A Greystone Condo with Great Vintage Bones at 850 W. Oakdale in Lakeview
This 4-bedroom vintage duplex up at 850 W. Oakdale in Lakeview just came on the market for the first time in 27 years.
The listing admits it is “great space with lots of opportunity for updating.”
There are no cherry kitchen cabinets, granite or stainless steel appliances.
But there are built-ins in the dining room, a wood burning fireplace, skylights and tall ceilings.
It also has central air and parking but doesn’t say anything about in-unit washer/dryer.
The greystone is on a landmarked street.
Are buyers willing to put some blood, sweat and tears into vintage properties right now? Or must the renovation already be done?
Art Collazo at Koenig & Strey has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #3: 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, no square footage listed
- I couldn’t find a prior sales price (sold in 1982)
- Currently listed for $619,900 (parking included)
- Assessments of $400 a month
- Taxes of $2929
- Central Air
- The listing doesn’t mention laundry
- Bedroom #1: 22×11
- Bedroom #2: 10×8
- Bedroom #3: 12×8
- Bedroom #4: 14×8
- Living room: 32×11
- Dining room: 14×11
- Family room: 18×10
- Kitchen: 15×12
- Other: 10×8
My oh my, but are the prices getting REASONABLE. The wave of Alt-A defaults is starting to impact the upper-middle and upper price brackets,when we see stuff like this.
This is a beautiful place in great condition, huge, in a prime lakefront neighborhood. Places like this are sought after in Lakeview, and not that common.
Time was, not long ago, that a place like this in a neighborhood like this would have fetched $1M.
Expect to a lot more giveback in the prices of upper-middle to high-end housing in coming months, for this is where most of the Alt-A loans are. These loans are recasting by the tens of thousands and sticking borrowers with insupportably high payments. Obviously, if these folks could have afforded a 30-year fixed for their places, they’d have gotten such a loan to begin with. But they couldn’t and they can’t. April 2009 saw more NODs (notices of default) than any other month so far, an absolute record. Most of these will become REOs, eroding support for prices in these brackets.
No pics of the 10×8 fourth bedroom? I think it might fit a dog bed or something but not a human.
10’x8′ is a normal bedroom these days and suitable for a young child or infant. Also makes a nice study or office.
$2929 taxes?….I doubt it
One 10 x 8 bedroom is no problem. THREE of four bedrooms being only 8 feet wide is a problem.
It is a beautiful place though.
Beautiful place but no way would this have ever been worth 1M. It’s lovely but needs lots of updating. But I agree, price seems quite reasonable.
And before everyone starts jumping all over the hospital on the street over as being too noisy, I live down the block from this place and the hospital is really very quiet. Occasionally during the day there is a siren or two but nothing disruptive and never at night. Plus, street parking is a BREEZE here, mostly because the locals park at night and then hospital folks park during the day, moving all their cars between 3-6pm, leaving plenty of spots when you return home after work. Easy street parking in this location is worth something in itself!
“10?x8? is a normal bedroom these days and suitable for a young child or infant. Also makes a nice study or office.”
10×8 is fricking tiny… I have a room in my place that’s 10×12 and I think its really small. I saw a 2br when I was looking at places that had a 10×8 room and with the bad layout (one door led to the back patio and another door to enter the room itself) and you could barely fit a tiny IKEA desk and chair in there. No room even for a twin sized bed unless you want to block off your closet access.
” 10?x 8? is a normal bedroom these days and suitable for a young child or infant. Also makes a nice study or office.”
10×8 is fricking tiny… I have a room in my place that’s 10×12 and I think its really small. I saw a 2br when I was looking at places that had a 10×8 room and with the bad layout (one door led to the back patio and another door to enter the room itself) and you could barely fit a tiny IKEA desk and chair in there. No room even for a twin sized bed unless you want to block off your closet access.
“$2929 taxes?….I doubt it”
That’s legit for 2007 taxes, with the homeowner exemption. The assessed value is 26,573*, the same as Unit 1 (there is no Unit 2), which will likely change at the first re-assessment after the sale. I’d expect the taxes to approximately double.
*As G would note, this is, statutorily, indicative of a $166k market value, and, in reality, indicative of a $265k market value.
Also, the Seller requested that the automated price estimates not be shown in the online listings (i.e., Redfin, Trulia, et al).
But you can find them for the #1 Unit–zillow=$277,500; eppraisal=$399,262.
So you can see why the seller wants that info hidden. Altho the zillow estimate is absurdly low, imo, and I expect that at $400k it would sell in a day, thus also too low.
Pretty awesome. Not too many duplex-up places in the neighborhood, let alone with a little deck and GARAGE parking. And the fact that the 4th bedroom is absurdly tiny is a non-issue. It’s a FOURTH bedroom…you could use it as a giant closet, or stick a treadmill in there, or make it a darkroom, whatever. It’s a bonus room for crying out loud. The place has a living room, family room and a separate dining room. This is the sort of place that a family could stay in for the long haul.
My first concern would be whether there are wood-floors under all that carpet. My next concern would be whether they’d drop the price by $100k so that I could even think about buying the place.
Also, I don’t care much for wood floors in bathrooms, but you can obviously change that if you buy the place. I think its a good deal for a 3br+den with 2 baths, what is the sq footage of this place?
For 620k I’d rather have the SFH. Remember this is only half a house for a 620k ask.
Yeah but a house twice the size of this place in that area will cost you 1.5-2 million at least.
> The wave of Alt-A defaults is starting to impact the upper-middle and upper price brackets,when we see stuff like this.
Yeah, because the person bought this place 27 years ago, back when everybody was doing Alt-As and subprime mortgages.
> Are buyers willing to put some blood, sweat and tears into vintage properties right now?
I dont know about you, but I can live with “non-cherry” cabinets. I don’t need a cabinet to store my cherries anyway. I keep them in the fridge.
> 10×8 fourth bedroom?
Fits a full sized bed, dresser, and a desk. I have one that is 10×7 and it fits all of these items fine.
How the hell does the fact that this particular seller bought 27 years ago negate the impact that Alt-A and subprime defaults will have on the current market value of this property??
Answer: It doesn’t.
Get a clue before being snarky.
“Yeah, because the person bought this place 27 years ago, back when everybody was doing Alt-As and subprime mortgages.”
@JPS – because the first comment said that they can’t afford their payments since they have an alt-a so they have to sell. Again, we come up with some fantasy story about why someone has to sell their home. a story not based on any fact or knowledge of the seller. In this case the fantasy story was not even based on the facts presented in the original post.
“10?x8? is a normal bedroom these days and suitable for a young child or infant. ”
Or an inmate.
Photos provide no clue re: duplex feature; is family room a rooftop “pop-up” from the 70s? Looks like entire unit was gut rehabbed in the 70s; master bath is nice. Unit is charming, and looks to be home of a professional couple sans children.
Price? I think this will sell at $450,000 to another professional couple with no past, current, or future kids. Too many stairs for a family; too unconventional to attract a conventional buyer. Climbing three flights of stairs to your duplex condo is not same as having a $1m house, even if square footage is similar.
“is family room a rooftop “pop-up””
Unless they built up the facade, nope. Nothing above the topline of the facade.
“Climbing three flights of stairs to your duplex condo”
Nope. 2d and 3d floor of the building. There is no Unit #2. 1 and 1/2 flights up to the living floor of the unit.
“I think this will sell at $450,000”
Probably a little pessimistic, but seems much more likely than $620k. I’d think it possible at conforming loan max w/ 20%–so $521k.
“professional couple with no past, current, or future kids.”
Its always hard to plan ahead for the future. I’ve known gung-ho career gals who avowed kids in their 20s start to get baby fever in their early/mid 30s.
Even though this particular seller may be in good shape financially and is not a desperate seller, having bought the place 27 years ago, he is still selling into a market that is undercut by foreclosures and distress sales due to the huge amount of Alt-A loans, that are mostly ARMs and often pay-option ARMs, coming due that the buyers are not going to be able to refinance and cannot afford the recast payments on.
You can’t isolate yourself from the conditions of the market overall, and that’s why this seller has this place priced reasonably. I think it will sell close to this price.
But I repeat, the massive amount of foreclosures coming into the market in the next year, more than any previous years, are going to have a depressing effect on prices. If you’re well set in your place, that just means you will take a lower price or hang onto it a while longer. But you’re not going to get a higher price for the place than your market will pay.
I like it for 410k.