334 W. Menomonee Units Come Back on the Market in Old Town
We’ve chattered about 334 W. Menomeee in Old Town several times. It is the 16-unit historic conversion by Melrose Partners located in a prime location in the middle of Old Town’s historic triangle.
I believe only 4 out of 16 units have sold since sales began in 2007. Many others have been rented out. But several recently re-appeared on the MLS.
The prices have been further reduced.
Unit #204: 1 bedroom, 2 bath, 900 square feet
- Was listed in April 2008 at $489,000
- Withdrawn from the market
- Reduced
- Currently listed for $459,000
- Assessments of $175 a month
- Taxes are “new”
Unit #106 has recently been re-listed. If you’ve been following the building, it’s been listed several times before.
Unit #106: 1 bedroom, 1 bath, duplex down (1000 square feet)
- First listed in January 2007 for $520,000
- Reduced in June 2007 to $469,000
- Reduced in September 2007 to $449,000
- Reduced on October 18, 2007 to $399,000
- Increased on October 29, 2007 to $469,000
- Reduced in January 2008 to $429,000
- Reduced in late January 2008 to $419,000
- Was listed in April 2008 for $419,000
- Withdrawn
- Reduced
- Currently listed for $389,000
- Assessments of $205 a month
- Taxes are “new”
Melrose Partners Realty has all of the listings. See the developer’s website here.
Here are some interior pictures. The living room picture is from the larger 2-bedroom unit. But all of the kitchens are similar and the bathrooms all have the same finishes.
Woo Hoo! First to respond!
Definitely some quality finishes from what I can see but $543/sq ft? $459 for a 1 bedroom? That’s why only 4 are sold. About 100k overpriced in my book on unit 204…
This is what happens when the builder does no market research at all before building.
The developer should increase prices as they have before to add to the mystique of the property.
I remember I read somewhere, maybe from economics class in college if a good isn’t selling on the market raising the price will stimulate demand.
They had the right idea last october if only they had follow through with subsequent price increases instead of decreases someone would have seen that this was their last chance to get their foot in the real estate door or else be priced out of the real estate market forever. The developer should add a threat on the MLS listing that the price will be raised by x% if a buyer doesn’t step forward within y number of days.
“The developer should increase prices as they have before to add to the mystique of the property.
I remember I read somewhere, maybe from economics class in college if a good isn’t selling on the market raising the price will stimulate demand.
They had the right idea last october if only they had follow through with subsequent price increases instead of decreases someone would have seen that this was their last chance to get their foot in the real estate door or else be priced out of the real estate market forever. The developer should add a threat on the MLS listing that the price will be raised by x% if a buyer doesn’t step forward within y number of days.”
Are you kidding? You don’t really believe that would work, do you? Maybe you missed the economics lecture on price and demand.
The 30- year fixed is at 5.625% this morning. Oh boy!
I really like how this unit looks although from the RE site, it looks like the bedroom opens right into the kitchen…
Steve, where are you getting that info? I was seeing 6.15+ last week.
Look everywhere. Rates have come down almost 3/8% this morning.
Rates have dropped because of the bailout. No one knows how much lower they will go, but most estimate total drop from pre-bailout will be about 1%. Also no idea whether Fannie and Freddie’s new “owners” will make it easier to get mortgages, or harder. They claim they are going to do both: make mortgages more “affordable,” and “protect taxpayers.” In other words, who the hell knows. What they decide will be the *real* news on the bailout’s effect on housing. This interest rate change is small potatoes; it will only bring a few ppl back into the market.
Now we can watch as the lower rates fail to stimulate the housing market.
Fannie and Freddie’s new owners are following the strategy of act like politicians until they can get the hell out of office come January and let the next guy deal with it.
95% financing is back this morning as well. Have to love the government…
Financials opened strong before falling apart.. Makes sense this would lower rates as now it is safe to lend, my bet is unintended consequences push the new assumer of this debts (we the people thru the Treasury) rate up neutralizing todays gains. Enjoy Mr. and Ms. America, you just got a few hundred billion more to chew on that you don’t have.
IB–where are you seeing financials falling apart…? I see a gain of about 3% there. I *do* think that will retreat–but mostly because this move wasn’t aimed at propping up financials per se. In fact, at the same time it should improve them a little bit by assuring that mortgage rates won’t go through the roof, it also takes away by, well, taking away–a lot of the banks were heavily invested in GSE stock, which is now virtually worthless.
The idea wasn’t so much to boost the housing market, but to prevent it from completely crashing. The more I read about it, the more I’m on board with it in the sense that there really was no choice. A complete meltdown in the GSEs would have meant housing drops of like 80%. This move just allows things to continue to move (down) at a measured pace–in my view, until fundamentals are restored throughout the nation (median house = median income).
Of course, all bets are off if the New Fannie ‘n’ Freddie simply continue (or even worsen) the insanely cheap mortgaging that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s a bizarre world where someone would think that 6% 30-year-fixed and 5% down were too expensive–but it does sound like there is dissensus within the new regulatory regime about that. (Thus the incompatible goals of “mortgage ‘affordability'” and “protecting taxpayers.”)
KW,
Few banks were invested in GSE common stock. A few mutual funds and other large funds bought the preferred shares which are likely now worthless as well.
Many, many banks however were invested in FNM & FRE debt as agency debt could be used to satisfy their capital requirements and paid a nice yield. Had FNM & FRE been allowed to go under we would’ve seen a ton of bank failures basically overnight.
Ken,
I was watching banks like LEH earlier.. all opened real high and then off and now back up a bit. I honestly do not see how this makes one bit of difference. Every buyer of GSE debt just got a free put on their investment. Nothing is free though and this is all a zero sum transaction moving risk from a corporate book to the public. Nothing magically disappeared by this it just changed hands and now a proven failed entity can continue its operations adding more and more risk to the public. No losses magically went away either. As for the 80% losses, i doubt it, private money would step in somewhere. Now that private money is safe moving where it shouldn’t (FNM-FRE) instead. This is such a moral hazard.
Back on topic, this is probably the single-most overpriced Chicago conversion I’ve seen. $389,000 for a one-bedroom in Old Town?
Pete,
This is not the single-most overpriced condo in Chicago. That title would go to the Spire with studio apartments starting at $750,000.
Bob–we’ll see over the next month how many smaller banks were heavily invested in the preferred stock! I heard on NPR on my drive home just this afternoon that two local banks lost substantial money; enough so that… I forget, maybe they had to work with bank regulators? I forget. But anyway, there might be more such banks than you think–the Fed was worried enough about it that they encouraged banks to “call the FDIC” (whatever the hell that means) if the bailout significantly undermined their cap…
The website for the developer (melrose) states that there are no units available. ?
paulson’s cash bazooka must be working.
On the problem of many regional banks’ heavy investment in Fannie/Freddie preferred: http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/09/09/banks-slammed-by-treasurys-bailout/
Sounds like Treasury is working on a bailout from the bailout. For reals.
Paulson fired it in the wrong direction. Deflation is back on. Equities down, gold down, silver down, oil down…
Unless Fannie and Freddie start taking liar loans, this is a non-event in the housing markets. People can only pay what people can afford to pay, and that number is shrinking by the day.
Investors with cash may appreciate this move, but that’s it. And frankly, there aren’t enough investors with cash to stop the bleeding.
Ken,
unintended consequences…like i said yesterday losses don’t magically disappear..they just got shifted. Some people just don’t get that the gov’t doesn’t make any money to spend, they take money to spend. Now why, after yesterday, would I ever buy preferred stock issues in a financial carrying level 3 exposure when i know i will be wiped out, without recourse, in 1 second. So out the window that option goes and issuing equity to raise capital is no better.
More news: rumors that GMAC will be filing BK soon. At Mortgage-Implode-O-Meter. http://ml-implode.com/staticnews/2008-09-09_GMACinpossibleBankruptcymode.html
Note: VERY MUCH still a rumor at this point.
Since it isn’t really on-topic, I won’t talk about LEH and WaMu stock tanking today! Still… ugh.
In fact, I’m going to stop looking at this train wreck for now and pay attention to my work. 🙁
The bond market has been predicting GMAC being the next major company to go BK. Whenever a company’s debt yields exceed 20% there is a high likelihood of default.
After GMAC look at WaMu to go next.
Cash infusion from foreigners.. like i said above.. do you want it in preferred or common, both of which we learned this weekend are now worthless. They are all insolvent, it is not a matter of who but when for almost everyone else. Now back to important things like bidding for XBox games on ebay. 🙂
They now have a studio listed for 239k on the MLS (unit 205). Apparently they’re playing MLS games though because the pics are the same as two of the pics from here. If they aren’t interested in putting up actualy pics of the unit represented then they aren’t seriously interested in selling the unit.
Bob: The developer doesn’t bother to take new pictures. They keep using the old ones.
It appears that when a unit becomes available after a rental lease is terminated they put it on the market to try and sell it. Otherwise, there appears to be no reason to their timing of putting some of these units on the market.
This particular studio was previously priced at $309,000.