We Love Authentic Lofts With Brick and Timber: 1330 W. Monroe in the West Loop
This 1-bedroom brick and timber loft in the Block Y development at 1330 W. Monroe in the West Loop has been on the market since May 2010.
At 852 square feet, it has a balcony with downtown views as well as views of the courtyard with its trees, gardens and a small pond.
The unit has hardwood floors, central air and washer/dryer in the unit.
The kitchen has stainless appliances and granite counter tops.
The loft is listed $24,500 under the 2005 purchase price.
Is this an attractive property for a first time home buyer?
Carole Klein at City Point Realty has the listing. See more pictures here.
Unit #306: 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 852 square feet
- Sold in November 2000 for $178,500
- Sold in April 2005 for $274,500 (doesn’t look like parking was included)
- Originally listed in May 2010 for $300,000
- Reduced
- Currently listed for $250,000 (parking is available for $27,000 extra)
- Assessments of $253 a month
- Taxes of $2438
- Central Air
- Washer/Dryer in the unit
- Bedroom #1: 13×13
- Living room: 25×20
- Kitchen: 10×9
cute but overpriced
Should be 170’s including parking
Lofts are a dime a dozen, especially 1 bedrooms
definitely overpriced…but i think it would easily sell for like $190-$200K (parking included)
it’s not a dime-a-dozen type loft, imho. $170K would be a steal with parking.
Agree with David. Nice but overpriced. Expect this to sit for a while. I’d be at $213,000 with parking included. Too much inventory in the W-Loop and finishes are not high enough to justify the price.
Might be a tough place to sell. At this size and with these finishes, this is essentially a college student’s apartment, or an apartment rich parents buy for a kid when he or she is starting out or moving to Chicago for college or grad school, or an apartment that someone who isn’t making a lot of money _might_ be able to buy if they have the down payment saved up. A lot of those people aren’t buying any more because renting is a much better option for them. #211 blows this away for a pretty similar price (when you consider that it includes parking, which would be tough to go without in this location.) I think that the seller of #306 should be happy with anything in the low 200s, I say if they want to sell in the next 3 months then a deal might get done for $200 or somewhere around there. Maybe it makes sense as a rental if you can get the price to high $100s.
Block Y, Skinner Park is across the street and Cardinal Fitness is in the building on Madison side. Always liked the development, this one’s in the true timber loft building.
The listing site: http://citypointrealty.com/agents/cklein/?p=226
I love how their graphic designer highlighted Englewood with the layout. Brilliant.
250K? Welcome, to fantasy island.
Notice how the ductwork takes a very tight radius bend around the ceiling beam. This greatly increases the fan horsepower necessary to heat and cool the unit. This will also increase the noise of the HVAC system.
price is for a 2br… wtf
Executed Recorded Document Type Amount
04/20/2009 05/14/2009 MORTGAGE $240,000.00
The only way this will sell in the 100’s is as a foreclosure or short sale!
Parking was included in the 2005 purchase, just as it would have to be included in any current sale since, I believe, it is not seperately deeded here.
any 1 bedroom loft can *easily be converted to a 2 bedroom. so the *price for a 2br loft comparison is not really there.
now the sqft to the price is way off. 275k for 800sqft? really?
I think a one beroom like that with a view is hard to find. Its also nice to have a bedroom full of windows instead of tucked behind a kitchen. I know that building well. Construction is excellent, especially when compared to these newer developments where they all cut corners as they saw the bottom dropping out. Unit 211 is a 2 bedroom/1 bath for 20K more but faces an alley and parking garage.
“Parking was included in the 2005 purchase, just as it would have to be included in any current sale since, I believe, it is not seperately deeded here.”
Did you check the deeds? I didn’t check to see how it was deeded (too much time at CCRD already for me today), but the listing clearly has parking as an extra $27k. If it’s really not deeded separately, I wonder what they plan to do if someone really wants to buy without the parking. I suppose that’s pretty unlikely to happen at the current price.
“any 1 bedroom loft can *easily be converted to a 2 bedroom. so the *price for a 2br loft comparison is not really there”
Am I missing that this is sarcasm about the crap you hear from real estate agents? You can slap up walls any way that you want (ok, maybe not legally), but there doesn’t seem to be a way to put in two legitimate bedrooms in that place that would make it more desirable than it is right now. the bedroom already looks pretty small and the living room space is not exactly overwhelming. Any conversion to a 2 bedroom would be absurd, seems to me.
It will sell for 240ish with parking.
Tim,
You don’t have a long-standing reputation here so your estimate is suspect. Not 277k I estimate 218k.
Bob:
You *do* have a long-standing reputation here so your estimate is suspect.
Not 218k. Think less. But then, I am consistently surprised what people will pay for small, commodity condos.
“there doesn’t seem to be a way to put in two legitimate bedrooms in that place that would make it more desirable than it is right now. the bedroom already looks pretty small and the living room space is not exactly overwhelming. Any conversion to a 2 bedroom would be absurd, seems to me”
valid point, but where i was trying to take my post is not about the quantity of bedrooms in a loft its about the sqft in a loft.
I framed a few walls in lofts in my time and none of the walls are load bearing and you never need a structural engineer come in. thats the beauty of lofts its easily configurable (less plumbing).
thats why before we had the “chefs kitchen fad” many lofts would rock electric stove/ranges for the ease and low cost of configurablity (is that a word?)
so its really only about sqft in lofts as i say (and maybe bathrooms)
Groove,
I have to disagree… you say “its really only about sqft in lofts as i say (and maybe bathrooms)” but in a loft property as in every property, it’s about proper utilization of space. Just because you can toss up another wall and make a 1 bedroom into a two bedroom doesn’t mean you should. I’ve seen plenty of 2/1’s that should only be 1/1’s because you can barely fit a twin bed in that 2nd BR. Creating wasted/unusable space will only devalue a property and turn off potential buyers.
“I’ve seen plenty of 2/1’s that should only be 1/1’s because you can barely fit a twin bed in that 2nd BR.”
thats why i am saying its about the sqft. i am usually not clear when i type sorry.
but what i am getting at is a 1500sqft 1/1 is better than a 900sqft 2/1 as you can *easily make the 1500sqft a 2/1. So in lofts looking at bedroom counts shouldnt be as big of a factor.
the key in a loft is square footage and WINDOWS. oops and bathrooms.
I agree its about utilixzation and how its configured any size how configured correctly can make a 700sqft place seem huge.
all things (somewhat) equal;
to reconfiigure a 1000sqft built 1919 SFH will cost $$$$$$ and wont be easy.
a 1000sqft loft to be reconfigured would be way less and way *easy
Sorry I am way late to the most recent loft conversation. I have been too busy this past month or two.
Lofts are indeed about the square footage. If there is not a decent amount of negative open space in the rooms they tend to look really out of scale. Pairing those really high ceilings in awkward or narrow shaped rooms never looks good. Also separating the space into small bedrooms with partial height walls is not a great solution either. Most lofts are not meant for sharing with room mates. They are best set up for what we have done. 2000+ square feet set up as a one bedroom. We use the second bedroom as our TV room and have an additional multi-use space set up as our babies room.
BTW energy bashers we were without power for 21 hours during the big snowstorm. Our building has a back up generator and ironically we had most of our lights as well as our TV but no heat. After 21 hours we had dropped only 6 degrees to 64! As I have said on this post for years that two foot wall of brick is truly a MUCH more efficient insulator than any standard construction technique practiced today.
Lofts rule!
JP3
do you think most of the heat loss was just lost up by your high ceilings?
i am still iffy about sound travel. you have a kid do your neighbors hate you yet?
“As I have said on this post for years that two foot wall of brick is truly a MUCH more efficient insulator than any standard construction technique practiced today.”
No, what you experienced wasn’t good insulation, but thermal mass. The actual insulation value, R-Value, for brick is extremely low. There are plenty construction techniques out there that provide much better insulation. What you can do with an inch of modern insulation material you’ll need 20 inches of brick for.
Groove – most of the heat was lost via the 4×8 windows. I have 9 of them that is a large amount of glass!
Bob2 – Very true statement about the “R” value. My poorly worded point was that so many new construction condos are just not that well constructed. Even with the super high “R” value materials used there is tremendous loss of insulation if not properly installed. With so much of that construction done by “day labor” barely trained hands it was poor at best. I can tell you that I have actually felt a stream of cold air coming off of electrical outlet boxes many times in new construction homes.
“I can tell you that I have actually felt a stream of cold air coming off of electrical outlet boxes many times in new construction homes.”
Yea, just after I had hit reply I figured I shoulda probably mentioned air infiltration, which brick is very good at blocking. This is a huge problem with your usual crap construction and especially with wood. I think around 40% of the energy lost in your typical stick frame house is due to air infiltration and it can be much worse than that.
“most of the heat was lost via the 4×8 windows.”
Don’t be so sure about that, the insulation on your windows may be comparable to your brick wall, and a high end window would certainly be much better. Your massive brick wall had a huge amount of energy stored up that kept your place relatively toasty, but that doesn’t equal good insulation, which is resistance to heat flow.
Bob 2 – you are right about the heay loss at the windows as the four windows that face the el tracks are very heavily insulated, very well soundproofed, and sealed tight. They are excellent. The other five were installed well but are not as tight, soundproofed, or heavy. You can actually feel a massive difference in the window frames ability to reduce the transmission of cold. The glass also seems much cooler. I know that they were a cheaper window and suspect that the thermal break was not properly constructed in the frame of those windows.