Get a 4-Bedroom Single Family Home in Bucktown for Under $700K: 2234 W. Charleston
This 4-bedroom vintage brick home at 2234 W. Charleston in Bucktown has been on the market since May 2010.
In that time it has been reduced $60,000.
It is now listed $48,000 under the 2006 purchase price.
The house has an open concept first floor living plan.
The kitchen has white cabinets, granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances and a kitchen island.
3 of the 4 bedrooms are on the second floor with the master bedroom on the top floor in its own master suite, complete with skylights and a master bathroom.
Built on a 24×100 lot, the house has a 2-car garage and central air.
It appears it doesn’t have a basement.
What will it take to sell this house?
Gregory Desmond at Prudential Rubloff has the listing. See the pictures, virtual tour and floor plan here.
2234 W. Charleston: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, no square footage listed
- Sold in June 1995 for $139,000
- Sold in June 1996 for $340,000
- Sold in November 1998 for $436,000
- Sold in June 2000 for $549,000
- Sold in August 2006 for $747,000
- Originally listed in May 2010 for $759,000
- Reduced a couple of times
- Currently listed for $699,000
- Taxes of $8047
- Central Air
- Bedroom #1: 16×14 (third floor master suite)
- Bedroom #2: 12×11 (second floor)
- Bedroom #3: 11×10 (second floor)
- Bedroom #4: 16×7 (second floor)
Boring post…average house…price will be the largest factor in selling. This house not bad nor great…just a commodity.
Whoever came up with those floor plans needs to be beaten. Calling this a 4 bedroom is laughable.
I realize that the “flex room” is limited by the pitched roof, but it’s larger than the “bedroom” at the rear of the 2d floor. This is a 3 bedroom house. It’s nice, but would be nicer at a 2001 price of ~$599k.
“It’s nice, but would be nicer at a 2001 price of ~$599k.”
Agreed. Hard to get excited about this place. I generally like that area of bucktown. Short lots of course.
This should be no higher than the maximum conforming mortgage and a 20% down payment.
Which seems cheap but then again, that’s a large down payment foor most people which will help keep the exclusivity of an sfh in bucktown.
“This should be no higher than the maximum conforming mortgage and a 20% down payment.”
Why?
“Why?”
Because that’s what HD deems to be affordable to the sort of people HD deems to be interested in such a house in such a location. Also, it fits his “nominal 99” prediction.
Had they listed it for $521,500 back in May, they would have had offers (yes, more than one) within the first week.
Walked through this one. Nice, but kind of impractical, given all the space. Would much rather have a family room in the basement then 2 floors of bed rooms. Small actual living space when laid out like this.
The seller has plenty of room to move. They had over $200,000 for a down payment. But they bought in 2006. So they should expect to lose some of that. They’ve got room to go down to just above the $200,000 price. But taking a $200,000 loss in as little as four and a half is a painful pill to swallow.
However, I think that just above $600k might get this done today; but there’s going to be plenty of inventory flooding the market in the upcoming months – and if $699 in unattractive today it will be even more unattractive in March when Bucktown inventory is up 20% or more and there will likely be some ‘deals’ out there.
I was about to make a $600K offer on this house and was told not to bother. Wasn’t willing to go above that given that there’s no family room and therefore the living space is small. Seller has already moved out months ago – it’s staged now, but they’re clearly not very motivated.
I thought the realtor – Desmond – was quite sharp fwiw.
House doesn’t have a basement – but it has a crawlspace, that the owner had to spend $$ on to fix according to the realtor.
biggest detractor is not enough common area space (i.e. sq footage that isn’t bedrooms/bathrooms)
a basement on this place would definitely make it worth the asking price. however, i do think it will go for 600k give or take. like HD said above, they better hope that happens before spring when there will likely be a lot more selection on the market in this price range.
@joe, you should still make the offer. With the stipulation that it goes down by 10% in three months, so if HD is correct ( and I strongly suspect he is) they will be sorry they didn’t take the offer — assuming they could.
Well I was led to believe that $650 or 655K buys it, but I wouldn’t pay that much for this house. I’ve moved on to another.
I’m getting conflicting stories about Pulaski’s future; some are very positive others aren’t (basically 50/50 with friends). I’m keeping an eye out in this area.
Kudos to the realtor for the pictures and the floor plan online.
Question: so would a typical mortgage be looking for $140k (20%) down or would this fall into the $175k (25%) realm?
You can get the deal done with 20% down payment but your would be looking at jumbo pricing(any mortgage above $417,000).If you had enough to get your financing down to $417,000,you could probably lower your rate about a half a point on comparable mortgage products.
Perhaps a workable home for 3 people at best: way too small and open for any “away time” and some of the “bedrooms” would be needed for storage.
Crawlspace homes are a problem. You lose all the basement storage and all the mechanicals then take up space in the house. If it’s dirt or dirt with the infiltration barrier, you’re still making access to all sorts of insects and critter much easier than if there were a basement. And if you ever have a sewer problem where you have to dig, or just need to rod your sewer, you are screwed. (As well, if the sewer backs up into the crawl, there’s no way to clean the space, dirt floor and barrier, nor are there floor drains to get rid of the muck so it just sits an volatilizes into your interior air.) We lived in a crawlspace house years ago and it was just that. The floor above the crawl will be cold in the winter, even with insulation.
makes me feel pretty good about the place I bought…
What year was the rehab done? Was the market really that crazy (ya I know, it was) from 96-06 it went from 340 to 747 with no rehabs?
“What year was the rehab done? Was the market really that crazy (ya I know, it was) from 96-06 it went from 340 to 747 with no rehabs?”
The kitchen and master bath are both more recent than 96–the 2d bath looks like a ’96-era reno–I’d bet the place was brought back from the dead in 96 and updated b/t 2000 and ’06.
$340k + 3.5%/year + $40k for the updates (yeah, yeah, too much) = $599,900.
“I’m getting conflicting stories about Pulaski’s future; some are very positive others aren’t (basically 50/50 with friends). I’m keeping an eye out in this area.”
What are the negatives you’ve heard about Pulaski? I haven’t had an in depth conversation with anyone recently. Have heard generaly positive views but it is very much early days yet. Anything affirmatively problematic with the new program/principal, as opposed to (justifiable) caution?
Bump for Wicker on the Pulaski question.
We walked through this as well when it first came on the market. Beautiful house on the outside. The crawlspace (no basement) was a big turn off for us. Just not enough living room/den space. Evenything else was ok. With the other issues however no amount of lowballing would make the house liveable for us (ok, if it was $350k or some crazy low number it would be worth it).
Sold for $648,000. $99,000 less than the last purchase price. Ouch.