Are You Priced Out of Roscoe Village? A 3-Bedroom SFH at 3521 N. Marshfield
This 3-bedroom single family home at 3521 N. Marshfield in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Lakeview came on the market in August 2015.
Built in 1890, it is on a standard Chicago lot of 25×125 and has a 2-car garage.
The listing says it has had “cosmetic” and “infrastructural” updates including a newly added master bathroom on the second floor which has a walk-in shower, natural stone and heated floors.
The kitchen is “newer” with maple cabinets, granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, however, it’s the same kitchen as the 2013 sale.
The house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on the second floor along with a half bath on the main floor and in the basement, which also has a family room.
This house isn’t in one of the “B” school districts. Its neighborhood school is Hamilton.
This house last sold in April 2013 for $596,000, when the market was also red hot.
It came on the market, with a new master bathroom, for 38.4% above the 2013 sales price, at $825,000.
Can these sky-high prices hold up in West Lakeview?
Christopher Chesne at Redfin has the listing. See the pictures here.
3521 N. Marshfield: 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 half baths, 1940 square feet
- Sold in July 1986 (no price listed)
- Sold in January 2002 for $425,000
- Sold in March 2011 for $546,000
- Sold in April 2013 for $596,000
- Originally listed in August 2015 for $825,000
- Reduced
- Currently listed at $800,000
- Taxes of $9661
- Central Air
- 2-car garage
- Bedroom #1: 22×16 (second floor)
- Bedroom #2: 13×11 (second floor)
- Bedroom #3: 12×11 (second floor)
- Office: 11×9 (main floor)
- Family room: 19×14 (basement)
Why is Roscoe Village such a lure for single family home buyers? I don’t really get it.
It one of the hottest neighborhoods right now. You’re not getting a single family home there for under $700,000 anymore.
Crib!
Roscoe Village is hot because it’s like park ridge/oak park/evanston with SFH density but NOT the suburbs. Roscoe street is quite pleasant for stroll with the fam.
However it seems to be more of a transitional neighborhood for families in that couples have outgrew the 2/2 and need more space, and an $800k SFH with no yard is the perfect place to raise 3 kids under the age 8. However, they all soon move to the burbs with a bigger yard, closer parks and less urban riff-raff.
Roscoe Village is for transplant lemmings looking for a “safe” city-version of Wilmette. Problem with Roscoe Village is it’s not close to the “L” and it has no parks, other than Hamlin which you have to cross Belmont to get to. Plus, you do your shopping on Western and that’s not as glamorous as it should be for these moms. But at least Mariano’s has face-lifted that strip center, the rest of it, incl. the Toys R Us attracts lower-middle-class HIspanics and the parking lot is always full of blowing litter.
I wouldn’t call Marshfield or Paulina, “roscoe village”. While not SoPo because they are on the other side of Ashland, I’d say that these streets are SoPo in spirit as the Paulina Brown Line stop is the little brother of the SoPo stop.
PS Does anyone have any opinion on Waters Elementary? 4540 N Campbell Ave, Chicago, IL 60625
“However, they all soon move to the burbs with a bigger yard, closer parks and less urban riff-raff.”
Obviously, schools could be added to that list, though I’m wondering about the “closer parks” comment. The burbs (and various other forms of residential communities in a non-urban setting) seem to be seriously lacking in parks, at least compared to cities. I’d actually rank proximity to a nice park ahead of places to eat and cultural institutions (museums, etc.) on the list of urban ammenities.
“I wouldn’t call Marshfield or Paulina, “roscoe village”.”
Certainly not north of Roscoe. Especially since we’ve been told here that the block of Addison between Marshfield and Paulina is the “heart” of SoPo.
“Does anyone have any opinion on Waters Elementary?”
You’d hate it. Not enough white people.
Suburbanites who use parks are considered as weird or as a pedestrian crossing major streets. It’s embarrassing to be seen doing it. What if you lived in the burbs and your neighbor saw you walking across Willow and Waukegan on foot? They’d think you’d lost your marbles.
“You’d hate it. Not enough white people.”
Some CPS teacher I met at the Goose Island tap room (by the way Blue Line pilsner is excellent, probably the only positive thing about the “Blue Line”, not sold in bottles) who teaches on the west side, with all black students, said he taught at Waters for one year, and hated it, too many “white parents who didn’t like too much homework for their kids, it interfered with their extracurricular activities”. These were his exact words. I pressed him on the white comment, since I’ve never heard of the school mentioned on CC, I figured it must not be GZ-worthy and therefore not really white. I asked him if it was Hispanic, he reconfirmed “white”. Anyway, the dude probably just takes pride in doing his service at a hard core deep-urban CPS location like a badge of honor, and is one of those db anti-white SWPL types thinking it makes him better than other whites. Some people actually like/brag about working at 26th and California too, like a badge, when it’s one of the most depressing places in the nation.
“Some people actually like/brag about working at 26th and California too, like a badge, when it’s one of the most depressing places in the nation.”
That’s actually an awesome urban $hithole courthouse and jail complex. It’s old, gritty, urban, and gross; I love it. Too bad it has to be at 26th and California; that building would be awesome if it were at Belmont & Western instead of those crappy annex police station courthouses.
“Suburbanites who use parks are considered as weird or as a pedestrian crossing major streets. It’s embarrassing to be seen doing it. What if you lived in the burbs and your neighbor saw you walking across Willow and Waukegan on foot? They’d think you’d lost your marbles.”
Depends on what suburb. I live walking distance from 3 playgrounds and two parks and the busiest street I have to cross is a lightly traffic residential arterial street. Playgrounds are usually full of kids and the parks are not busy but not completely unused either. The des plaines river trail is high used too.
But yeah, the farther out you get, the larger the parks become, but the less used they are. The developers never wanted to set aside any public space in the subdivision and left park land to the park district, which was usually too little too late.
That being said, the forest preserve of cook county has a lot of great properties that aren’t overrun with durango music. The SW suburbs and NW suburbs in particular have large lots of underutilized forest preserve with hiking, biking trails, wildlife, rivers, ponds and creeks. It’s great, but just don’t park your car backwards into the parking space if you make a visit during the regular work day
I have more parks in walking distance in Oak Park than I ever did living in the city. I live directly across the street from a park with a kids play area. One block from a very large park with another play area. I’m a 10 minute walk to three other smaller parks and play areas. It wasn’t till I had a kid that I’ve come to appreciate the parks being in walking distance.
“That’s actually an awesome urban $hithole courthouse and jail complex. It’s old, gritty, urban, and gross; I love it.”
Wouldn’t you rather just work at Neiman Marcus or something? I mean, if you have to be around strangers all day, why not be around a nice environment? Why surround yourself with failure, crime, disease, mental probs, chemical dependency, innate evil, gangbangers, obesity, illegitimacy, etc.? You love that? Why did you self-segregate to a suburb if it’s so grand?
Neiman Marcus allows dogs, so it’s definitely preferable to a courthouse. Although, I suppose the courthouse has dogs working in security.
I know a prosecutor who worked at 26th and Cal for 15 years. He finally left and got a 9-5 corporate law job and loves it, simple commute, no bullshit, punch the clock, etc. He said he could CARE LESS if he ever set foot in 26th and Cal ever again.
“It wasn’t till I had a kid that I’ve come to appreciate the parks being in walking distance.”
Is this news or did I miss the announcement?
Is russ doing this to put in practice his no nonsense parenting philosophy or to be able to go to playgrounds wo being questioned (I thought there was a story about russ getting harassed for hanging around wo a kid, but maybe I’m confusing w one of HD’s creeper digressions).?
something about the photos of this place makes me think the buyer should be a Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins and Urge Overkill fan. The place even looks pre-Dave Matthews.
You know this place probably has asphalt roll siding for a good 30-40 years of it’s life before the vinyl was put on. heck, it’s probably still underneath right now.
So this is what $800,000 buys in Roscoe Village, a former blue-collar dense-pack neighborhood of mostly unattractive and unassuming working-class frame houses in varying stages of neglect and/or remuddling, cheek-to-jowl. I used to worry about fires in this neighborhood, where one house fire usually damaged several more homes as the fire quickly spread across the gangways. Same issue exists now, even as its houses are gussied-up, or replaced w/narrow cinder-block brick-front mini-McMansions. For this kind of money, the views should be better than the side of your neighbor’s house within arm’s reach. For this kind of money, unable to afford the “real GZ” nice house, I’d still opt for Oak Park or Evanston.
“I wouldn’t call Marshfield or Paulina, “roscoe village”.”
I originally had it as Southport for this post but noticed that they called it Roscoe Village in the actual listing so I didn’t want everyone to say: “Sabrina, the listing says it’s Roscoe Village. This is NOT Southport.”
It’s really on the boundary between the two. You can make an argument for both although this area is really west Lakeview (and not North Center) so that would probably make it Southport.
I’m not priced out of Roscoe Village, I’m grossed out by it. I’ve never quite understood why anyone would live there. I have an old friend that lives there (he has a crap old house surrounded by new construction) and I’ve walked around and it’s just stupid there. I’d just go to Portage Park if I couldn’t afford a lakefront hood.
I prefer “West Wrigleyville.”. Based on the number of Cubbie-blue-clad worshippers (with good reason, some will say) before or after the games, at the nearby St. Andrew’s Church.
Roscoe Village is west of the Metra tracks. In fact, I think heading westbound “welcome to roscoe village” is painted on the overpass of said tracks.
I’ll call the subject area west Lake View, not roscoe village or SoPo. The Lincoln Ave. strip by Frasca, some bars, Paulina Meat Mkt. and Whole Foods, etc. is its own area, so people don’t really need to go to Southport for much of anything they can’t get on Lincoln.
Agree with Architect. Saw this house in Oak Park over the weekend. Close to El, great street, more space, etc.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/321-N-Harvey-Ave_Oak-Park_IL_60302_M81546-81474?row=4
DZ, I have a 15 mos old now. We are no longer that weird childless couple at the block parties. Refuse to give up my DINK ways though. Still travel and eat out as much as possible.
This is in no way Roscoe Village, far east AND too far north. Someone needs to get a clue. This IS the city however, and at least not over-taxed, boring Oak Park or twice as far from downtown Evanston. Very convenient to the Brown Line as well. But 200K appreciation since the last sale? Very greedy to say the least.
Actually it’s not too far north, my bad. But still too east.
” with a new master bathroom”
Meant to ask:
do people like that new master bath??
New bath is inoffensive but not exciting; doesn’t do much to justify the expected appreciation IMO.
The new bath looks about right for a smallish $800k 3 bed in this location. The kitchen’s another story.
closed for $787k.
GIVE CLOSING DATE ANON(TFO)
Document No. Executed Recorded Document Type Amount
1532044009 11/02/2015 11/16/2015 MORTGAGE $708,300.00
law firm associate