Pre-Foreclosure of West Village Townhouse: 1655 W. Ontario
This townhouse at 1655 W. Ontario has an interesting history. (Yes, I know- it looks like a single family home but the listing says its a townhouse.)
It was built in 2002 and has sold four times already and now is up for sale again.
But the good times of ever increasing appreciation are now clearly over.
1655 W. Ontario: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 3500 square feet
- Sold in October 2002 for $646,500
- Sold in April 2005 for $560,000
- Sold in January 2006 for $785,000
- Sold in June 2006 for $890,000
- Currently listed as “pre-foreclosure” for $650,000
- No assessments
- @Properties has the listing
$100,000 price appreciation in only six months in 2006? Those were the days….
I love this place. I can see why its owner hankered after it.
The sick, sad part is that this individual, whoever he/she is, could have stepped down a couple of notches to something more in keeping with his/her means, and still have had a really super place that he’s still be living in and enjoying, with no financial worries.
One of the first laws of life is that you have to be able to pay for what you get. You can’t have something you want just because you want, else I’d have a co-op at 2430 N Lakeview with $5MM worth of antiques in it. Not to mention my wardrobe, which sure as hell wouldn’t consist of black, black, black to keep the dry cleaning bills down and not have to be buying matching accessories all the time.
Better the $200K place I can easily pay for than the $700K glamour crib that makes a slave and kicks me out on my duff.
I love your blog for the great photos of interesting places but even more for the truth it tells about the Chicago bubble market as well as those elsewhere- that absolutely everybody in every income bracket, from $25K a year factory workers clear up to $500K money mangers, was living over his or her head, usually WAY over, just because lending standards lapsed completely and enabled anybody and everyone to borrow money they could never hope to pay back in 3 lifetimes to buy houses and matching appurtenances that go way beyond decent comfort and amenity, let alone necessity.
The country is going to take a decade to recover from this lunatic binge.
Don’t my Lexis/Nexis handy right now, but I’d be interested to see the ownership changes….were the parties related?
with the frequent flipping, my nose smells mortgage shenanigans…
Based on the Tribune’s “Recent Home Sales” on their website, nothing jumps out. 2002 sale was Popovytch to Mazek. 2005 sale was “Homecomings Financial Network” to Munoz. 2006 sales were Munoz to Williams to Peters.
I agree with bhm.
It drops $86,500 from ’02 to ’05? The boom years?!
Then explodes $225,000 in nine months from April ’05 to Jan. ’06?
What’s up with this?
It’s a townhome in combo with 1654 W Ohio. They appear to share a rear wall, mid-block.
The list of sales also excludes a prior (pre-) foreclosure sale (with a $0 Deed from Judicial Sales Corp to the Grantor of the ’05 sale) that preceded the $560k price.
The two townhouses apparently just got separate tax PINs, so looking at the records is a bit of a mess. I think (emp. on think) that the developer still owns the Ohio street TH and has $725k in total mortgages on it. The tax bills for both properties have the apparent developer as the addressee.
Also interesting is that the assessor thinks this property is only 1920 square feet. Yes, the assessor’s square footage numbers are notoriously unreliable, and yes, the tax bill paid in ’07 was $7k+, so it doens’t look like any monkey business, but it’s still strange.
The neighborhood looks fine during the day. My coworker who used to live couple blocks away warned me about the neighborhood. I drove by it tonight and I do not like what I see. The streets are deserted and the surrounding areas do not have enough commercial developments. However, the whole block is being redeveloped with rehabs and new constructions. I think it will be a great deal if you plan to live for 5 years and wait for the area to develop.
Thanks for the comment Laura.
I agree that it’s very interesting to see that the real estate bubble wasn’t just the subprime mortgages but cut across all class lines (from rich to poor.) And, as you said, a lot of people are living way beyond their means and are now being exposed.
The music has stopped, who is left without a chair?
Excellent analogy Sabrina. Just like the dot-bomb bubble some in this one made out quite handsomely and weren’t left holding the hot potato. The difference here is that its going to take a lot longer for those left holding the hot potatoes to realize it as RE is a much less liquid market.
Much kudos to those who made money and cashed it out during this bubble. Probably more due to luck than skill, timing counts for everything in bubbles. And the good news is that only those who were likely RE professionals/non-hobbyists made out good with timing due to tax laws.
Its going to be the average Joe and Jane along with unlucky flippers that pay. Oh yes and the taxpayer, too. It looks like the taxpayer is going to pay part of the burden for Joe and Jane not understanding the nuances of money and buying based on “monthly payment”.
You know its a bubble when everyone does it and start giving you “hot” tips. In the stock market, you know its time to pull out when your shoe shine gives you stock tips, according to a famous investor. I remember during the dot com bubble, “everyone” made money by buying and selling tech stocks that had no merit and I saw the same thing in flipping real estate. If you didn’t do it, you were considered stupid. By the time ordinary people were involved, it popped and now we are in a bigger mess than the dot com boom. With stocks, you lose the value of the underlying assets, in real estate, you are leveraged so you can potentially lose more than what you put down.
No matter the regulation, can we really stop someone from making irrational decisions? Unless its illegal, a person has all the freedom to do what they want. How about the mortgage brokers and real estate agents who told the clients that they can “afford” it? They can’t be held liable just like a stock broker who steers his clients towards certain stocks that declines in value in the future.
Did the government bail people out after the dot com bubble? Why should the government bail people out from this mess? It’s a huge moral hazard when people become reliant upon government to bail them out. The sensible taxpayers who did not overreach will be stuck holding the bag. As a result, when I put in a lowball bid/vulture, I do not feel bad at all. I need to get my share of the pie too.
Right on Josh. Real estate cannot recover until the last of the “equity” locusts are flushed out of the market. Too many people began to think that real estate only goes up, you can’t lose money in real estate, and a profit on a home sale is a civil right. You don’t have to be too old to remember a time when people did in fact lose money on home sales, and those days have returned.
And I couldn’t agree more about the taxpayer bailouts. Any bailout will just encourage more irresponsible behavior.
REALTYTRAC – does anybody use this site? How come every time I get it on it seems to not be working.