Third Biggest Story of 2019: What Will Happen to Chicago’s Luxury Condo Market?
With the US economy still chugging along 10-years after the last recession, and Chicago’s downtown job machine still adding high paying jobs from the likes of Salesforce and Google, developers have been adding luxury condo units by the dozens.
The most high profile luxury condo project is The Vista at 363 E. Wacker Drive in Lakeshore East.
The combo hotel and condo building will be 101 stories.
It will be the third tallest building in Chicago upon completion in 2020.
In July, the sales office announced a $18.5 million contract on a full floor unit on the 71st and 72nd floors, complete with an 8,000 square foot outdoor terrace. From the Chicago Tribune:
The record local home price remains at $58.75 million, which Ken Griffin, head of the Citadel financial empire, paid in late 2017 for four floors at the top of No. 9 Walton. A Winnetka home traded between members of the Crown family in 2015 for $25 million and was recorded in property records as a conventional sale.
The third-highest price is $19.5 million, which Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky paid for a Glencoe estate in 2014, and fourth is the $18.75 million sale of a Park Tower condo in 2015 to a firm with ties to “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments in Chicago.
At the moment, the condo combo is the highest-priced home in Vista Tower. The top residential unit, on floors 91 and 92, is priced at $17.4 million, according to Jim Losik, Magellan’s marketing director. At about 6,800 square feet, it’s smaller than the 71st/72nd-floor combo.
If other buyers combine floors, their purchase prices might eclipse the $18.5 million unit, Zammatta said. From the 71st floor to the top, all condos are full floors. With the two new contracts, those upper-floor units are half sold, Losik said.
But out of 396 units, just 40% were sold as of July 2018. There were still 222 units for sale, with starting prices of $1 million and up.
Usually the luxury condo market moves in tandem with the stock market.
With the stock market suddenly on the decline, what will happen to Chicago’s luxury condo market in 2019?
Will it be a slowdown or a bust?
But out of 396 units, just 40% were sold as of July 2018. There were still 222 units for sale, with starting prices of $1 million and up.
Is there an updated number for this?
“Is there an updated number for this?”
Not that I’ve seen. Developers usually release the numbers when there is good news.