The Starter Home With Your Own Pool: 820 W. 33rd Place in Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the oldest neighborhood in Chicago and this 2-bedroom cottage bungalow at 820 W. 33rd Place reflects that as it was built in 1888.
It is on a larger than normal Chicago lot of 25×150 which allows for ample space in the backyard for an above ground pool and a 2-car garage.
The listing says the house has been remodeled with new windows, appliances and a 1-year old roof.
There is a full unfinished basement, a fenced in yard and pergo floors throughout.
The house also has central air.
The property has been reduced $10,000 since September.
Is this a good starter house?
William Sevening at Century 21 Galaxy Realty has the listing. See the pictures here.
820 W. 33rd Place: 2 bedroom, 1 bath, no square footage listed, 2 car garage
- Sold in May 1991 for $74,500
- Originally listed in September 2009 for $275,000
- Reduced twice
- Currently listed for $265,000
- Taxes of $1162
- Central Air
- Pool
- Bedroom #1: 11×9
- Bedroom #2: 8×9
- Living room: 15×12
- Kitchen: 15×9
- Eating area: 10×9
- Unfinished basement
This place is similar in size to a 2/1 condo except that it has a backyard. There’s even a crib in the 2nd bedroom! We’ve seen that before.
1 bathroom is the killer here
“This place is similar in size to a 2/1 condo except that it has a backyard”
Yeah, i can see how you can look at it that way. What you are missing is that huge two car garage with LOTS of storage above it. plus the yard is large enough to expand the house in the back to add another bedroom and bathroom. Also you have a unfinished attic which you can create more space, plus a basemnt to create even more space.
now wen you look at it my way, is it still comparable to a condo?
this is a great starter home that you can grow into your lifetime home.
One bathroom used to be the norm. The standard Chicago Bungalow has one bathroom. Most older two flats are 2/1’s or 3/1’s; my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother all grew up in 2/1’s greystone two flats in Logan Sq. and one bath was the norm. However, by modern standards, one bath is woefully deficient. I live in a 2/1 and one bathroom is manageable but far less than ideal. My next home will have at least 2 or more bathrooms.
The current owners have a different opinion on the matter. They’ve lived their 18 years and have failed to finish the attic or add to the back of the house. This is a 2/1 in a rather non-descript southside Chicago neighborhood. This should be much much cheaper. $150k max, even with the granite countertops.
“this is a great starter home that you can grow into your lifetime home.”
I know the grass is always greener, but Bridgeport does seem like the good life some times. Cheap, close to downtown, still livable.
If you want to know what grooves house looked like when he bought it, Its pretty much this house but on a double lot. a two bedroom 1 bathroom unfinished attic and basement.
I put a guest bedroom and a full bath in the basement.
the attic i turned into a Family room/Media room. (stairs are off the kitchen so this works).
I wanted to build a addition to the back of the house, but realized i have too much space already and dont need to yet so i went to town with a huge deck that wraps around into the driveway.
yeah my bedroom sizes are “vinatage”, i think master is 10×10 and the second is 9×9 (i havent measured in years) and the closets are FRICKEN TINY!!!!
but with all the storage in the basement and attic that we have we adapted and “rotate” the closest with the seasons.
you cant really do that with a condo unless you move each time to a bigger place. (well i legally couldnt put a 14×11 bedroom in the basement either)
$265k isn’t cheap.
It’s close to downtown compared to Roger’s Park but you have to drive the Dan Ryan or take the Red Line (or the Halsted bus!)
Livable? Unless you are a white city employee of Irish heritage who frequently drop the N word in casual conversations, then yes, in that sense, it’s livable. Even Daley doesn’t live in Bridgeport anymore.
If you head a few blocks south you’re in Canaryville which is, you know, not a good area.
“Cheap, close to downtown, still livable.”
Oh and in addition to this, this looks a lot like my uncle in law’s house in St. Louis with the friggin pool taking up 90% of the backyard, although his house I believe is a 3/1, and it cost him like 25k. And might be worth 100k now.
I can’t fathom more 2 or 3 people sharing a single bathroom. What does one do in emergency situations? Use the kitchen sink or a potted plant?
“I can’t fathom more 2 or 3 people sharing a single bathroom. What does one do in emergency situations? Use the kitchen sink or a potted plant?”
i can tell you that the next owner will add at least a half bath. When they built starter home most if not all the time they plumbed up all the way to the attic. If you ever go into a unfinished attic you will see pipe coming up through the attic floor and about a foot.
“$150k max, even with the granite countertops.”
They think that the land would sell for $100k+, which remains non-absurd. $150k is teardown pricing.
Didn’t you see/hear the report that the average federal salary is $70k+? City/county/state salaries aren’t much behind the feds. This place is “affordable” for someone who would live in B’port at around $240k.
I hear few people from Bridgeport using the “N” word and those who would be inclined to more often use the “S” word. Actually both S words.
I love it when those who decry racism act classist.
In any event that’s a pretty nice part of Bridgeport. I live in the south Loop and my wife and I often find ourselves over there for shopping and such and my wife likes the neighborhood quite a bit; if and when we buy that’s a neighborhood we’d consider. But I’m a stoop sitter from way back.
LOL at HD’s characterization of Bridgeport residents – though you’ve forgotten the myriad Italian-descended folk. Remember Lenard Clark? The Dan Ryan is effectively Hadrian’s wall between BPort’s “fugghedaboutits” and “fer fook’s sakers.”
One more bedroom, another half bath, and someone to tear down that awful pool and I could be reasonably comfortable starting a family here – unless I wanted to go downtown without driving. The red line south of Roosevelt gets hairy.
Sonies, do they live in Granite Shitty? Land of above ground pools, it’s like W. Virginia, the nicer the pool, the worse the house.
“Bridgeport does seem like the good life some times. Cheap, close to downtown, still livable.”
This listing is hilarious and I agree with HD that 265k is not “cheap” for this POS. Chances are the owner is also a chain smoker and has a raspy voice that makes them sound 120. To think some idiot might bail out this dipshyt and fund their retirement.
Dropping 75k in 1991 and never even updating the basement or attic then expecting 7% annual appreciation over a 19yr period says they might have spent too much time lounging in their awesome pool.
I wonder if they host WWE RAW get togethers on wrasslin’ night too.
Bridgeport was nice when it was really cheaper than northside hoods. But even these days even the condos aren’t significantly so. Only props worth bothering with there are multi-unit investment properties (many of which seem to be CF+) and Bridgeport Village for those that can afford it.
bridgeport is another undervalued south side community. i’d buy this just to walk to comiskey
“Off Market” on the link now.
I live in Bridgeport. It takes me 7 minutes to get to Monroe Harbor where I keep my sailboat. That should deflate a couple of stereotypes. Racism exists in Bridgeport but is not the norm. Check the last census tracts. Bridgeport is one of two neighborhoods in Chicago that are classified as mixed. Large Asian and Hispanic components along with ethnic white (not just Irish) and a small number of African Americans (yes its true) combine to make this a truly mixed neighborhood. The other neighborhood classified by the census folks as mixed is Hyde Park. The housing stock is crap but the proximity to downtown, the low property taxes and the small town feel make it a unique and very livable place.
I would imagine Hyde Park is classified as mix only because of UChicago.
what????
“Is this a good starter house?”
No house in Chicago these days is a good “starter house” for procreaters because CPS really stink vs. suburban schools and the value for your money is so much better in a suburb with better demographics.
“Starter house” implies you’re going to upgrade within a few years without taking a capital loss on the sale, which is not supported by current data.
The whole “starter house” then “upgrade” via selling to “Greater Fool” strategy is basically over.
If you want to live here for awhile then yea go ahead and buy. But for some reason the idiots at the margin that affected RE prices during the period 2003-2008 weren’t the salt of the earth neighborhood folks. They were folks who wanted a city experience and own a “starter home” then “upgrade”.
Guess what folks RE isn’t like a computer you can just upgrade.
I will laugh every time I hear “starter home” on this site, at least until Case-Shiller shows two years of at least steady year/year valuations in this region.
White folks cannot win. They flee to the suburbs (like the Jews that left Lawndale at the first sight of color), they are called racist. They stick it out (mostly Poles, Irish, Italians not guilty of white flight & self-segregation like Jewish-ethnics) and they still get called racist. Come on…..it gets tiresome. I’d say the people who fled up to Skokie or Highland Park and self-segregated themselves are the racists. People in Bridgeport had to put with the Robert Taylor homes for years on end. Of course they might be wary of people who dislked middle-class taxpayers with a different skin color.
I am the second owner of the house. I purchased it from my grandmother’s life-long friend whose father was the original owner. I paid $30,500. I did a lot of restorative work, but was both unable to afford major renovations or additions at the time. I was 25. The house is solid. The old Lithuanian neighborhood is good, although better if more Lithuanians maintained the neighborhood and could have saved St. George Catholic parish on Lituanica. In my opinion, way too much spent on “the pool”. Easily, the house could have been expanded toward the yard. When the roof was replaced, they could have expanded upward. The basement was half-way finished. Whomever made decisions on this cute house made the wrong calls. Now, perhaps like the property that was adjacent(a junk) it may be a candidate for teardown and rebuild. Sad!!!