The Almost New Construction Home in Albany Park: 4846 N. Lawndale
We’ve talked about the new construction single family home and the renovated single family home, but what about the house that is “95% new construction”?
This 4-bedroom home at 4856 N. Lawndale in Albany Park has been completely renovated- apparently down to the foundation.
The listing says the house has a basement with a 5th bedroom and limestone and marble baths. And yes, it has a garage.
It’s also been reduced by $165,400 in the last year.
Is this a steal at this price in that location?
Deborah Hess at Sudler Sotheby’s International has the listing. See more pictures here.
4856 N. Lawndale: 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 2 car garage, around 3500 square feet
- Sold in February 2006 for $290,000
- Originally listed in March 2008 for $624,900
- Reduced numerous times
- Currently listed at $459,500
- Taxes of $2694
- Central air
The bathroom and kitchen are hideous. The house has ZERO curb appeal and the architect should be hanged. Chicago has some of the worst new construction architecture I have ever seen in any city.
Edu – I’d be surprised if a “real” architect actually designed that. It looks like a contractor design that was probably stamped by a architect stamp for hire “architect”.
But I agree that alot of the new construction, particularly in the “edge” gentrified neighborhoods (like AP), is bad, bad, bad. Remember the “castle” house from earlier this year?
I’m not sure what they were going for with this rehab. In fact I’m pretty sure they didn’t either.
Lets start with the exterior: the cover over the front door looks disproportionately oversized. Theres about half as many windows as there could be on the front facade.
The kitchen: LOL! I don’t know where to start. Look at how the flooring “integrates” with the hardwood flooring. I don’t think I’ve seen a worse kitchen rehab.
On the bathroom upstairs same deal: the marble “integrates” with the drywall. LOL! Wow this flipper should’ve left their artistic vision in their head because they’re gonna take a bath on this fugly rehab.
What ever happened to the old adage of location location location location bla bla bla? If someone wanted to sell a $600,000 house, why did they build it here? Many developers obviously did not realize that not every Chicago neighborhood will support homes at this price range. The marble in this house is like $5000 rims on a Ford Focus.
There are thousands of house like this built all over the city by amateur developers.
I agree it’s never gonna make the cover of Architectural Digest….but it’s essentially new construction for $130 a square foot with a garage a low taxes to boot. The location isn’t great but it isn’t awful either. If you need a lot of space, want to live in the city, and aren’t rich, you have to make some compromises. I think this will sell for around $400K. Flame away.
I think they would have been better off NOT rehabbing the kitchen & bathroom. Wow that’s ugly! Hey maybe this will appeal to the eastern european types that own their own business and don’t want to live near midway anymore.
I did a quick search on Redfin and there isn’t any other SFH for sale within a 3 or 4 block radius; Only flats and courtyard condo conversions. The developer grossly miscalculated this one. I bet it goes into foreclosure before it sells. Who the hell wants a house right there when your neighbors are all apartments?
Obviously the builder had a storage bin full of a bunch of fake marble and needed to unload it somewhere. WOW overkill!
That said, it does have a few good points, but not enough to get it to sell.
A couple location points. In this part of Albany Park, north of Lawrence is generally has less gang/crime problems than south of Lawrence… there’s generally less slumlord apartment buildings, and more single-family homes.
However, north of Lawrence is the part of Albany Park that experienced massive flooding in September 2008 (or was it Oct.?). This house looks like it’s far enough away from the river that it might have been spared any flooding, but you’d be well served to check the basement and ask appropriate questions about flooding anyway.
Six blocks from the Kimball station is workable, however… walk those 6 blocks down Ainslie, and it’s quite nice… except in winter, of course.
homedelete:
“I did a quick search on Redfin and there isn’t any other SFH for sale within a 3 or 4 block radius;”
The key words here are “FOR SALE.” There’s 2 single family houses just south of this property. As I wrote in my previous comment, north of Lawrence generally has more single family homes than slumlord apartment buildings (which are in Albany Park) and/or condo conversions. Although I don’t understand what would be so bad about living next to a condo conversion if you’ve got a SFH w/parking.
Question: What would be so bad about living next to a condo conversion if you’ve got a SFH w/parking.”
Answer: Five child sex offenders in a 1/2 mile radius.
http://gis.chicagopolice.org/website/clearMap_rso/viewer.htm?GEOCODE=4846%20n%20lawndale&DIST=1320&RSOCODE=Y%20N&AGEFROM=18&AGETO=99
HD- there are 8 juvenile sex offenders near Grand/Wells and I don’t cnosider it that bad living there. Plenty of MILFS walking around with strollers, too. Should we steer clear of anywhere in Chicago where there’s a sex offender in a mile diameter?
THis house is FUGLY!!!! the developer was taking acid when he thought the bathroom and kitchen looked designer.
Well, you’ve opened yourself up now, homedelete.
How many sex offenders life within a 1/2 mile of YOUR house?
live, not life. Stupid typo. Bad rk.
ChiGuy: ALbany Park ain’t grand/wells
rk: i’m just making the conversation interesting, trying to contribute discussion to the property. I don’t doubt or dispute anything you’ve said.
homedelete:
But, you didn’t answer my question though, did you?
How does 5 sex offenders living in a half mile radius compare to where you currently live?
yep, ugly
Zero. I live near the disney ii school.
Actually, sorry, I didn’t answer your question. It doesn’t compare at all. There are no sex offenders within 1/4 mile radius of my home, probably because I live near the Disney II school and there are laws against sex offenders living near schools and playgrounds.
I’m not sure, but I remember hearing about how developers are greasing the alderman and zoning commission to allow for ridiculous construction projects all throughout the city. I think this is why we are seeing pathetic rehabs like the one above and the “Castle” in Sauganash.
the flooding issue is a serious one, is Albany Park going to be underwater a few days a year forever? I hope not…
Hey, Homedelete. I said 1/2 mile radius. Here’s your neighborhood, based on 1/2 mile of Disney ii school, 3815 N Kedvale Ave:
http://gis.chicagopolice.org/website/clearMap_rso/viewer.htm?GEOCODE=4846%20n%20lawndale&DIST=1320&RSOCODE=Y%20N&AGEFROM=18&AGETO=99
10 sex offenders. The exact same amount as in 1/2 mile radius of this Albany Park house.
So, if this has the same amount of sex offenders around as the place where you decided to live, I’m concluding that you’re scratching for reasons to bash this house’s location.
lol twice as many sex offenders in HD’s super awesome OIP hood.
Nice try, rk:
7 of the 10 sex offenders w/in a 1/2 mile of the disney ii are across Irving Park Road, on the other side of the highway, on the other side of the el tracks, on the other side of the metra track and east of pulaski. Two of the remaining three are south of addison and the last one is on Pulaski and what appears to be the east side.
Hardly my ‘hood.
There are five child sex offenders within a stone’s throw of the house listed here.
Hey OIP blows Albany Park out of the water any day. OIP and your soon to be neighborhood are both good places to live it’s just that it’s a matter of preference.
“Sonies on March 24th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
lol twice as many sex offenders in HD’s super awesome OIP hood.”
Could you find a simliar property to this one for the same price in OIP or RN? Probably not.
folks, it’s not like you can control where sex offenders move. all of those stats could change drastically in a very short period of time.
“it’s not like you can control where sex offenders move”
No but you can certainly influence them and with a school name like “Disney School” I’d say thats going to get a few guys named Chester driving vans and giving away candy mulling about.
Living at the very end of the brown line is like living at the very end of the blue line. Sure, its TECHNICALLY “Chicago” but it is definitely NOT “the city”.
a,
Never been there, have you?
I visited this house a few months ago…at the time, the price was $489,900. There are some strong points to this house, and some (fairly obvious) weak points.
As a previous poster pointed out, the price per square foot is relatively low…you’re getting a lot of house for your money. The rooms are fairly large, and the master BR in particular is very spacious. The basement is also spacious and has a decent (but not great) ceiling height…it would be certainly reasonable to make this a rec room or kids play area. I didn’t notice any water damage, so I have no reason to suspect that any occurred. The house is all brick, which seems to be uncommon at this combination of price and size, given the fact that this is almost completely new construction.
Now, the bad parts…personally, I thought the area was a bit shady. Undesirables were hanging around on the street right near where my car was parked. Although you can’t tell from the pics, the house is bounded on the north side by a church, and there’s a basketball net right next to the fence…can you say ‘broken windows’? The future owners of this home probably can. While I was there, some kids playing ball bounced the ball off the home’s wall…not good. Additionally, the door leading out of the north side of the house appeared to have recently been egged…kinda funny the realtor didn’t catch that before her showing. This clearly left a bad taste in my mouth.
With regards to the kitchen and bath, yep they really are as strange as they appear in the pics. Really poorly done…someone trying to be artistic, but it just ended up looking like crap. I didn’t notice the lack of windows on the house’s front face while I was inside.
These guys went down to 450 yesterday.