Update: The Tale of Two Sales in Lincoln Park
We chattered about both of these Lincoln Park properties in June 2008.
2048 N. Sheffield was a 2-bedroom vintage unit with jacuzzi on the rooftop deck.
See the pictures here.
2708 N. Halsted was a 3-bedroom new construction where the seller was trying to sell only 1-year later. It had a 960 square foot deck.
See the pictures here.
Both units sold. How did the sellers fare?
Here’s the history for 2048 N. Sheffield #3:
Unit #3: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths
- Sold in July 2005 for $630,000
- Was listed in March 2008 for $660,000 (parking included)
- Reduced
- Was listed in June 2008 at $649,000 (parking included)
- Sold for $620,000 in July 2008
- Assessments of $150 a month
Here’s the history for 2708 N. Halsted #2S:
Unit #2S: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1900 square feet
- Sold in August 2007 for $640,000
- Was listed in June 2008 for $699,500 (parking included)
- Sold for $650,000 in July 2008
- 960 square foot deck
- Diningroom
- Assessments of $118 a month
The sellers fared well! Congratulations to the new buyers of these beautiful units!
Lets keep in mind these two datapoints do support SteveO position..
G can you get the mortgage info on these two summer sales? I am dying to know the % down/LTV values of these mortgage loans and which banks underwrote them.
Ooof… both bought in July. Hope they bought to live there for 20 years. (I like both places, by the way, but imagine both properties are now worth even less than they sold for half a year ago.)
Stupid buyers and lucky sellers.
I sure hope they aren’t planning to sell anytime soon! I do like that place on halsted… For about 200k less!
I’d love to be able to find a place with a nice deck. I have my eyes on one place with a 750sqft rooftop deck 2×2 but its on like madison and leavitt. I wish it wasn’t.
nice place on halsted, but next door to the fire station. that could be rough
650K for a place next to a fire station? Congrats to the seller!
Maybe the buyers were deaf lottery winners 🙂
Lets not also forget next door to multiple bars and clubs. Including a bar/club (Mix) with a parking lot that attracts a lot of ‘bling’ wheels. Which might be a little loud at 2am/3am. Best of luck to them!
I love that this crowd’s consensus on Sheffield back in June was $400s and it went for $620,000.
a) not everyone thought 400’s, and b) it sold in July. What do you suppose it would sell for today?
Swing and a miss on the value of that place, but I definitely appreciate the backwards view on featured properties. I love the hottub on the roof, and the finishes are nice, but I’d be hard pressed to pay that price. Obviously others aren’t.
I just found this site last week. With every listing, 80% of the commenters scream ‘overpriced’, and although for the most part the listings are indeed overpriced, but the commenters go on to bash the unit and put their price tag on it, which is typically a gross underprice. The above listing are a good example of that.
It’s puzzling to me because these commenters appear to know the area and buildings, but their sense of market value is VERY off. Who are you? Renters? Why so much interest in a market you do not participate in?
Disclosure: Owner of 5 condos (Evanston, Printers Row) and partial owner of 2 buildings (Houston 100+/300+ units). And not concerned whatsoever with chicago’s “crash”.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is MADFLY, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
“”It’s puzzling to me because these commenters appear to know the area and buildings, but their sense of market value is VERY off. ”
Actually I’m on to what prices will soon be in the near future after the forthcoming precipitous drops in 2009 and 2010. In a sense all sales prices are backwards looking highs at this point.
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“Who are you? ”
A 30 something professional with an above the median income, who four years ago was puzzled because he couldn’t figure out why his $1,000 a month rental apartment cost $300,000 to buy as a condo conversion and started researching how my friends and neighbors of less income afforded $400k+ condos and homes. I discovered the world of option-arms, IO jumbo loans, the 45/45 debt-to-income ratios, and subprime lending. Today I’m just a cynical guy making a decent buck from the mess that naturally followed, waiting for home prices to realign with incomes so I can buy a decent home and start a family.
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Renters?
You must educated in the Ivy League.
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” Why so much interest in a market you do not participate in?””
Oh I do participate in the market in the sense that I’m waiting for prices to drop to the point where people buy homes they can afford….instead of like today, where people buy homes they cannot afford and now 1 in 10 mortgages in the US is at least one month behind.
I think it’s painfully obvious to most that we’re in a period of readjustment….where borrowers will be expected to have downpayments and actually make payments toward pricipal…and homes will be priced in line with incomes and rents. Thank god the bubble has finally popped. I’m sitting on the sidelines waiting for further reductions…window shopping in a sense, that’s why cribchatter is so great. do not participate in?”
I believe that fringe areas will be devastated by current recession, but neighborhoods that yuppies flock to because of close proximity to transportation, presence of a bars, nightlife and restaurant we be spared the worst of it.
We are at least one year into the recession and I still do not see real estate prices dropping in Lincoln Park, Lake View and the Gold Coast to crazy bargain levels yet. I do not think that will ever happen because there are thousands of bitter yuppie renters on the sidelines that will pounce on a good value. There are a lot of people in the Chicagoland area that make good money or come from money who buy because they can. These are also a crowd of people that buy the $500k one bedroom condo in Streeterville because it’s shiny and new and gives them an ego boost.
I think it’s naive to think that real estate will ever equal equivalent rent in highly regarded, concentrated in wealth locations. There is some inherent premium in owning your own place. I think there is a lot anger within people who rent. They all dream of owning. Lets be honest. Otherwise, why the hell do they scrutinize every listing on this board.
Buying a piece of real estate is an investment. I think the mistake was by the propaganda by NRA that said the ‘real estate never goes down’. That is bs. There are very few save and guaranteed investments out there. Look at the S&P, DOW and Nasdaq in the last 10 years. Little to no return for you money there. Im not saying that real estate is a good investment, but with tax benefits and cost benefit analysis, it might make sense for someone who thinks this way. I did the calculations and it made sense for me.
Also, an FYI, just because someone places a condo/home for sale for a certain price does not mean that the person thinks that’s what it worth. It’s called negotiation. Put in an offer of what you think it’s worth. Seldom does real estate sell for asking price. I think some of the unnecessary bashing comes from this. Chill out folks.
I’ve been an avid reader of this blog from day one(when there were few posts), but recently it has been turning very ugly. Relax people, if you are so confident that real estate will drop significantly in price, wait and reap your gains when the time comes.
Homedelete- Market value is a price at a specific moment in time. If you say a unit is worth $300K, everyone reading will assume you mean today, not 6 months or a year from now. Because on the flipside, someone can say it’s worth $500K, and if she has longer time horizon, like 3-5 years from now, that might be a reasonable estimate too.
My stats are not different than yours. I also shook my head at my peers who were buying homes outside of their means a few years back. When I bought these units, starting in 2002-3, I made sure that market rents can cover, or at least come very close to covering, all expenses. I never took out risky loans. So as long as I have renters, and expenses stay relatively stable, I am not bleeding, and can wait out price swings. So a dip in prices hurts my equity, but not my cash flow. And as for the values of my units, I have not seen evidence a sizable correction, if any at all. My biggest risk is that my renters lose their jobs and can’t afford it.
I like this site because frankly I like seeing properties. A bubble burst is a double edged sword because althought it may hurt my equity, I salivate at the prospect of buying at lower prices. When I see the 1999-2000 prices I feel like I lost out for not participating early. Anyways, thanks for giving a real response.
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MitchellD = renter
MADFLY,
You are correct that around 80% of the listings on here the commentators are very bearish. However I think this has something to do with Sabrina’s selection of properties as well. She does a good job of finding the most overpriced/disconnected from economic reality properties to showcase. There are more moderately priced (or less overpriced, rather) listings in Chicago. They occasionally make there way here as well. However as a general guideline this site doesn’t typically showcase properties around the 200k range either, so that might also feed into it.
“Market value is a price at a specific moment in time. If you say a unit is worth $300K”
Wrong.
Market value is a price that someone is willing to pay at a specific moment in time.
I could auction my jeans on E-bay and have a starting bid of $1000 but they aren’t worth that much if nobody is willing to buy them.
That’s the current problem with the real estate market, the Bid(buyer price) and Ask (seller price) are too far apart. Eventually they will meet at a point somewhere in the middle.
Not in the middle Sonies. The housing ownership demand curve just took a huge move to the left when toxic financing was removed. This means that the new equilibrium point for prices is going to be much closer to buyers expectations than it is to sellers.
MADFLY said ” When I see the 1999-2000 prices I feel like I lost out for not participating early.”
Yes, you did miss out. Good luck, the latecomers to ponzi schemes tend to be bagholders.
“Wrong.
Market value is a price that someone is willing to pay at a specific moment in time.”
Sonies – Wrong? Thanks for repeating what I said – market value is the price at a specific moment in time (that an informed buyer and seller can agree on). I did not say market value was equal to the seller’s listing price – geez.
And I do buy my jeans on ebay as well (seriously).
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“I think there is a lot anger within people who rent. They all dream of owning. Lets be honest. Otherwise, why the hell do they scrutinize every listing on this board.”
letitisnow – That’s my feeling as well. It’s fine to scrutinize, but the degree here goes beyond analysis and is just bashing the unit/owner/agent and taking joy in people losing their homes. Kind of cruel, me thinks. Why be so happy about other people’s misfortunes? What if it were your friend, son, daughter, or parents who owned that home?
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“Yes, you did miss out. Good luck, the latecomers to ponzi schemes tend to be bagholders.”
G- LOL. Real estate investing is now comparable to a ponzi scheme. What do you invest in, if I may ask?