.
It also has a trash compactor and built-in beverage center.
There’s a master suite with 2 walk-in closets and a spa-like master bath with a double vanity.
Do you like outdoor space?
It has 3 private outdoor spaces including a front terrace, a large back terrace and a private roof deck with skyline views.
The unit has the other features buyers look for including central air, washer/dryer in the unit and one garage space is included.
Originally listed in March 2018 for $999,000, it has been reduced numerous times and is now listed at $899,900.
That’s below the 2016 selling price of $900,000.
It’s also just $14,900 above the 2014 sales price of $885,000.
It’s been a number of years since I was cribbing on properties that were listed under the prior sales price.
Are price increases starting to stall out in Chicago?
Michael Decker at Compass has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #J: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, no square footage listed (but in 2015 it had 2800 square feet)
- Sold in March 1999 for $555,000
- Sold in July 2001 for $755,000
- Sold in February 2014 for $885,000
- Sold in May 2016 for $900,000
- Originally listed in March 2018 for $999,000
- Reduced numerous times
- Currently listed at $899,900
- Assessments are now $422 a month (they were $367 a month in December 2015) (includes exterior maintenance, lawn care, scavenger)
- Taxes are now $15,991 (they were $11,051 in 2015)
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
- Bedroom #1: 17×16
- Bedroom #2: 16×10
- Bedroom #3: 13×12
- Family room: 14×12
- Laundry room: 11×10
On the market for the third time since 2014 and it says it’s “rarely available”. While there’s a lot to like about this place, especially the location and deck space, that would make me wonder a bit. 1998 wasn’t exactly a vintage year for construction quality in Chicago either.
I never quite understood the phrase, “lives like a single family home.” Common entrance, condo association, shared garage, common walls, neighbor below, monthly assessments… None of that seems very SFH to me…
“I never quite understood the phrase, “lives like a single family home.” Common entrance, condo association, shared garage, common walls, neighbor below, monthly assessments… None of that seems very SFH to me…”
You understand the phrase just fine. Michael Decker, on the other hand, seems to not fully comprehend…
I think “lives like a single family home” is trying to convey that the condo is spacious in that it feels house like in size. Most condos are fairly small compared to houses. This unit is quite large – real dining room/area. Family room/den. Living room area. Three functional bedrooms.
The unit itself is nice and spacious, but the building is showing it’s age architecturally. That may be what is keeping some buyers away at this price point…
Sitting room/Kitchen is a mess
“11 foot ceilings”
I was ready to doubt this, but here it looks to be legit.
“in 2015 it had 2800 square feet”
top floor footprint is about 4800 sf. The *other* top floor unit has a higher AV for its share of the Land (9,064 v 7,931; and 93,689 v 81,978 overall), implying that this unit is about 47% of the top floor, or, at most, about 2300 sf.
Here’s the other top floor unit:
https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/2919-N-Burling-St-60657/unit-I/home/114062135
I think this place is excellent and it’s sort of a unique price point in that there’s a lot of inventory in the 650-750 range of dark low ceiling townhouses closer to southport, and then you jump to 1.1-1.3 to SFH. There’s rarely much in between in the 800-900 range that is better than the little narrow townhouses, and the massive SFH. It has unique features of great location, high ceiling, nice finishes, great windows, (I scanned quickly but it appears to be) solid condition and up to date styling.
If we hadn’t bought last year at a similar price point we’d be bidding on this.
Now our Chicago/IL taxes notwithstanding and my colleagues asking me why I’m insane to buy into this money hole of a governance is another question
btw, tax bills available online.
my tax bill is up 18.9%, with a AV increase of 28%.
I don’t remember what I predicted, but think this is within the range I guessed.
> my tax bill is up 18.9%, with a AV increase of 28%. I don’t remember what > I predicted, but think this is within the range I guessed.
Do you think your AV is higher than your MV? If so, by what %? If not, what % discount are you getting?
The AV of my building has gone from 50% of MV to 75% of MV, to about 90% of MV now over the course of the last 5 years. 90% feels about right since I’m in an appreciating area and the MV is running ahead AV.
“Do you think your AV is higher than your MV? If so, by what %? If not, what % discount are you getting?”
1. No.
2. I’d say AV is 15-20% lower than MV.
“my tax bill is up 18.9%, with a AV increase of 28%.”
Wow. In my neck of the woods, there have been a couple of ballot initiatives over the past few years calling for increases that would have
increased taxes on, say, a typical three or four bedroom SFH, by like a few hundred dollars a year, which were rejected.
“Wow.”
Well, if my AV had been flat, my taxes would have gone *down*. This is mostly a reallocation of the burden–the aggregate levy went up some, but not a large percentage.
The property tax system in Illinois is really pretty counter intuitive, and over complicated.
“my tax bill is up 18.9%, with a AV increase of 28%.”
interesting as my (former) tax bill went up 11% with an AV increase of 23% and they still assessed 90k over what it sold for…
so if they properly assessed it my taxes would have increased only $555 a year instead of the $1625 that they actually are…
Hopefully not everyone got ripped off as badly as I would have!
Meanwhile here in NV, my property taxes are capped at increasing 3% a year… oh and they are about 75% less than what I would be paying in Chicago… lol
I really doubt that a family who can afford this place would be willing to buy a third floor walk-up if they have a baby or very small kids.
It would take multiple trips to unload a minivan full of groceries, plus a kid in a car seat carrier, plus baby gear, plus stuff from Target, etc.
No way would I ever consider a third floor walk-up with small kids unless it was cheap, I was broke, and I had very few other choices.
“The AV of my building has gone from 50% of MV to 75% of MV, to about 90% of MV now over the course of the last 5 years. 90% feels about right since I’m in an appreciating area and the MV is running ahead AV.”
Well, considering we pay taxes in arrears that makes sense in an environment where prices are generally rising. Your AV should actually, if done correctly (‘nuther issue), be a proxy for what your home was worth on 1/1 of LAST YEAR. Now, there can be a lot of noise in those numbers if you live in a high rise or for another reason.
My assessed value increased 23 percent and my actual taxes increased 16.25 percent. Given the supposed uniformity of valuations to tax increases, does that show which neighborhoods are increasing the fastest in market prices?
“Meanwhile here in NV, my property taxes are capped at increasing 3% a year… oh and they are about 75% less than what I would be paying in Chicago… lol”
Of course they are. California taxes are similar. Very little increase due to Prop 13. That’s why the schools suck! You get what you pay for.
well I bought in the area with the best schools, and our entire school system in the US sucks and think of with the money saved on outrageous property and income taxes, you can actually afford private school!
and there have been numerous studies showing that spending more money on schools doesn’t lead to better outcomes for the students.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/spending-more-money-on-schools-doesnt-help-students-learn
but what do I care anyway, no kids so schools don’t matter to me
“but what do I care anyway, no kids so schools don’t matter to me”
—————————-
Now this is a particularly asinine statement. As members of society, we all have to interact with, and depend on, others. Do things go better when dealing with the ignorant than with the educated, I ask you?
As my college professors used to say; “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
meh, very near the bottom of my concerns if I’m being honest here
no matter how educated people are, a huge majority are stupid anyway
I’m not saying never give money to schools, its just that having preposterous property taxes and the schools still sucking is pretty much status Quo for the city of Chicago
“Well, considering we pay taxes in arrears that makes sense in an environment where prices are generally rising. Your AV should actually, if done correctly (‘nuther issue), be a proxy for what your home was worth on 1/1 of LAST YEAR. Now, there can be a lot of noise in those numbers if you live in a high rise or for another reason.”
I’m not complaining. I think it’s about right now. It took a long time for the AV to catch my purchase price which speaks to how out of whack things used to be. My AV is now 125% of what it was when I bought. My taxes are about double.
I’m extremely skeptical of any stories like Sonies, as I’ve only found a few people who think there AV is over MV, and those people are usually wrong about their house value (though there are obviously some over valuations! Most of them just happen to be in places like Chatham).
Many of my neighbors are complainers due to how aggressively AVs have grown, but their AVs are all still below MV.
Sorry – meant to write 125% higher, or 225% of what it was when I bought.
“That’s why the schools suck! You get what you pay for”
So my taxes increased 64% in 2015 and an additional 18% since then and my public school is one of the worst in the city. My home is probably the same or slightly higher by maybe 5% since we bought it in 2013. Your logic doesn’t compute.
“I’m extremely skeptical of any stories like Sonies, as I’ve only found a few people who think there AV is over MV,”
its fact, no bullshit… basically what happened is the assessor confused the sale of a much larger 3000sqft home (1017 N Cleveland #1 iirc) for over 1mm… on the 5 property comparable sheet it was listed as a 2100sqft home (like mine) and that was the ONLY comparable listed (which is fucking retarded as there are like 48 townhomes 28 of which are similar in the complex and a few have sold in the last 3 years, not to mention hundreds of other townhomes in the area)
so on the price per square foot comparison it was all jacked up… even if you took the price per square foot comparison that they had on the god damn sheet ($348 iirc) it would have given an AV of only $730k (which since I sold for 765k is pretty close)… the initial AV they gave me was over $930k! The board of review lowered it to a mere $853k which is 90k more than it sold for!
“Your logic doesn’t compute.”
The schools suck in California marko. Prop 13 gives money to each school district evenly, but that means it underfunds each district. So parents literally raise money to pay for things like librarians and special classes we take for granted here in Chicago (like learning Chinese.)
Of course, the orchestra at that school in Wicker Park just got their budget cut and is now raising funds privately to keep their after school lessons and instruments.
“its just that having preposterous property taxes and the schools still sucking is pretty much status Quo for the city of Chicago”
They suck?
Not most of them.
4 of the high schools are, quite literally, among the best in the entire country.
As soon as people got stuck in their homes during the Great Recession, it was obvious the schools were going to be turned around. And that’s what happened. Clearly, all the people in Southport are not sending their kids to private schools.
The schools weren’t even a campaign issue in the last mayoral’s election. I can’t ever remember a time when that was the case.
“and our entire school system in the US sucks”
Is Nevada already getting to you sonies? Jeez. The negativity is just oozing from you the last few days.
Property taxes went up in the working class neighborhoods as well. My buddies 5 flat in the Clearing neighborhood by Midway went up almost 12%.
“Is Nevada already getting to you sonies?”
yeah god its so horrible here with the sunny warm weather, low taxes, low traffic, and things to do outside, tons of places to eat, drink, do whatever the hell you want without people hassling you, oh not to mention the short commute, you can feel the anger in my voice can’t you?
I mean wtf, saying the US education system sucks is being negative? We’ve been getting our asses kicked by pretty much every country around the globe for decades now.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/
then again a majority of our culture now doesn’t really care much about being educated on anything other than how to use useless social media!
and by the way, CPS is rated as average, and it completely depends on where you live… yeah sure, pay out the ass for a house in a nice neighborhood with 15k a year in property taxes and yea you’ll probably have a good school… as for regular everyday housing for the rest of the 90% of folks, your school likely is a terrible gang kids daycare center where more than half the kids can’t even read
I see Sonies has adjusted to the grumpy old coot persona.
now that I have a lawn… GET OFF IT!
“4 of the high schools are, quite literally, among the best in the entire country.”
They’re selective enrollment, of course. It’s an interesting comparison depending on what you use. Of course they have good test results, they’ve taken the smartest kids in the city (and in some cases where people fudge residency, from the burbs too). They’re test even better than the top private schools because the private schools have some dumb rich kids.
“Of course they have good test results, they’ve taken the smartest kids in the city”
I didn’t say anything about test results. They literally offer classes that high schools in other cities and states can only dream about such as Mandarin and Arabic, not to mention the advanced science classes.
And, yes, they pull from all of the top kids in the city. But EVERY major city could do this. Why aren’t their high schools as good as ours? Most aren’t. Northside Prep is literally a top 5 public high school in the entire country.
“yeah god its so horrible here with the sunny warm weather, low taxes, low traffic, and things to do outside, tons of places to eat, drink, do whatever the hell you want without people hassling you, oh not to mention the short commute, you can feel the anger in my voice can’t you?”
There’s a big difference between living on one of the country’s largest metro areas with all the pros, and cons, of that and living in a 5th or 6th tier smaller city.
The big metro areas aren’t for everyone. It’s fine to admit that and move. I don’t know why more people don’t throw in the towel and go somewhere with less people, congestion, etc.