Substation Loft in Edgewater Listed $117K Under 2007 Purchase Price: 1128 W. Ardmore
Thanks to the reader who pointed out that this 1 bedroom plus den duplex loft at 1128 W. Ardmore in Edgewater is still on the market and has now been reduced again.
We last chattered about this unit in June 2009. See our prior chatter here.
This building is a former Com Ed substation and was converted into lofts in 2006.
Yes, it is adjacent to the red line tracks.
The loft has concrete ceilings and exposed brick. The kitchen has stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops.
Is this price now getting juicy?
John Scheiblhofer at @Properties still has the listing. See the pictures here.
Unit #3: 1 bedroom plus den, 1.5 baths, 1200 square feet, duplex
- Sold in February 2007 for $317,500
- Originally listed in June 2008 for $320,000
- Was listed in August 2008 for $318,500 (parking included)
- Reduced numerous times
- Was listed in June 2009 for $285,500 (plus $14,000 for parking)
- Lis pendens foreclosure filed in July 2009
- Reduced numerous times
- Currently listed for $199,999 (includes the parking)
- Sold “as-is”
- Assessments of $224 a month
- Taxes are $5115
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
- Bedroom: 14×12
I don’t like the trend in loft design of sticking the kitchen in the middle – you end up with a tiny living / dining area and long or huge hallways that seem like wasted space. This place has a smaller living room and bedroom than my old 750 sq ft 1-bedroom apt.
Props to Bob on price on this one! First post from last thread prognosticated a 100k drop, in one year. Six months and off by 10k is a solid call.
so is this a ‘Short-sale’; this guys got $280 is mortgages and its unlikely he’s bringing $90K+ to clsoing. Especially since he owes at least $2K in back assessments.
Yet the listing does not mention ‘bank/corp/3rd party approval’ or anything to indicate other taht ‘as/is’.
Lots of buyers aren’t interested in shortsales (or have given up after having multiple fail). Is this just another bait-and-switch by another crafty realtard?
For any (decent) re agents here, as I undertand it- there is a field for REO/short sales/ bank owned. Is that correct? How does the process work on the MLS entry side? What are the regulation regarding REO/short listings and what infor needs to be included in the listing?
” sticking the kitchen in the middle ”
It has two levels, so it’s not quite in the middle. Can’t quite figure out whats behind the kitchen, tho, as the listed is messed up–kitchen on “lower level” living room on “main level”.
I can’t believe anyone thought this place was worth $317.5. I don’t think anything is behind the kitchen. I bet the “den” is that wasted space on the lower level under the stairs. This is basically a one bedroom with a weird floorplan.
This thing is priced fairly…if it was in Lincoln Park and not right next to the el tracks!
“Yes, it is adjacent to the red line tracks.”
Most people don’t even want to RENT this close to the tracks, let alone buy.
Anyone else notice the taxes went from $4,399 to $5,115?
“Anyone else notice the taxes went from $4,399 to $5,115?”
So, we have proof that there is a realtor who updates tax numbers. Bravo, John!
Bob if you can show me a 200k 1200 sq ft updated one bedroom not on the tracks in Lincoln Park I would be very happy.
I’ll let you know when I find it john but only after I get it under contract.
john,
MLS #: 07446026 is the kind of competition this place has. Its 200k, a 2-bedroom 1 bath with ample outdoor space in Lakeview (SoPo as some call it LOL). Its also not on the el tracks.
Sorry the original owner paid 317k for it but funny money mortgages allowed those who aren’t good at knowing the intrinsic value of things to affect real estate valuations.
I will say at 200k I think its a lot closer to its final price than it was at 320k though.
“I can’t figure out how anybody thought this was worth $317K.”
No kidding. But anything was worth anything you said it was worth back in the last febrile days of the Great Housing Rampage. All you had to do to get financed for anything you wanted was to lie on your app about your income, and there were a 1000 slezoid mortgage companies who’d ram you straight through. No kidding, a friend of mine who owned her own business, who barely made $40K a year after expenses when things were good, was offered a $2M mortgage on a new 10-unit mixed use bldg. in Wicker Park, which she wisely turned her back on when she ran the numbers and came to the conclusion that the likely rent revenue would only about half cover the $2M mortgage… which would have been a pay option ARM. But she could have gotten written by any one of about 50 sleazy mortgage companies, who were selling off this crud paper to Fannie and Ginnie and Freddie as fast as they wrote it. And it was always understood that the treasury would step in to save these agencies from the fallout.
We went crazy for about 10 years, that’s all. Absolutely crazy. And we’re still not scared sane yet, or at least our government leaders aren’t. Now FHA is the big “subprime” lender, and has a combined delinquency and default rate of 24%. They will need to be bailed out next.
Eh, I kind of like it. It’s nice having your bedroom on a different floor from the living area, and the extra half bath is a real nice thing to have in a 1BR. Still, a bit much for a 1BR right on the tracks in Edgewater, especially considering those taxes.
“I don’t think anything is behind the kitchen”
Half bath, I’d wager. Probably a coat closet. Laundry, maybe, too. But that’s gotta be it.
Given where prices in Edgwater are going, and the location right next to the tracks, this place is worth $150K tops.
Also, this building is known for construction problems. Beware.
I have an alcoholic buddy who used to be a mortgage broker. He likes to reminisce that he used to be able to put people of all walks of life into expensive places with zero down and money back at closing and he made six figures doing it. Obviously fate hasn’t been kind to him as of lately but reminiscing about the good ol’ days remains free.
I personally know someone who makes $30k a year, and took out a neg am option arm in 2006 for $1,000,000; and then almost immediately refied it with a different bank! I think they made a payment or two on the first note in late 2006 and then first payment default on the refi in early 2007.
And you’re not going to believe this: this person STILL lives in the house pending loss mitigation. It’s in the Wicker Park, Westtown, Bucktown area, I’d rather not be more specific than that.
“Also, this building is known for construction problems. Beware.”
Just curious, on what basis, the building itself or the conversion? Speaking as a former ComEd contractor that spent more time than I ever wanted to in their substations, most of them could withstand a bomb.
The building is fine, it’s the “rehab” and build out of the apartments that is not so fine. From what I heard, apartments were not finished properly and one had a hole in one wall that looked directly into another unit.
I love this complex by the way. I love those buildings. But I’d want the unit at a price that would let me correct mistakes made in the rehab and install good soundproofing.
Easy money definitely helped inflate prices, but I still don’t get how someone thought this particular place was worth $317k, easy money or not.
Truly amazing how crazy financing got. Looking at some of the old emails and flyers I used to get from the account executives from the big lenders is kind of funny now. Flyers with huge headings “Mattress Money Ok!!” “Two Days Out of Bankruptcy!” “Stated w-2!!!”
Bob, the mortgage business is actually doing pretty decent right now for those that survived. Fortunately, most of the quick money types have been flushed out.
home delete, do I ever feel like a loser, reading about this person who makes $30K a year and is squatting for free for months on end in the $1M (or maybe $500K now) place he “bought” with a scam mortgage. The biggest wave of foreclosures, resulting from the record NOD filings of 2009, have yet to hit, so I auger your friend has many more months of rent-free luxury living in front of him.
Silly me- I thought that I had to actually PAY for something I bought, so here I sit, still paying rent. I mean, I, too, could be living rent-free in an upper-bracket condo that I lied about my income to buy. Why do I keep thinking that I need to get the payments in line with my income and make a substantial downpayment?
“Bob, the mortgage business is actually doing pretty decent right now for those that survived. Fortunately, most of the quick money types have been flushed out.”
Russ for educated mortgage professionals who add value I don’t doubt that. My buddy has no formal education, just lots of sales experience, likely why he was one of the ones that got flushed out.
Still a guy with only a HS degree who managed to make decent coin in multiple fields (as an options trader in previous decades) he’s managed to do better than most.
“Why do I keep thinking that I need to get the payments in line with my income and make a substantial downpayment?”
Because you thought (like most of us here) life is a fair playing field. But the thing is society functions well even if not everyone is honest. It continues to function well even if just most people are honest and a minority are dishonest.
But things really break down when it switches and the majority start to act dishonest. The danger is many of the honest see the system for what it really is and how flawed it is.
Bob, we function only with the current level of dishonesty and fantasy because the taxpayers have backed it all, and because this recent period of economic lunacy was preceded by 100 years of incredible growth and prosperity.
And that’s why we went insane, because the industrial productivity on which our affluence was founded had ceased by the 90s, leaving a hollowed-out economic base; and the only way we could continue to party on was to play pretend and crank up the credit production. In other words, we moved from commerce& industry as the drivers of the economy, to financialization (the “service” economy) and that is the point at which we were cooked. All we could do was sell each other houses and loans, and we needed asset inflation to drive the whole thing.
And asset inflation was driven by the taxpayer-backed crazy lending machine, until the disparity between prices and what people could honestly afford to pay was so wide we couldn’t even pretend anymore.
It’s is going to take a long period of adjustment and deflation to get the economy back on an honest footing, that is, based on savings and investment in productive activity, like MAKING things other than more empty houses there’s no one to buy.
Some of these units are pretty big; there used to be plans online, but no more. There are some weird choices in the layouts from what I remember. The units in the original portions of the building look fantastic – and frankly unique. I’m not surprised about the price drop though, I find the area overpriced and there’s been a large uptick in petty (and not so petty) crime at night and on weekends in the immediate area, not horrible, but a noticeable increase.
Is it really appropriate to convert a substation into living quarters? The transformers likely had lubricating oils containing PCBs.
Was this place properly inspected by an environmental auditor? Given the way things work in Chicago, I’d be very cautious.
I can still remember back in the days when people visited yochicago.com and this place was being sold as a new conversion. I ripped Zekas on the pricing and he defended it in his smug way, saying that $317,500 was a fine price for a 1 bedroom on the tracks in Edgewater. Who’s right now, Zekass?
He was such a gentlemen whenever he kicked a poster off his site.
Zekass is a master revisionist of history on par with the Soviets. He’s still right and back then he surely never made any of those things you claimed and you can’t link to them and Google’s cache is surely lying.
Joe Zekass make benefit glorious nation of real estate bubbledom!
I would love to see Joe comment now.