Vintage Rowhouse at 410 W. Webster in Lincoln Park Closes
As some of you have pointed out in the comments section, the much talked about vintage rowhouse at 410 W. Webster in a prime area of East Lincoln Park has closed.
See our prior chatter here. See some pictures here.
It sold for $13500 less than its 2004 purchase price.
Jennifer Ames and the Ames Team from Coldwell Banker had the listing.
410 W. Webster: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, no square footage listed
- Sold in February 2004 for $751,000
- Was listed in October 2008 for $899,000
- Reduced
- Was listed in March 2009 for $799,000
- Closed in April 2009 for $737,500
- Taxes are $10,516
- Central Air
- Carport parking space
- 2 fireplaces
- Bedroom #1: 12×16
- Bedroom #2: 11×13
- Bedroom #3: 7×9
LMAO. From the last thread on this unit:
“Steve Heitman on April 22nd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Any of you morons want to reconsider your estimated sales price? I bet north of $750k… any takers?
Go back and read the idiotic quotes from above and you wonder why I make fun of you guys. You simply have no idea what you are talking about…”
G:
Did you catch where he said that it sold in 10 days? 10 days after they dropped it to $799k and decided they would take a >7% lower than ask offer, sure.
To Stevo’s defense he was only 1.67% off. Not particularly material. And another seller gets to sell an inflated LP property without losing their arse due to their speculation.
This is why I shy away from discussing LP, there just aren’t the number of fascinating real estate/financial train-wrecks that we see in other neighborhoods.
“another seller gets to sell an inflated LP property without losing their arse due to their speculation.”
You must have missed the (purported) owner posting about all of the upgrades they had undertaken. If they weren’t having their loss underwritten due to a transfer, they lost 10s of thousands.
Maybe not much to a hi-roller like you, Bob, but that’s real money to me.
“just aren’t the number of fascinating real estate/financial train-wrecks that we see in other neighborhoods.”
Yeah more Humbolt, West side, Bronzeville, Rogers park properties need to be listed here so we can lol at the fraud!
wasnt this place pretty small? seems like it still priced pretty high for it’s size though maybe not for the location.
CH — yes, it was tiny. But it was a sfd with parking and outdoor space (just a deck, no yard) in an amazing location with a great neighborhood school. I’m feeling a little bit of non-buyer’s remorse.
“To Stevo’s defense he was only 1.67% off. Not particularly material.”
Even when a bet has been offered?
This seller lost a lot to all but the top 5% of UHS. $13,500 in price plus at least $40,000 in transaction costs, plus whatever maintenance and “upgrades” were made. Oh yes, loss to rental equivalent, as well.
“Oh yes, loss to rental equivalent, as well.”
Yes but don’t forget “ownership” is a societal status symbol, and no upscale person with exquisite tastes in polite society would want to get lumped in with the riff raff “renters”. Afterall that has a negative taste to it, don’t they live in tenemant housing even?
No this owner could have their guests over to their dinner parties and discuss sophisticated issues like who has the most developed wine palate, etc. Could they honestly show their faces in front of their professional class friends if they weren’t “owners” (loaners) of their “home” (townhouse)?
Much like a new Lexus and other status symbols ownership costs a premium.
It seems like a fair price to me. Yes high per sq ft but there is something extra that updated vintage places have in good locations. Gives them a boost…especially ones that don’t have huge HOAs or coops
Lexus cars are well built. Some of them are dressed up Toyotas, but with better quality parts and construction.
I wouldn’t pay an extra $400k for it. That’s just insane.
Lincoln Park’s current condo supply is down to 5.5 months as of today. Maybe tomorrow I can round down to my 5 months number without getting called out to take a match class. Is a 5 month bullish or bearish?
Sorry I was off by $15k on the sales price of the above property.
These SFH sellers had the rare combination of (i) a highly coveted product (ii) offered at a reasonable price. These SFH buyers had the rare combination of (i) relative job security (in the $250-400k/yr range), (ii) a large down payment and/or the unique ability to secure a favorable jumbo, and (iii) were either able to (against the odds) sell their starter 2 bedroom condo or had that large down payment from other sources (and have thus rented their condo).
Contrats to both, especially the buyers.
However, the fact that a nice SFH (albeit a smallish one), with a deck and covered parking in E. Lincoln Park closes at under $750k, is hardly grounds to declare the downturn over. The dawn of the next real estate bubble is not upon us.
The fact that this place and the nice looking one-bed on Surf have sold should not be cause for celebration. The knives are still in play…especially for most of the ubiquitous $450-$600k 2 or 3 beds in LP and LV.
LP condo sales volume is at or near record lows. Is that bearish or bullish?
LP condo contract volume is at or near record lows. Is that bearish or bullish?
LP condo median prices are tumbling YOY. Is that bearish or bullish?
LP “inventory” as reported by the SHill is at 5.5 months. Personally, I wouldn’t believe any conclusion of his without the data. Regardless, where is the historical context? Taken by itself, it is as meaningless as the median sales price. The number says nothing about the churn of new listings.
In other words, if two listings expire, are not relisted, and two new listings come on the market, the supply has not changed at 2. However, 4 properties were actually on the market. The record low sales volume tells us that they weren’t all just “testing the water.” Wouldn’t knowing these numbers be useful to an “expert” in qualifying a simplistic “inventory” number?
This represents a sort of shadow inventory that is sure to suppress any recovery, if one were to begin. Who believes that the first sign of a turnaround wouldn’t be met with a flood of properties returning to the market?
This is another great example of how the UHS and market shills will report some data point as a positive without any context and while ignoring all other data. It really is just a pitiful attempt to get their marks to go whistling past the graveyard.
Surely brokers and agents should want prices to fall to their ‘correct’ place as soon as possible? Correct pricing, be it 5% or 10% off today’s, would surely result in a large uptick in sales and more commission cash in brokers’ pockets. Apparently cash is all we care about anyway so why not help create that environment instead of continuing to deny the reality of further price drops?
What if it is 20%+?
Have you already forgotten the exalted status that UHS bestowed upon themselves while acting as order takers during the bubble? The bubble based on no fundamentals other than cheap and easy credit that was obviously unsustainable?
Many believed in their genius and drank up the kool-aid eagerly while encouraging others to do the same. It is pretty difficult to backtrack from that, both professionally and financially, without looking like a manipulative liar. The SHill illustrates that here with pretty much every comment.
We are a long way from the bottom, enjoy the ride.
you’re on a roll today G
G, I agree completely with your sentiments… though I doubt that prices will drop too much more.
As for some others. Wow. Some people still think this is a temporary “correction” in price and that eventually real estate will return to bubble years price appreciation…
I believe that if there is any appreciation anywhere close to the 2000-2006 period, it will be because the Fed inflated its way out of this problem. Otherwise, even as the housing market “recovers”, I see stagnant prices in the coming years. My hope is that my taxpayer dollars don’t have to bailout Steve H. and all the sheep he convinces to buy these “bargains”.
I really don’t get this prop. Just my opinion, but vintage is sooooo over rated. Why people go gah gah over some moldy old cracker box is beyond me. Sure it is a location “premium” in the minds of many but how many times do you need to walk to the zoo? The commute to the loop is not so good and traffic is terrible. And the zoo is not all that anyway.
HD said: “you’re on a roll today G”
Not really. Just the same bear farts he puffs out every day.
I don’t know RR, you’ve got LP, the West Village, Beacon Hill, Russian Hill, London’s Chelsea… what is it with all these wealthy people buying moldy old cracker box row houses in premium neighborhoods of the major cities? Just because they make big money, have deep pockets, send their kids to $20k a year private schools, have country houses, you’d think they’d wanna live in a building that at least has a semi descent dry cleaners on the first floor. What, their housekeeper can’t iron a shirt?
Next time I’m gonna buy a sterile cube in a condo building built by skilled modern Eastern Block craftsmen/developers, full of 20/30-something investors who’ve been around long enough and watched enough Gossip Girls, to smell a good long term investment when it crawls under their noses. Yeah, the truly well-off and their fucking over rated neighborhoods suck!
What do you think this place would have rented for? Just out of curiousity, I calculated their loss (not factoring in whatever their company is giving them) and it comes up to around $6500 a month for rent for 4 years, before tax deductions.
12,767 Est. Transfer tax to buy (i forgot the exact rate)
36,873 Realtors to sell
40,000 4 years of property taxes (rough)
192,000 Estimated mortgage for 4 years (est >6.5% w/ 20% down)
13,500 Equity loss
7,000 Closing costs at the sale & transfer tax
10,000 Home maintenance, repairs, small upgrades, for 4 years
312,140 (Not factoring in income tax deductions)
@ 48 months, that’s around $6500 a month in rent. These are gross estimates but I’m just wondering how far apart the rent gap is. I have no idea what SFHs rent for. Of course, I’m sure they didn’t want to “rent” from the bank, cook county, and realtors…but it has happened to many people (including me) so I have a little more sympathy in general… the irritating thing is that they only sold it below their purchase price bc a company was bailing them out? But they wanted 899 the year before. Ugh. That’s annoying as hell. I had to eat my own losses…as do the vast majority of people in this situation.
Here’s the source of confusion:
“Jay on April 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
At $850K that’s still a bargain. The neighbors tell me it was a corporate relocation, so I imagine the company is picking up the ‘differences’. Always a silver lining.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the deed recording(s) jive with Jay’s imagination.
And, considering the “bargain” call at >$100K more than the buyer paid, that’s one fanciful imagination.
“I calculated their loss (not factoring in whatever their company is giving them)”
Also, Mess, if you look at the prior chatter, the purported owner posted about all of the work they put into the place–re-doing much of the 2d floor, basement stuff, plans for a garage. Even if you low-ball that work, they easily spent another $750/month over their ownership period. And that expense is almost certainly not covered by the relo agreement, unless the EE was very important.
Why would anybody buy a $90k car, pay a designer to take them to the Mart to purchase ultra expensive furniture, walk into Hermes and buy a $6k handbag for their wife, when these things decrease in value, and continue to do so the longer you have them, the moment you get them home? Because they can. I have a friend in NY who spent $100K to renovate her RENTAL in the WV because that’s what she wanted and could actually afford without really caring. These types of neighborhoods in the major financial/cultural capitals are often (not always) filled with rarified people who don’t have to use the above posted formulas to figure out their losses…. they absorb their hits and just move on.
I don’t know the owners of this property from Adam, but odds are someone who takes the time, endures the headache and flow of money to do a quality restoration of their home in a prime neighborhood like LP, takes a corporate transfer (per the owners own post), doesn’t sound like a leveraged flip job that ends with a move into their parent’s basement. Who knows what they lost (or maybe gained via severance packages and signing bonuses – that will never show up on the recorded deed), and who cares as that’s their business. But I agree with that Steve guy here in that they didn’t pay too much for the house, they sold at the worst time – and that’s good news for the new owners.
As crusty and booooring as these established old neighbors are, certain types of deeper pocket people will still buy moldy old cracker boxes if only to be surrounded by other deeper pocket people: The Rules of money. And… scene out.
That’s a new one, add it to the list G:
12) stupid cash-flow insensitive rich people
Jay,
Generally I like LP a lot more than neighborhoods like GC or RN because even though there might be a lot of money hiding in the bank and brokerage accounts behind those walls, its not extravagant. The wealth is more midwestern in style and subdued. I really don’t get the impression that LPers on the whole buy a bunch of 90k cars or 6k hermes handbags.
Its my impression such types generally live in areas a little further south like RN or GC and feel the need to show off their status and ability to inconspicuously overcomsume to the world.
@ Bob –
Cars yes, big yes. Handbags, don’t know, I was just giving snarky examples of how this neighborhood spends…. or doesn’t spend. I think this area takes the rap for being frat boy/prom queen central because of the thousands of them that live (rent) here, and that’s true. But, the landowners (and I’m talking people who own houses and the land underneath them, not so much apartments) are quietly wealthy, actually really wealthy. And you’re right, it does have that mid-west quality about it: jeans and t-shirts on the weekend (if they’re in town and not in MI) just like everybody else – not uncommon to see the owners of the Hyatt Hotels having a greasy breakfast at a Clark Street diner, just like everybody else.
It’s also a self fulfilling area, in that it attracts the type of people who can do without a in-house theater/basketball court because there isn’t the room to expand, and because you just can’t tear down and build what you like due to landmark status. That reads older, crusty, boring, real money (can’t get a choclatini here if your life depended on it – they just don’t buy into that crap). But it also didn’t fuel the bubble mentality as it didn’t attract that kind of smoke and mirror group in general. Like trailer park to lotto millions, nobody here is going to spend their fortune on diamond imbedded samurai swords they saw in the back of the Robb Report… and then ask the government for help.