Flipper Alert: 2-Bedroom Gold Coast Townhouse Returns: 820 N. Dearborn
We chattered about this 2-bedroom three story Gold Coast townhouse at 820 N. Dearborn in 2009.
See our July 2009 chatter here.
Back in 2009, it was bank owned and sat on the market for 7 months before finally selling in November 2009. Many of you thought it wouldn’t even fetch $400k (and were right).
It ended up selling for $350,000 under the 2007 purchase price for $395,000.
It has now come back on the market as a flip with a “remodeled” kitchen featuring cherry cabinets, granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances.
The two bedrooms are on the second floor.
What was formally the master bedroom when it was bank owned is now a top floor family room with skylights, a wet bar with small fridge and a roof top deck (although the wet bar was there when it was bank owned as well.)
The townhouse has one car garage parking and a second spot on a parking pad.
Many of you thought the kitchen was awful before and that it was dark.
And now?
Todd Mackay at Keller Williams Lincoln Park has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #B: 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 1800 square feet, 1 car parking plus second space in parking pad
- Sold in January 1996 for $230,000
- Sold in June 2005 for $477,500
- Sold in May 2007 for $750,000
- Lis pendens in April 2008
- Bank owned as of May 2009
- Originally listed in June 2009 for $589,900
- Reduced
- Was listed in July 2009 for $539,900
- Sold in November 2009 for $395,000
- Currently listed for $550,000
- Central Air
- Skylights
- Bedroom #1: 16×13
- Bedroom #2: 12×11
- Kitchen: 8×9
Sabrina: Did you see the Crains article regarding number of Chicago developers filing for personal bankrupcy? Worth linking.
hey a positive thing, if the flipper sells at 550k he will bring the comps back up
Once again, no floorplans to see the layout. It would help immensely for prospective buyers to see both the ‘before and after’ when a unit is….ummmm….remodeled. This is something I do with every rehab and it does make a huge difference to the buyers as they are able to see exactly what (in this case) $155,000 bought them.
FLOORPLANS RE AGENTS!! FLOORPLANS
I can’t see the before pics as the link is not working so I am not sure what the kitchen looked like. Still it is dark and very cramped, something that COULD have been addressed by an experienced renovator. A quick somewhat inexpenisive fix would be to add under cabinet mounted lighting and maybe replace a few of the cabinet doors with glass inserts with lighting inside as well.
As it is now, I would think the kitchen totalled $25-30k, and that is a high estimate, converting the MB to a family room (easy weekend job) $10k if that much? Rooftop deck (again, without knowing the condition before, its hard to estimate the $$ amount upgrade) $15,000 and that is generous.
So, $55k invested leaves this flipper a $100k profit in this era of depreciating properties. Not good when there is no curb appeal, *note the stained driveway and what appears to be a damaged/missing facade, old awning and blah.
It appears as though the pricechopping demon will be visiting once again…just hope it is very soon.
“Once again, no floorplans to see the layout.”
click on the virtual tour:
http://www.smartfloorplan.com/orders/bin/player07.pl?file=public_html/il/v301865/v301865.xml&map=yes&idx=yes
The layout of this place is odd. Now the new master no longer has a dedicated bathroom and shares it with the other bedroom. Why not leave the master on the top floor and sell it as a 3br? At least a 3br might justify the price a little bit.
The first thing I do when looking at a property is check the previous sales price just for flippers. If you bought it for 300k two months ago and are selling for 500k I might offer 310.
I actually think this place is reasonable at $550,000.
The boom is back!
Thanks Bob…I rarely ever look at the virtual tours as most are merely the same pictures only somewhat larger. This does help somewhat, but it is still hard to tell from such a generic one. From that version it appears the kitchen is totally open onto the living room while in reality there is a wall making the kitchen cramped and dark.
I do give them credit for attempting to exert effort with that fp.
Thanks again Bob!
I like the idea of using that top floor as a Media room since the living room is…as it is. I do question that full bath though. Seems as though they could have transformed it into something more useful. Having to ascend those stairs to use the master bath would get old real fast.
Would anyone in this area really use all three bedrooms? As in mom dad and two/three kids?
“The first thing I do when looking at a property is check the previous sales price just for flippers. If you bought it for 300k two months ago and are selling for 500k I might offer 310.”
Congrats, this is a dumb post
I don’t like that family room at all on the third floor. It’s good there is a wet bar up there, but an effective family room needs to be in close proximity to the kitchen, right? Makes it impossible to entertain if you have more than 8 people over.
Maybe a half mil, beside the huge pros (loc, th, pkg), it needs a master bath! There are some really cool possibilites with that top floor though…
“rom that version it appears the kitchen is totally open onto the living room while in reality there is a wall making the kitchen cramped and dark.”
westloopelo, if you click on the camera hotspot a the top-right corner of the kitchen, you’ll see that the kitchen IS totally open into the living room.
Let me ask this: From the marketing/listing perspective, doesn’t it make sense to market this as a 3br? People can use the top floor any way they want. Or, does that piss people off because the top floor is staged to be a family room/doesn’t have bedroom-type closets?
Curb repellant… yuck
nice place I guess for the $/sqft but I hate Chicago avenue though and want to be at least a full block off that street
I looked at this when it was for sale last time. It’s not even worth anything close to this price. Any existing finishes looked cheap; I have no comment on the upgrades. The upstairs “deck” is narrow and connects to those of the other units. The building facade is dreary and the nieghboring highrise blocks the light. At $300K at least you could rent it out to kids fresh out of college or someone looking for more space – $550K IMHO is a dream.
hey everyone please take plate of appetizers and walk up to the third floor to the family room and deck, i will call you when the food is ready so you can come back down two flights of stairs to get your plates and walk back up two flights.
or
honey wtf you ate all the pop corn before the beginning credits started. hit pause so i can run down two flights of stairs to make some more. ok i am back, now wtf you finished off my beer and now i have to go back down again. I WANT A DIVORCE
I think the flipper got a pretty good price for this place, but from a timing standpoint his approach is all wrong. I would clean the place up and rent it out for now, then when the market improves do the renovation and sell. There are a couple of drawbacks to close to Chicago Ave/YMCA and no curb appeal.
I saw this when it was on the market before. It looks to me like the appliances and countertop were changed in the kitchen, along with (maybe) the cabinets. (The kitchen and wet bar used to match. I think that the cabinet fronts were refinished or replaced, but the frames look identical.)
The second floor bedrooms appear repainted, and may have new carpet. (I think they were a berber before, but I can’t recall for sure.) They don’t picture the closet organizer, but the closets were essentially bare before. They didn’t bother to change the mirrored closet doors.
The third floor family room appears untouched, except for staging. The deck also appears untouched. I don’t think that they even filled the planters on the railing.
I think that the first floor half-bath (picture 16) is identical down to the wastebasket, soap dispenser, tissue box, and toilet paper holder. I also don’t think that they changed any of the window treatments — the larger bedroom on the second floor had cheap blue metal blinds before, and they seem to be pulled up in these pictures.
They might be able to find a buyer at about $500K, but I think it is more likely that it won’t sell until mid-$400s. There are too many choices in this price range, and financing in this range likely requires a big down payment. (FHA $410K limit means maybe $425K to get FHA funding, if this four-unit association even qualifies.)
Wow. Finally a kitchen I can hunker down with a machine gun.
http://www.pillboxes-somerset.com/pillbox_types.htm
That kitchen doesn’t look wide enough for the door swing on that massive fridge.
It’s still a dull, badly arranged place with no curb appeal. The third floor really ought to be the master bedroom with its own large bath. Now that would add value.
The roof deck listed as 27×15 was a good laugh. Sure it extends 27 feet down the narrow path but unless you demo that upper floor and take over that space for additional roof deck it is not even close to 27×15.