Is No Garage a Deal Killer for a Single Family Home? 1472 W. Belle Plaine in Graceland West
This 4-bedroom Victorian house at 1472 W. Belle Plaine in the Graceland West neighborhood has been on (and off) the market since April 2007.
Since July 2009, it has been reduced $100,500.
The listing says the original wood trim has been restored. It also has a wood burning fire place.
3 out of the 4 bedrooms are on the second floor and the master bedroom is its own large, top floor suite.
The kitchen also has stainless steel appliances.
Built in 1899 on an irregular 46×58 lot, it has a big wrap around patio.
The house has space pak cooling, but it does not have a garage nor any kind of parking other than on the street.
How much does having a garage, or any off-street parking, matter when buying a single family home?
Mario Greco at Prudential Rubloff has the listing. See the pictures here.
1472 W. Belle Plaine: 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3400 square feet
- Sold in September 1991 for $229,500
- Sold in February 1997 for $340,000
- Originally listed in April 2007
- On and off the market
- Listed in July 2009 for $724,500
- Reduced several times
- Currently listed for $624,000
- Taxes of $9216
- Space pak cooling
- No garage or parking
- Bedroom #1: 33×14 (third floor)
- Bedroom #2: 13×10 (second floor)
- Bedroom #3: 13×12 (second floor)
- Bedroom #4: 13×11 (second floor)
For me, the property doesn’t show up in my searches due to lack of parking. Thanks for the posting, this makes me realize I should expand the search and consider building a garage if the space allows.
Sabrina, did you miss something or is something not listed correctly? In your link it says
Parking: Yes
Garage: 1 Car
It matters a lot. And so does being on a short, smaller lot, with a deck taking up a lot of what would be yard space, and very little privacy. And so does being on the wrong side of Belle Plaine (no longer in Blaine). All things that likely make this less attractive to families with small kids looking to drop 600k on a house.
Love the entry.
The interior wood work looks great and the third floor was well done with lots of nooks that add character.
Happy Thanksgiving Cribbers,
Also, in the master bedroom, take a gander at bedroom shot — the left corner looks like a little alcove of some type. Kinda neat.
Nice looking home with lots of space. Even the basement seems to get lots of light. It appears to be priced competitively with other similar homes in the neighborhood – but none of those homes are selling at this price point and at 116 day listing time, that should tell you something. it’s also been listed on and off again since 2007; and only the Pilgrims with MLS access can see the previous listing price history. it’s hard to tell from the mortgage history (due to a subordination recorded and the lack of a filed release on another) whether there are one or two mortgages…if there is only one mortgage, then there is plenty of room to lower the price. If there are two mortgages, well, that gives the owners far less room to lower the price to sell.
I don’t consider the lack of a garage to be detrimental but my SO does. It’s a pretty big deal to some people. It’s tough to own a new or nice car in the city if you’re parking it on the street hoping that some drunk with no insurance doesn’t smash it up during the middle of the night.
Overall, a nice home, decent area in the city (although a bit north with a slightly longer commute downtown via the red/brown line than I would prefer). I think it’s a mid-500,000’s home with a 25% or so downpayment to get a conforming mortgage. Nothing about this home screams “jumbo mortgage” especially now that we’re almost in 2011. The problem is finding an buyer willing to put to a substantial downpayment…they are few and far between these days.
Good luck to the sellers.
LOWER THE PRICE.
“And so does being on the wrong side of Belle Plaine (no longer in Blaine).”
I was actually wondering about the school district, Roma. Because we chattered about a 3/1 condo nearly directly across the street from this house a few weeks ago and that unit is definitely in the Blaine School District (at least that listing says it is).
So the south side of Belle Plaine is in Blaine but the north side is not?
“Sabrina, did you miss something or is something not listed correctly? In your link it says
Parking: Yes
Garage: 1 Car”
It seems confusing, I agree. I had to triple check various listings for this property to figure out the parking situation.
They have listed it WITH parking because you can rent it nearby. From the listing: “EASY STREET PKG & STEPS TO RENTAL PARKING”
So- I’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is listed “correctly.” But it’s a common tactic that if a property doesn’t have parking that it is included anyway if you can rent it somewhere nearby so that when people are running searches on the MLS and looking for parking- this particular property WILL show up in the search.
So, Wicker, this property should have shown up in your searches anyway (since it is listed as having parking.) But there are more single family homes than you know that do NOT have parking (if you don’t care- there are options out there.)
Well, you can specify what type of parking in the search, so if Wicker put in garage parking, it would Not show up.
The home seems to need new kitchen and bathrooms
“Well, you can specify what type of parking in the search, so if Wicker put in garage parking, it would Not show up.”
Thanks for the clarification David. That would explain it.
I can understand putting it in the parking column so it shows up on searches but I’m surprised an agent from Prudential Rubloff would not make it clearer that the parking is a rental spot that was secured by the seller and could be transferred to the buyer. Or maybe I expect too much from realtors.
Yup, I was using Redfin and had the garage requirement checked.
The current owner may park on the street so getting the rental parking is up to the next buyer. They usually do say it is transferrable rental parking (if it is.)
“I can understand putting it in the parking column so it shows up on searches”
Thats why the MLS is becoming less and less useful: agents frequently misrepresent the property in order to show up in more searches. The most common is removing the parking from the price but still requiring it to be purchased with the unit but there’s all sorts of misrepresentation. The latest one I saw is a third level place in SoNo listed as a 1/1.5 when in the floorplans its clearly a 1/1.
Bob – Perhaps they were including the lobby plants as the other .5?
The most annoying thing some agents do is input the wrong neighborhood or coordinates for their listings, often times intentionally. When searching the MLS I often come across listings of properties west of Western Avenue with the west coordinate as 2400…usually an issue with listings in Humboldt Park.
chris M, trust me, that is not the most annoying thing some agents do.
“So the south side of Belle Plaine is in Blaine but the north side is not?”
Correct. 1472 W. Belle Plaine is in Ravenswood enrollment boundary. Houses across the street are in Blaine.
This house is a true bargain. Located in a very nice community. It’s a steal. I am surprised people are not tripping over themselves to buy this house.
No parking? Not in a top school attendance zone? As nice as the place looks, given those two factors, why wouldn’t a prospective $600k buyer of this place (who presumably has 2 if not 3 kids) break down and head for the burbs? I’m sorry folks, but the midwestern obsession with the almighty SFH is often a little nuts.
Does Ravenswood have magnet/special programs available to make up for the lack of “Blaine school cachet”?
For me, the biggest disadvantage of streetparking will be manifest in the weeks to come – having to spend precious morning minutes digging out the car then installing old furniture in your “dibs” spot.
I would think twice about buying a place that completely lacks parking (kill resale, it for no other reason) but the completely decked over yard kills it for me. The point of a deck is to have contrast with a yard, no? Also, who the heck knows what’s living under there.
AT $624,000 this home requires a 33% down payment of $207,000 in order to qualify for a conforming mortgage of $417,000. Even then, with a 4.5% mortgage rate (for most qualified borrowers) the PI is $2,100 a month. Taxes are $900 a month. Figure insurance is $50-$100 a month. All together, that’s roughly $3,000.00 a month. That’s a lot of money to pay for a place in the city with a decked over yard, next to a multi-unit building, with no parking, and a 1/3rd of the living space in the basement. Nothing about this house screams $3,000 a month. How much would you pay to live here? $3,000 a month to me, as a subjective metric, seems like a lot. I think maybe with 20% down (no 33% down) this house should be $2,000 or $2,200 a month. Maybe I’m just a freak who thinks that $2,200 is a lot, more than I’m willing to pay, but so be it. Apparently nobody thinks 649,000 is right. These people have been trying to sell for over 3 years.
$500,000.
Make that $400,000 with a $100,000 down payment at 4.5% is $1,520 per month plus $50 insurance plus $766 taxes (not $900 like above, sorry) is $2,336 per month. The owner gets no ROI on his investment or upgrades since 1997 – in fact those upgrades made the house livable and prevented this 1899 crapshack from becoming a tear down.
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/data/searchflat/ParcelImage.asp?pin=14173100070000
Any difference outside of interest rates between getting a conforming mortgage vs. a jumbo, say for a place like this?
Larger down payment requirements for jumbo loans if I’m not mistaken.
more stringent credit standards, higher down payments, tougher to underwrite, often variable interest rates (Which isn’t an issue now)/
I can’t see this place getting anything higher than 500. Personally I think it’s pretty darn ugly.
They have listed it WITH parking because you can rent it nearby. From the listing: “EASY STREET PKG & STEPS TO RENTAL PARKING”
So- I’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is listed “correctly.”
Not correct at all. You can also rent the apartment next door and then it’s a 6 bedroom place! This place is fugly and the 2 bathrooms kills. If you are in the basement, you have to go up 2 flights of stairs to use the bathroom. Boo.
Agree that the wooden yard is blah too. And who thinks that this is 3400 square feet? Not surprised by the parking listing — candor is a problem here… we’ve discussed it before.
Realtors like this who blatantly misrepresent a place piss me off to no end. If the NAR really wanted the public to think of Realtors as dedicated professionals, it would enforce some standards and fine or revoke the licenses of crooked Realtors. Misrepresenting a home does nothing but waste a lot of peoples’ time. Anyone who wants parking with a house would not be impressed by the possibility of renting it nearby. And someone wanting 1.5 baths would not consider a bucket in the closet to be an acceptable substitute for a half bath.
My husband and I tried to see this place on 3 (!) different occasions and the realtor and / or the seller were “not available to show”. One of them definitely needed to be fired.
Seems like they did not want to sell. Who knows now, that was July…
As of July the property had been on and off the market for 3 years.
“Seems like they did not want to sell. Who knows now, that was July…”
This place shouldn’t go for anything over $475k, and this is mainly due to the land value. The lack of parking is a big killer, plus the yard seems small despite the lack of garage/parking. Strange house overall.
I used to live a few doors down from this place and really loved the neighborhood. I’d probably still be living there if my landlord hadn’t sold his place to a developer during the boom to be gut rehabbed. I had no idea about the Blaine School District being across the street, but hardly cared, as I was more involved with where my next beer was coming from rather than where my non-existent kids were going to go to school.
Anyway, I used to walk past this property almost every day and rather liked it, but the porch is indeed really big and out of proportion. If I was buying a SFH I’d almost definitely have to have a garage, but street parking in this area is typically very easy.