11 Months Later, Still No Price Reduction: 1401 W. Berteau in Lakeview
We chattered about this 3-bedroom contemporary townhouse at 1401 W. Berteau in Lakeview in September 2008.
See pictures and our chatter here.
Since then, nothing has changed. The townhouse is still for sale, a “paint credit” is still “negotiable” and the price is unchanged at $660,000.
But at least the snowy pictures are now current.
@Properties still has the listing. See more pictures here.
Unit #B: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 car garage
- Sold in October 2004 for $599,000
- Was listed in February 2008 for $660,000
- Was listed in September 2008 for $660,000
- Still listed for $660,000
- Assessments of $331 a month
- Taxes of $7684
“But at least the snowy pictures are now current.”
You might want to attribute that to Gary. See the first comment on the last chatter about this prop.
Heck yea mad props to Gary.
And by January 2015 I think the pics might even look ‘vintage’. 😀
I applaud sellers such as this one: noone can force them to lower their price. This being America they are completely free to list their property at whatever price they see fit (or entitled to). They should laugh at any potential buyer who insinuates otherwise and leave this listed at initial ask.
No potential buyer nor anyone else can interfere with this seller’s ask price–they are entitled to 10% appreciation and if you don’t like that or don’t agree with them take a hike.
I like parts of this house, but I have to laugh at TJ’s comments from the previous chatter.
I bet if they dropped it 10% below their 2004 price it would sell before spring. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, and paint credit? lol @ that.
****No potential buyer nor anyone else can interfere with this seller’s ask price–they are entitled to 10% appreciation and if you don’t like that or don’t agree with them take a hike.***
the sellers may have taken a home eq. loan such that 1st mort. + 2nd mort = $660k.
If I was more curious and voyeuristic, I’d bother to look up the mortgage records.
Yeah G used to do a bit of that…but after literally dozens, if not a hundred examples, it was always the same story. Super high-LTV mortgage, levered to the hilt, idiot bank left holding the bag that is, sadly, too often one of the ones getting bailout money.
“the sellers may have taken a home eq. loan such that 1st mort. + 2nd mort = $660k.”
yep, there will be a lot of those, thats why builders and banks will lead the price declines. Owners are just stuck, I know 2 couples just like this…want to move to the suburbs, need to bring money to the table. Stuck.
Heres a great WSJ article from a recent knifecatcher in Chicago:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122834060514976935.html
I hope she or her husband comes from a wealthy family. I couldn’t imagine a 400k mortgage and then the student loans associated with medical school on top of that. Another sucker goes into financial ruin due to an unchecked nesting instinct.
One benefit to come from this, I hope, is the long term improvement of of some of the city’s neighborhood schools. Right now everybody picks up and leaves for the ‘burbs or the nw side private schools when the kiddies turn 3 or 4. Few of these parents stay around to care about the schools. But if parents are FORCED to send their kids to the local CPS things might change. There are a handful of elementary schools I can think of that used to be kinda crappy until the parents of the area got together and demanded that the school get it’s act together, I think it’s Bell. There was a story on NPR a few years ago about a CPS school that had funraisers and donations and stuff. Some parents were pissed off like “I pay taxes why should I donate money to a CPS school” and they responded because that’s the nature of the CPS. If you want a decent school you’re going to have to pay for it yourself so get off your ass and sell some poinsettias and candy bars. If these parents start improving the schools at the elementary level hopefully some of the students that move on to high school will be better prepared, which leads to better high schools and a lower drop out rate…which lead to college and then less crime…unlike the piece of craps system we have now where only 6 out of every 100 freshman will ever graduate from college and usually crappy ones at that.
“Owners are just stuck, I know 2 couples just like this…want to move to the suburbs, need to bring money to the table. Stuck.”
hd,
Why would parents bother to improve the local schools if CPS will just bus in students from the less desirable neighborhoods in an attempt to ‘equalize’ the education? I think if the schools had truly local boundaries and not policies aimed at social engineering you’d see a lot more quality CPS schools. Social engineering via forced busing has been a disaster of a liberal policy for the past 40 years.
If the schools aren’t good I could see the parents going into default and just moving into an apt in the burbs. One of the few things people seem to care about far more than finances are their offspring.
Right now theres no accountability: parents can’t really “demand” their local school get its act together when it is run by the Chicago machine the the school administration, staff and teachers fall under the same bureaucratic umbrella as every other school in the city. The local principal could probably care less about parent grievances as they really aren’t at risk.
“I couldn’t imagine a 400k mortgage and then the student loans associated with medical school”.
Not all attending medical school pay out of their pocket. My girlfriend is attending and she gets a stipend + free tuition.
We as a society need to do something about public schools. One of the problems with CPS, inter alia, is that there aren’t enough parents who give a damn. The parents don’t care so why should the kids or the teachers and it becomes crowd control after that. In the suburbs for whatever reasons people tend to care a lot more and you get better schools.
Thanks for posting the WSJ link. That’s an interesting story. She should have been reading Crib Chatter before she went out to look at units.
The story says she moved here at the end of November to look for a 2/2 in a “prime” neighborhood (lakeview or Wicker Park.) She was frustrated at what was available in her price range (around $400,000.)
Is that the “prime” time to be looking? Are the most units on the market? Do you get your real choice of properties in Novermber?
No.
No.
No.
Why didn’t she just rent for 6 months or a year and continue to look around for something she really wanted at a price she wanted? I don’t understand this reasoning (when she put down $100k.)
In the article, she settles on a unit with outdoor parking because it’s the best that she can find (and doesn’t think she got much of a deal on it.) Will the “deals” be there in spring? Or will sellers still refuse to come down in price?
Her story is an interesting one though (of why some people are buying right now- even though they have other options.)
HD – I think some of the CPS elem & middle schools are great. My kids attend a middle school that ranked 8th in the state. That includes the special magnet schools. Oh, I just figured it out. Living in LP not only allows you the culture experience and amentities of living downtown, it also allows you to attend the best schools in the state. No wonder they pay so much for their real estate…
hd sez:
“One benefit to come from this, I hope, is the long term improvement of of some of the city’s neighborhood schools. Right now everybody picks up and leaves for the ‘burbs or the nw side private schools when the kiddies turn 3 or 4. Few of these parents stay around to care about the schools. But if parents are FORCED to send their kids to the local CPS things might change.”
I have neighbors confronted with exactly this situation right now.
I saw a For Sale sign go up last spring, and when talking to a neighbor found that they “had to move, the oldest was ready for High School now”… I asked why not private HS, and she replied, “well, there’s still 3 more kids to go!” The snarky reply from me? “well maybe they can sell the Porsche in the garage and the Land Rover in the driveway, then…” They took down the sign after about 6 months, and they’re staying put for awhile. The local Catholic schools will be beneficiaries, however, not the local CPS “Academy”.
“Why would parents bother to improve the local schools if CPS will just bus in students from the less desirable neighborhoods in an attempt to ‘equalize’ the education? I think if the schools had truly local boundaries and not policies aimed at social engineering you’d see a lot more quality CPS schools. Social engineering via forced busing has been a disaster of a liberal policy for the past 40 years.
If the schools aren’t good I could see the parents going into default and just moving into an apt in the burbs. One of the few things people seem to care about far more than finances are their offspring.”
Are you unaware of what the impact of two decades of middle/upper-middle class white flight did to the schools? Now their kids are coming back to the City and are wondering why it’s such a mess… it would be funny in an ironic sense if it wasn’t so sad.
Oh Steveo,
LP might have decent schools for CPS but elementary to High School it isn’t New Trier, Barrington, etc.
“I hope she or her husband comes from a wealthy family. I couldn’t imagine a 400k mortgage and then the student loans associated with medical school on top of that. Another sucker goes into financial ruin due to an unchecked nesting instinct.”
Did you read the article? She said they were planning on putting down a minimum of 20 percent? Her husband was taking a 3-year cardiology fellowship, which likely pays, not starting 4 years of medical school. And the seller lost over $50,000 so that should make everyone on this site happy.
“Her husband was taking a 3-year cardiology fellowship, which likely pays”
It doesn’t “likely pay”, it pays, and rather well. And cardiologists are one of teh specialties where doctors can still expect to make money (at least for now), so they’ll have much more $$ fairly soon.
Various folks: “CPS Sux and they ruin any good school w/ bussing”
Just knock it off with “facts” about which you know nothing. They don’t bus into the good schools (magnet programs excepted), there are more than 3 schools which are good. Now, when Daley is out, I’ll be less sanguine about the future, but messing with the good schools would create major, major problems.
Stevo: “My kids go to CPS Middle School”
You take your kids to Humboldt Park (or Albany Park or the southside) to go to school? Are you crazy? (There isn’t a CPS middle school anywhere near LP)
Steve is a liar, he doesn’t live in LP.
Don’t blame us for the seller losing $50,000. Blame the speculators and their agents, brokers, builders and other enablers who drove the market to unsustainable highs.
Or blame the Seller, who paid too much for the condo. No one forced the Seller to sign those contracts.
Hey take it easy, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Just don’t blame me; I sat on the sidelines during this mess. I did a handful of real estate closings during the boom but I had nothing to do with price.
The WSJ article sounds similar to me and my husband’s search. We have been looking to leave our 1 bedroom rented condo for a nice 2/2 for $400K. Haven’t found anything we think is worth the money, and we have been looking on and off for two years in a ton of different neighborhoods around the city. We put offers in on two Wicker Park condos last year. Both had numerous offers and we were outbid to where the seller was getting their asking price. We are going to start looking again in a few weeks, but I’m not confident that prices have declined in prime neighborhoods for our price range. The only real declinces i’ve seen are in highrises, and we are done with highrises.
Prices will decline, don’t worry, there are literally tens of thousands of $400k+ condos and not enough people to fill them. Unfortunately this bust will take years – it’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.
Creative financing drove prices up and the tightening of credit will bring prices down. Prices are very very sticky on the way down in prime areas, in case you haven’t noticed! It’s the same in prime area NYC, LA, Boston, SF. There are far more $400k+ condos for sale than there are $400k+ buyers, and with the way the economy is looking, I have no expectations that the number of $400k+ condo buyers will increase.
I thought the most interesting part of the article was
“This wasn’t the Arizona exurbs, battered by foreclosures and short sales. These sellers were convinced their homes were worth as much as they paid for them two or three years ago. Even when properties had been sitting on the market for months, the owners’ unwillingness to budge betrayed a psychological barrier. While the market didn’t feel terrible, it definitely felt unsettled.”
She’s describing the stand off that most ‘prime’ areas are feeling. The sellers in prime areas who sell have to eat the loss, which can often be difficult. A bank taking a loss on an REO is a completely different situation than an individual seller taking a huge loss because he’s got a personal stake in the property. Even the former REO usually put down only 3% or less so even they didn’t really lose any money when the property reverted to the bank. As a result, prime area sales are going to be in the doldrums for quite some time. Somebody above said its going to be developers and banks forging the path to price reductions, not individual sellers.
Because in the end, there aren’t enough New Yorkers moving to Chicago to save this market! (G, add New Yorkers to your ongoing list of people that will save the housing market!).