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Taking the Pulse of the Chicago Luxury Market: It’s Not Good

ritz-carlton.jpg 

As the Spire dominates the Chicago housing market news, getting lost in the shuffle is the struggle other developers are having selling their top product.

David Roeder, housing columnist for the Sun-Times,  wrote today about a lawsuit between Prism Development, developer of the Ritz-Carlton condos at 664 N. Michigan Avenue, and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District over the use of an alley behind the Farwell Building that is owned by the MWRD.  But more interestingly, he states that the sales of the Ritz are only at 40% (out of 86 units.) 

Sales were at 40% weeks ago.

Basically, there have been no sales in weeks. 

I would consider the Ritz development to be one of the better on the upper end.  Michigan Avenue is hot and people want to live there.  They are putting in upper end finishes and the building will have a boutique feel.  I would think the building would attract quite a few international buyers.

But I guess not.

If even the Ritz can’t sell its units, what hope is there for the others?

The luxury market is dead right now.

Prices at the Ritz start at $1.25 million.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Market Conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Taking the Pulse of the Chicago Luxury Market: It’s Not Good”

  1. Streeterville Realtor on October 3rd, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    That price is for a 1 bedroom unit!

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  2. Right- but the square footage is on the larger side. It’s not 700 square feet.

    Maybe that’s why they’re having a hard time selling them.

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  3. Streeterville Realtor on October 3rd, 2007 at 7:22 pm

    I believe they are at least 1400 sq ft with dens and large separate kitchens

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  4. Even if Rodgers is telling the truth that 40% are sold, that is the same as it was several months ago when a banner was put on the side of the building. Thus, it is fair to assume that sales are dead in the water. Furthermore, Rodgers is not known for his honesty. If he says 40%, he is probably rounding up from 33%.

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  5. Agreed. The developers always exaggerate the number of sold units anyway. So if he’s saying its at 40%, it’s probably less.

    Trump has been at 75% or 80% for the last year or two. What’s the real number? We won’t know until the closings.

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  6. Trump is at 60% according to the most recent report in Crain’s.

    “Buyers have signed contracts for condos valued at about $600 million, he says. He estimates the value of the project at sell-out to total about $1 billion.”

    http://chicagorealestatedaily.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=26673

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