Is Outdoor Space a “Must” in Chicago? A 2-Bedroom at 30 W. Oak in the Gold Coast
This 2-bedroom in 30 W. Oak in the Gold Coast recently came on the market.
30 W. Oak was built in 2006 and has 44 units and a parking garage.
It was built as a luxury condo building and still has some of the most expensive units in the city.
This corner unit has 11 foot ceilings with floor-to-ceiling windows.
It has a Poggenpohl kitchen with a white quartz island bar, a steel tile backsplash and Subzero, Thermador and Miele appliances.
Forget about the standard wood floors in the living room. There are unique honed Biana white marble floors throughout the living/dining room and kitchen.
The master suite has espresso hardwood floors as well as a massive walk-in-closet and a Calcutta marble master bath.
The powder room has a floating vanity.
This is a corner unit that faces north and west, which is the back of the building. Because it’s on the corner, it has windows in both bedrooms and even in the closet.
But there’s no balcony or other outdoor space. All the units that face the south side of this building have terraces. The north side doesn’t have any.
This unit has central air, washer/dryer in the unit and one garage parking space is included.
Is outdoor space a “must” for Chicago buyers?
Michael Zuker at @Properties has the listing. See the pictures and floor plan here.
Unit #5E: 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 1500 square feet
- Sold in October 2006 for $722,500
- Sold in October 2015 for $785,000
- Sold in March 2018 for $850,000
- Currently listed for $899,000 (parking included)
- Assessments of $907 a month (includes heat, a/c, gas, parking, doorman, cable, Internet, exercise room, exterior maintenance, scavenger, snow removal)
- Taxes of $16,825
- Central Air
- Washer/dryer in the unit
- Bedroom #1: 15×13
- Bedroom #2: 12×7
- Laundry room: 5×5
- Walk-in-closet: 15×12
- Living/dining room: 21×15
- Kitchen: 12×13
Outdoor space is probably a must for most buyers at this price. Most properties in this price range will offer it, and you’re limiting the buyer pool not having it and will need to maintain those luxe finishes to keep this place desirable, because what else does it have going for it besides location? No second full bath, no outdoor space, tiny second BR and brutal taxes don’t make for a very compelling package to me for the money. Is there common outdoor space here? That would help.
This is basically a 1 bedroom plus den. Second bedroom doesn’t have a closet, unless you count the unit’s only other closet in the hall. Also, I’d rather have a window in the bathroom than in the closet.
The walk in closet is damn near the same size as the MBR. Looks like the interior designer was channeling a hip dentist office
This is a pied de terre or an empty nester abode. for a PdT, probably not as its used infrequently, if someone is going to live full time, then outdoor space is mandatory
i know this is an “expensive” kitchen but it looks really ugly and whats up with the floors, also hideous.
why are they selling it 5 months after they bought it…
and seriously 900k for that? Yes I would like a lot more outdoor space… this is terrible
I think at this price point you’d have to have SOME outdoor space – a small balcony at least. I get super claustrophobic if I can’t get some fresh air at home.
That being said – Isn’t the one of the very * sought after * newer buildings in gold coast given design and location – even though you have to deal with the Ogden school traffic? I’d never buy it, but I don’t think 899 is too far off in this market.
agreed with all the posters. we used to live two blocks away and never understood this building. I guess it’s for foreigners / manhattanites / out of towners who want THAT look. Co-opting a Buddha in the bathroom tacky at best.
I’ve always liked this building. The floor plan on this place appears to be an after thought. It seems like it could have been a legit 2/2 with better planning.
I think the other issue is it’s basically a one BR + office. Considering the size of the place (esp the master suite and closet), the second bedroom is tiny. I’m all for nice master closets, but sometimes floorplans and use of space make little sense to me. Beyond the small size though, perhaps the bigger issue is that anytime somebody staying in the 2nd BR wants to take a bath/shower, they have to go through the master. Who would want their guest or child to do that every time?? Not a good arrangement at all.
“That being said – Isn’t the one of the very * sought after * newer buildings in gold coast given design and location”
It’s one of the most popular buildings in the city and has been for the last 10 years.
But most of the units have outdoor space in this building. There are only a few smaller units that face north that don’t.
“Outdoor space is probably a must for most buyers at this price.”
Most Chicago luxury buildings have outdoor space.
The Palmolive does not. And the soon-to-be-converted Tribune Tower building will not (at least on the units that face outward towards the street.)
I wonder if they’ll have problems selling the Tribune Tower units specifically because there is no outdoor space?
I couldn’t care less about outdoor space attached to my unit, especially in Chicago where balconies are usually unusable.Another climate would be a different story. We have a community rooftop deck, let someone else buy the furniture, clean the grill, maintain the flowers.
“The Palmolive does not. And the soon-to-be-converted Tribune Tower building will not (at least on the units that face outward towards the street.)”
I agree plenty of top tier buildings in Chicago do not have outdoor spaces. Balconies actually did not start bocoming ubiquitous until the ’90’s, as it was previously seen to be aesthetically a blight on the cutting edge look of the Chicago skyline. All noted architects bemoaned the “bourgeois-erizing” of the city, along with the post-modern look pushed by Daley, who was thought to be obsessed with making Chicago look like a poor imitation of Paris. In the end, the developers won out as buyers clamored for balconies in their city homes. Other examples of residential buildings before this period is the Chicago Place, the One Mag Mile building, Hancock, and Water Tower Place.
What do all these older places have? They have fabulous views. I’m surprised no one is pointing out the obvious. A place of this caliber doesn’t have to have outdoor space to be considered desirable if it has a fabulous view. This unit, on the 5th floor, with most of the rooms right up against the top of the building to the north, will be a deal breaker for many because of this, not just for the lack of a balcony.
Seems like you don’t get much for your money with this one. No view, one big combined main room and two bedrooms. Lots of show and no go.
I agree with the others, by the way, that this is a glorified one bedroom. What a joke of a floor plan. Maybe a person from Manhattan could be tricked into buying because it would be a bargain there, but here, it’s an incredibly bad deal, especially with no view or outdoor space and the ridiculous tax bill.
“I agree with the others, by the way, that this is a glorified one bedroom”
I have always wondered what is the price differential (is there a formula?) on a unit with the same square footage as another, but with fewer bedrooms. It is not uncommon to open up a 2nd or 3rd bedroom to make a larger living/dining room, and sometimes this is not done in such a way that it can be easily reversed (without great cost or loss of valuable work already done) by the subsequent owner. Does this always lower the resale value of a unit? If it is huge unit that has unusually few bedrooms (say, a 2,000 sf unit with only 2 bedrooms), there is no doubt that the unit would go for a lower price than the exact same unit with 3 bedroom.. But is this also true of, say, a 1,100 sf unit with only one bedroom versus two? Despite tearing down walls to suit your particular lifestyle, I think you would think long and hard about doing this if you knew that, in addition to the cost of doing the reconfiguring work, you knew that the result would devalue your condo by, say, 10% !
@ Vissi, I had a client do that and it burned him value wise pretty bad while trying to refinance. He had a 3/2 and he made it into a 2/2 with a much larger living area than the standard floorplan in his development by essentially removing a wall.
We were refinancing and it got comp’d against 2/2s, not 3/2s. There seemed to be a fairly significant delta in the market at that time too between 3/2s and 2/2s even with similar square footage. Long story short, putting up the wall/door may have cost a few grand in materials, paint and labor but would have translated into like $75k of market value based on the comps in his area.
Russ – you didn’t mention what the square footage on your client’s unit was. I’m still speculating that the damage to the value of a unit by removing a bedroom may vary depending on how the number of bedrooms vary from the norm for similar square footage units. A 1,500 s.f unit that has only one bedroom unit might be severely disadvantaged compared to a 1,500 s.f. two bedroom unit. but, for a 1,000 s.f. unit that has two bedroom squeezed in, would it still hurt the value if it was configured to be a spacious one bedroom place?
Here is a question I would like to survey an opinion on. If you have a 1,150 s.f. one bedroom unit in the GZ that can be turned into a 2 bedroom unit for around $15,000 in construction cost, would it make sense to do so for purely financial resale purposes?
Vissi – the place was about 1400 sqft in Lakeview. This was back in 2012. Lakeview. Appraised at $380,000. IIRC pulled some 3/2 comps at 450ish or so of similar size but could only use 2/2s for appraisal.
To your question, I think it really depends on the functionality of the floor plan if it makes sense. Just throwing up a poorly thought out wall but resulting in a jacked up floor plan could be worse.
“If you have a 1,150 s.f. one bedroom unit in the GZ that can be turned into a 2 bedroom unit for around $15,000 in construction cost, would it make sense to do so for purely financial resale purposes?”
Hell yes.
We’ve actually chattered on this very example recently.
Vissi:
Here’s the chatter from last year on 164 W. Huron. It was a large 1/1.5 and they turned it into a 2/2.
Sold for $360,000 as a 1-bedroom.
Afterwards, sold for $465,000.
http://cribchatter.com/?p=24169
“Sold for $360,000 as a 1-bedroom.
Afterwards, sold for $465,000.”
But that unit was 1,325 sf, which is a very normal size for a 2 bedroom unit. It is a no brainer that it would have more worth as a 2 bedroom. I deliberately gave as an example in my question a hypothetical case of a 1,150 sf unit, which is a size that is a cusp between a large 1 bedroom and a small 2 bedroom unit. I’m wondering if in such a case, a cramped 2 bedroom is really worth more than a spacious 1 bedroom.
This is what I consider “normal” sized units:
Studios – 450 – 600 sf
1 bedroom – 700 – 1000 sf
2 bedrooms – 1250 – 1,500 sf
3 bedrooms – 1,700 – 2,200 sf
It is the units that have square footages that fall BETWEEN the ones I list above that I have questions about whether they have substantially higher value just because they have more bedrooms in the same amount of space.
It doesn’t matter the size. A 2-bedroom will always sell for more, and be more desirable to buyers, than a 1-bedroom. And 3-bedrooms are certainly more desirable than 2, even if the third bedroom is small and can’t fit a bed.
Buyers think, “it’s small, but I can make it my office.”
Never, ever get rid of a bedroom.
And yes, a 1100 square foot 2-bedroom is more valuable than an 1100 square foot 1-bedroom.