Contemporary Lakeview Penthouse Under Contract 1 Year Later: 550 W. Wellington
We’ve chattered about this renovated contemporary unit at 550 W. Wellington in Lakeview several times.
See our prior June 2009 chatter and pictures here.
It has been reduced by $295,000 in the last year and is now under contract.
The 2-bedroom unit has 10 foot ceilings, 3 exposures and a rooftop deck. It has luxury finishes by Bulthaup, Sub-Zero, Poliform, Dornbracht, and Lutron.
The unit also has an extra large walk-in closet.
Robert John Anderson at Baird & Warner has the listing. See more pictures here.
Unit #9W: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2000 square feet
- Sold in June 2005 for $995,000
- Originally listed in November 2008 for $1.295 million
- Reduced
- Was listed in June 2009 at $1.095 million
- Reduced
- Currently listed for $1 million
- Under Contract
- Assessments of $537 a month
- Taxes of $14,078
- 1 heated garage parking space included
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
Gorgeous place, will be interesting to find out what it actually ended up selling for.
For a cool mil, I would prefer a single family home but this place is awesome.
OH man i love this place… if only I made 4x what I do now 🙁
Oh Sonies, it’s not about how much you earn, it’s about when you chose to buy. You bought too late in the bubble. Two and a half years ago you could have taken a stated income mortgage with some crazy neg am provision. You too could have owned this unit for around $1,500 per month. And if it didn’t work out you just hand the keys back to the bank.
The unit looks very nice but the building looks cheap and poorly constructed. I think the unit is over-improved given the quality of the building.
“the building looks … poorly constructed”
Not doubting your conclusion (b/c I don’t know), but is that based on the pix, or have you been around/inside the building?
Glad to see this nice unit has found a new owner. I did not witness any evidence of the building being poorly constructed at all. If anything, it appeared to be very well constructed and in better shape than many buildings that aren’t as old. Very well maintained as well.
“in better shape than many buildings that aren’t as old”
You must be remembering a different building, because this one is ~5 years old.
@anon (tfo):
I’ve walked around the building but never went inside. The outside is just cheap concrete. The (lack of) quality of construction really struck me. I’m not saying it’s the shoddiest constructed building I’ve seen in Chicago, but for a $1 million I’d want a better building. I can see why someone would buy a 2 bedroom in the $450,000 range there (but I wouldn’t). But this penthouse unit is too big and over-improved.
I lived down the street during construction. It was all huge precast sections trucked in and assembled by a mobile crane. I thought it was very odd for such a luxury building but that doesn’t necessarily indicate poor quality. In fact, one can speculate that since the sections were “built” in a factory somewhere the QC could be very high and they may not have been exposed to any rain or snow until the concrete was sufficiently cured.
Precast concrete is used because it is less expensive than poured in place concrete. Tipster is right that it is not a construction technique commonly associated with higher end properties. I would worry more about water infiltration with precast concrete than I would poured in place because of all the joints created when two precast sections are joined. Now joints are needed to prevent cracking because the wall will expand, contract, and move, but those joints better be very well waterproofed.
This is a sweet pad and closed close to where I suspected. I just wish appraisers and others would realize this should not be used as a valid comp for almost any other property in this area.
“closed close to where I suspected”
Wher’d you see the closing price? Please share.
Okay fine if it closes at new ask, which I suspect. We’ll see..
“Okay fine if it closes at new ask, which I suspect. We’ll see..”
C’mon, it’s going to close at $1.2, after they raise the final ask to $1.4!
For once no haters! What is the world coming to at Crib Chatter. I guess some entries had questioned the buiding materials and possible overbuilding of the unit but no one actually ripped on the unit.
I am proud of you fellow Crib chatters! Bravo for finding the glass half full for a change!
Two others in the building still listed:
4E–$799k; 2W–$699k.
7W apparently sold, but I’m too lazy today to look up the price.
As noted before, top floor, plus roofdeck, plus *lots* more windows equals significant premium for this unit over the lower ones.
The ’07 prior on 9E was $1.1mm, which really as the likely max for this one, even with the D-lux reno.
Yeah since the last list was $1MM I’ll bet the closing price is around $950k in this market.