A Vintage Single Family Home For $375,000 in Wicker Park: 1234 N. Marion Court
This 4-bedroom house at 1234 N. Marion Court in Wicker Park has been on and off the market for 5 years.
It has now been reduced about $375,000.
There are no interior pictures of the home.
The listing urges a buyer to “rehab this gem into your custom home for substantially less than the price of new construction.”
The house was built in 1890 and is on a 33.3×110 lot.
There is no central air but appears to be a side drive with some parking.
3 out of the 4 bedrooms are on the second floor and the fourth is on the main floor.
Is this finally priced to sell?
Kirby Pearson at Pearson Realty Group has the listing. See the pictures here.
1234 N. Marion Ct.: 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 1 car parking, no square footage listed
- Sold before 1985
- Originally listed in October 2005 for $749,900
- Reduced several times
- Lis pendens foreclosure filed in August 2009
- Reduced in March 2010 to $399,999
- Reduced
- Currently listed at $375,000
- Taxes of $7241
- No central air
- Bedroom #1: 13×12 (second floor)
- Bedroom #2: 15×8 (main floor)
- Bedroom #3: 17×15 (second floor)
- Bedroom #4: 10×10 (second floor)
wow, overpriced at the peak and here we are now. hard to imagine who came up with that strategy. could have been lloyd christmas and harry dunne
$290,000 first in 2006 and a $47,000 second in 2008.
Hard to argue with strategy. !!
easy address to remember 1-2-3-4 but no inside pictures?
Sold before 1985 – should mean that the owner has no mortgage. But foreclosure has been filed, so I guess the owner did some cash-out refinancing. Yet the listing says that you should rehab the place to make it a nice SFH.
So… What are the odds that the owner cashed out in bubble times and just plain spent the money on cars and vacations?
I took a look at CCRD but could not make heads or tails of it. There are numerous mortgages taken out. But no warranty deed with an actual sales price anywhere. Could these two individuals be relatives? I don’t know how to interpret the data.
“on and off the market for 5 years.”
If this and the price declines don’t scream that this owner has no idea what they’re doing and trying to capitalize on some bubble appreciation I dunno what does.
“rehab this gem”
Really? Hasn’t the owner already had five years to do this? Sounds like an elderly person too lazy to do any improvements looking to cash out for their retirement nest egg and move on.
749k in 2005? bwahahahaha. Even in a couple years 375k will seem high.
The last two mortgages and the lis pendens are all you need to know!
“#Milkster on September 29th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I took a look at CCRD but could not make heads or tails of it. There are numerous mortgages taken out. But no warranty deed with an actual sales price anywhere. Could these two individuals be relatives? I don’t know how to interpret the data.”
First post here. Isn’t this lot alone worth the $375k? In this area it’s a tear down and I would think a wide lot would be great for someone to build their dream city home. I live 3 blocks south and a bit west of here and would love to be able to build in that area.
I saw the HGTV episode – they put in a really cool backyard.
Looks like a deal at this price – then watch the episode and get to work!
I walked through this last winter. Needs a brick-to-brick rehab. But it is a nice wide lot on a good block in a good hood. I was tempted but it is still too much.
It is a wide lot, but there are no alleys on Marion, which means that you’d *need* the extra width for a driveway. (Street parking on Marion is hard because of all those driveways.)
My wife and I saw this house a few months ago. We were just driving by and the owner happened to be outside and said he’d show it to us.
The owner was a very jovial person and seemed genuinely nice while he showed us around (it used to be his parents house, but he now owns it).
Make no mistake it is a 100% gut remodel on the inside. Crazy narrow almost vertical staircases to the basement and top floor. Really low ceilings and a side drive that would be nearly impassible in anything wider than a Mini. A complete electrical nightmare..
Tons of potential though. It’s really a great street (nice homes everywhere), but easily a 150k+ job for the remodel… and even though people are currently living it it, I wouldn’t want to until some major work had been done.
If the price dropped below 300k I think it’d make a great project.
Looking at Google street view it seems questionable whether anything bigger than a microcar could use that “side drive”
I looked at this place early last year. . . I agree with B’s comment on “brick to brick rehab” and would also question any plans for the below grade space.
So, $375 for the lot? WP, close to L, on a sometimes quiet street, close to everything. (Though, yes, you need the sidewalk cut driveway to have a garage, so the lot isn’t quite as useful as you might hope). Where are those people building $1m+ SFs?
This is also a really interesting little “nook” of WP– one of the last areas to fully “gentrify” / change. There is still section 8 and some other buildings like this one nearby.
I actually didn’t like the HGTV design for the yard, but loved the space and could have done some fun stuff with it. Important to have a house to go with the yard, though.
Does anyone know which episode it was featured on? I’ve skimmed through a bunch but haven’t found it.
Thanks!
Looked through nealy 30 episodes on hulu. I give up. If anyone has a link and can share it, I’d really appreciate it.
Taxes seem very high for this price point. How does that work if the original price was inflated? Do they ever re-assess when the value drops?
I drove by this place last night – wow is that driveway tight. Great, quiet block though. From my one pass through I saw people decorating for Halloween and one cottage a few doors north looking like it’s getting renovated.
I’d need to see the inside and would prefer to drop a single car garage up front to preserve some semblance of a back yard. I think I’ll shop for a construction loan to see what’s out there these days.
re-listed now for $345k
Spent $150 for a full FHA inspection. The home is riddled with termites and crumbling. Minimum $200k to save and rehab. The seller will take $300k if you’re up for it.
Thanks for the update Financedoc.
This house is now a short sale- listed at $339,000.
Isn’t the bank “the seller” here?
Hello Sabrina. My understanding is that until the bank completes the foreclosure process, the homeowner has a say in whether to accept an offer. The two parties agreed to our pre-inspection offer of $300k but the homeowner vetoed our adjusted offer following inspection.
Our calculation is that (absent termite damage), the house would have fetched about $700k at the bubble peak. With an average market decline of 30%, the house would probably appraise (absent termite damage) for about $500k today. So someone with the cash or a 203k loan could come close to breaking even with a purchase at $300k.
Thanks Financedoc. Why don’t you just wait until it goes into foreclosure then? It’s been on the market for forever. It probably isn’t long now. Then you’ll get it even cheaper.
We’re not in a hurry 😉
it was bulldozed yesterday but not on MLS as sold. anyone know what came of it?