Sophisticated 3-Bedroom with Vintage Charm: 640 W. Fullerton Parkway in Lincoln Park
This high first floor 3-bedroom at 640 W. Fullerton Parkway in East Lincoln Park just came on the market.
This 4-unit building has front balconies and a garage in back.
If it looks familiar, that’s because we chattered about this actual unit back in October 2016. See our chatter here.
It has many vintage features including crown molding, wainscoting, ceiling medallions and a wood burning fireplace in the living room.
French doors lead to a small balcony in the front of the building. The unit also has a private deck off the kitchen in the back of the property.
There’s a full size dining room and built-ins.
The third bedroom has converted into a family room which is open to the kitchen.
The kitchen has modern wood-style cabinets, black counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Those cabinets extend into the family room.
In the 2015 chatter, we debated what those cabinets were with some of you concluding they were a walnut finish from Ikea. Still true?
There’s a master suite with a bathroom and walk-in-closet.
It has central air and garage parking but there’s no in-unit washer/dryer. The listing says there’s one in the basement and there’s a “possible” hook-up in the kitchen area.
The listing says the seller needs to close in December.
Listed at $675,000, it has been reduced $15,000 to $660,000.
That’s just $10,000 above the 2015 selling price of $650,000.
In 2015, it went under contract the first week it was on the market and sold for $1,000 over the list price.
Has Lincoln Park price appreciation stalled?
Emily Sachs Wong at @Properties has the listing. See the pictures and floor plan here.
Unit #1: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, no square footage listed (but the old listing said it was “over” 2000 square feet)
- Sold in June 1992 for $302,500
- Sold in September 1994 for $323,500
- Sold in July 1998 for $425,000
- Sold in June 2013 for $425,000
- Was listed in October 2015 for $649,000
- Sold in December 2015 for $650,000
- Originally listed in October 2018 for $675,000
- Reduced
- Currently listed at $660,000
- Assessments are $325 a month (they were also $325 a month in 2015) (includes heat, water, exterior maintenance, scavenger, snow removal)
- Taxes are now $8,820 (they were $8425 in 2015)
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the basement but listing says there may be a “possible” hook-up in the kitchen area
- Garage parking included
- Wood burning fireplace
- Bedroom #1: 13×12
- Bedroom #2: 11×14
- Family room/den/Bedroom #3: 11×14
- Deck: 10×20
How is this three bedrooms when that’s basically a dining room connected to the kitchen?
WTF indeed zona…
amazing that someone like ESW would misrepresent this property so badly
Prior listing called it a 2+den, which is at least reasonable.
*no way* is that a bedroom. the front room is closer to being a bedroom.
“amazing that someone like ESW would misrepresent this property so badly”
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Don’t be amazed, facts are fluid. Just ask Gary.
Fullerton is always clogged right here. Not a particularly peaceful place to live.
We were looking for a 3 bedroom once and went to an open house. When we got there, the realtor said “you can just wall off the dining room and voila, it’s a 3 bdrm.” I told him I may put up a few walls and make it a 5 bdrm. Ridic.
Still a nice two bedroom condo despite the whitewashing of its vintage character. Still not buying the price though.
“*no way* is that a bedroom. the front room is closer to being a bedroom.”
It likely was a bedroom in the original floorplan. Back in the day, no one would have built with a “den” or otherwise useless room like that.
A reminder that a room must have some natural light (hence the 3/4th walls in many lofts) and a closet.
“A reminder that a room must have some natural light (hence the 3/4th walls in many lofts) and a closet.”
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I seem to recall that the Chicago building code required some natural light, and that one bedroom could not be the only passage into another bedroom. I don’t think that it required a closet inside the bedroom itself. I’ll have to check it out.
“It likely was a bedroom in the original floorplan.”
That makes it a one-bath then, right?
“I don’t think that [the building code] required a closet inside the bedroom itself”
It doesn’t. It is theoretically a mls requirement, but, as you can see with this listing, not enforced.
yes, yes, the architectural review design standards ask that each bedroom have a closet, but that is not the building code, nor the zoning code, and has zero effect on existing buildings/units.
“It is theoretically a mls requirement, but, as you can see with this listing, not enforced.”
It’s enforced if another agent complains to the MLS that it’s a violation.
Apparently I was wrong about the closet requirement. I thought it had to have one to qualify, but it doesn’t.
The MLS requirements apparently are:
Basement bedrooms (50% below adjacent grade level) may NOT be counted in the total bedrooms count.
A bedroom is defined as a private room capable of being closed off from other living space, which does not have its only entrance from another bedroom.
This definition will meet appraiser standards for bedrooms and would exclude tandem rooms.
A room without a closet is countable as a bedroom.
The natural light requirement is required under the code, not the MLS. It either has to have a window or the 3/4th walls.
“Basement bedrooms (50% below adjacent grade level) may NOT be counted in the total bedrooms count.”
This also almost never gets followed. Most of the 5 and 6 bedroom places on the northside have at least one in the basement. Basically all of the duplex downs have at least one in the basement.
“A bedroom is defined as a private room capable of being closed off from other living space”
I guess they needed to be explicit with the “…without the construction of a new wall”