According to the New York Times, out of town buyers are flocking to Chicago to buy up second homes because Chicago is seen as affordable and stable.
CELEBRATING their wedding anniversary in April at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, where they were engaged 10 years ago, Chris and Kristine Warnes knew they would be taking home beautiful memories of a luxurious weekend. They had no idea that they would be taking home a new condominium, too — a pied-à-terre with views of the deep blue of Lake Michigan and the bustling street life of the Magnificent Mile along Michigan Avenue.
About a week after they returned home to the suburb of Naperville, Ill., their offer of $290,000 for a 900-square-foot loft in a former Montgomery Ward building, now called Six North Michigan, was accepted. The unit, listed at $325,000, has Italian kitchen cabinetry with granite and tile accents throughout, and access to building amenities like a theater, a gym and a heated indoor garage.
“Well, of course, if we’re offered something that’s listed $30,000 under the customized price everybody else would have to pay, we’re going to jump on that,” Mr. Warnes said. “For several years, we had talked about a place in the city. It will allow us to live out our dreams earlier that we thought.”
For the Warneses, it all started with a short walk from the hotel east to Millennium Park, that jewel of green space that earlier this decade transformed a rather barren stretch of downtown into an art, dining and entertainment destination. Looking back at the skyline, the Warneses noticed a beautiful old building advertising converted condos.
As luck would have it, several models were open. They liked what they saw. As even greater luck would have it, on the way out they bumped into an agent, Kathleen Malone of @Properties, and she told them she had one unit that was a steal of a deal.
“We walked away after that just to make sure we had our figures in order and to make sure this wasn’t something we were doing on a whim,” said Mr. Warnes, 36, a project manager for a global staffing company. “But this was an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
For some other buyers, the relatively cheap prices, the international airport and the lure of the possibility of the 2016 Olympic Games were the reasons behind the recent purchase.
This Swiss-based family chose Chicago over other international cities.
“We could have picked London, could have picked Italy or another place in Switzerland, but we like the Gold Coast,” said Abdellatif Laasraoui, 47, referring to the area north of the Magnificent Mile where his family moved into a half-million-dollar vacation condo last year. “There is no comparison in space or comfort. You’d have to pay 10 times more to get something comparable.”
“And,” added Mr. Laasraoui, an executive for a steel manufacturing company, “to commute from Chicago, it is very easy. I can go anywhere in the world from Chicago.”
Chicago is often seen as “cheap” compared to other big metropolitan cities with similar housing stock (i.e. New York and San Francisco.)
“I gave a tour of industrial Chicago to urban planning professionals from the Netherlands,” said Rachel Weber, a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, “and the substance of their questions had less to do with my talk than with residential real estate. They were all looking to scoop up affordable second homes.”
Elizabeth Ballis, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Properties, helped the Laasraouis find their Gold Coast condo. She could tell them firsthand about how downtown had evolved.
“I got married 40 years ago and we lived in the Loop, at 11th and Michigan,” she said. “There was nothing going on. People thought we were crazy.”
Now, Ms. Ballis is working with clients from places as varied as Tucson; Austin, Tex.; and Switzerland, who all want to be part of the downtown action. “It shows how things have changed,” she said.
Chicago is Becoming the Second-Home City [New York Times, Susan Saulny, July 9, 2009]
