Will This 3-Bedroom Eddystone Duplex Ever Sell? 421 W. Melrose in Lakeview
We’ve chattered about this vintage 3-bedroom duplex unit in The Eddystone at 421 W. Melrose in East Lakeview several times over the last few years.
See our March 2012 chatter here.
It was recently re-listed with a new agent and a new price.
However, a lis pendens was also recently filed against the unit.
If you recall, the unit has amazing vintage details from wood paneled walls, plaster ceilings, leaded and stained glass, and original moldings.
There is a limestone fireplace and paneled first floor study. The new listing is calling the study a bedroom but a study is a study so I’m calling it a study.
Remember, the kitchen was also recently remodeled. It has maple cabinets, granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. In previous chatters, most of you felt the kitchen didn’t do the unit justice.
This unit does not have central air and does not have parking (but that is available for lease next door.)
The unit DOES have an in-unit washer/dryer and pets are allowed.
Will this property sell in 2012?
Or will we still be chattering about it a year or two from now?
There are a lot of these types of properties on the market: those that have been on the market seemingly for years.
Just a reminder: This is a condo (not a co-op) so taxes are NOT included in the assessment.
Timothy Salm at Jameson Sotheby’s now has the listing. See the pictures again here.
Unit #14-15C: 3 bedrooms, 4 baths, the new listing says 4,000 square feet, duplex
- Sold in February 1999 for $450,000
- Was listed in November 2008 for $1.89 million
- Reduced
- Withdrawn
- Re-listed in July 2010 for $1.1 million
- Reduced
- Was listed in August 2010 at $999,000
- Reduced
- Was listed in March 2012 at $699,000
- Raised
- Was listed in October 2012 at $729,000
- Lis pendens filed on October 11, 2012
- Taxes now #12,732 (they were $12201 in March 2012)
- Assessments still $2,878 a month (includes heat, electric, gas, doorman, cable)
- No central air- window units only
- Parking is leased next door for $200 a month
- Washer/Dryer now in the unit
- Bedroom #1: 18×13 (second floor)
- Bedroom #2: 16×11 (second floor)
- Bedroom #3: 16×13 (main floor)
- Library: 15×13 (second floor)
- Laundry room: 5×5 (second floor)
No parking on that block? I was looking at a condo across the block and debated on whether to X it off my list due to no parking… that unit was 105k though. For this one, not having parking is not an option. I contacted 3 places on that block and it doesn’t seem that rental parking is very easy even. It’s impossible to park on those streets as it’s not permit parking when all of the surrounding blocks west are; everyone who lives on the permit blocks in the area who illegally registers their car parks on this block (and those north of it) since there’s no permit and the city isn’t enforcing its ordinances. The alderman needs to fix this permit parking problem on these blocks.
The pictures here are of a remodeled Kitchen? Pretty bad still. No parking and no central air will be an issue for most (I imagine).
How much would it cost for a gut reno of this place? Another 300K?
The woodwork is beautiful. I’m not sure if I could get past the lack of parking or air conditioning.
Perhaps an elderly person would buy this place since they tend not to like air conditioning and eventually give up driving.
It cracks me up that someone once thought this place would be worth $1 million, much less $2 million. Sure its beautiful, but there are too many downsides for the $1 million + buyer.
Those are some extraordinary price reductions within a matter of 4 years. Proof positive that the real estate pricing here was (and still is) nothing but a crap shoot. Seriously! I would expect a distant mountain or Pacific Ocean view at $1.89 million.
Oh well, it’s got stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops.
I love this beautiful old place and dream of living in something like it, but I can’t imagine anyone but a cash buyer with a large (over $1200/month) guaranteed income being able to live here. It costs about $3800 a month just to be here, if you paid cash, and I’m willing to bet that there are even fewer people qualified to buy it than there were in 1999, given that the interest rates on which people on fixed incomes depend have gone through the floor- people who depend upon trust funds have got to be experiencing a real squeeze because of the low interest rates, or are invested in extremely risky stuff just to equal the income they used to get with secure, conservative, fixed rate instruments.
Additionally, the cost of running these old buildings is not dropping. This place is a bear to heat, hence the high maintenance. These older buildings have almost NO weatherization, and it would behoove the resident-owners of these old buildings to give up a couple of years’ expensive vacations, nightly restaurant meals , new cars, and country club dues and spend the money to properly winterize these old structures. It is very costly, but it will pay back over and over in heating costs avoided, especially as fuel prices rise. Right now, we still enjoy cheap natural gas, but the disparity between gas and oil prices isn’t going to last much longer. The reason natural gas is so cheap relative to oil is that it has been difficult to sell our native natural gas on the global market, where it is priced much higher than here. This will change around 2014 forward, when 3 LNG export terminals will be completed, and our gas producers can export their product. Expect much higher heat bills in the future as a result.
All in all, there is no reason for this place, beautiful and rare though it is, to sell any higher than the 1999 price, even though I used to think it would sell for at least $600K.
Sorry, typo in foregoing post. I meant to type “income over $12,000/month”.
Who uses the word “behoove” in a sentence other than a goth romance novelist?
Laura,
Agree about the 12,000 a month. Even if I were raking in that much, I’m not sure I’d want $3,800 of it each month to go to maintenance, taxes and parking for my condo.
Yes, Dan, and I have a feeling that the current defaulting “owner” was having a lot of problems paying the expenses.
The fact that this place is in foreclosure is really rather sickening, because the owner could have had a very swank place for way less purchase money and lower expenses than this place. This is a home for really, really well-healed people with their money made, and lots of it, not some upper-middle income professional couple hustling frantically to make $300K a year and living way beyond that. It is not as though these people had to stretch just to put a minimal, shacky roof over their heads or they wouldn’t have been in this building or neighborhood at all. People in this country need to get over the idea they have that you should at all times borrow to the max to “buy” as much house as you can pull together the payments for, just because you can… and we need to learn to be grateful for what we have and can truly afford, and not feel that we’re being denied a birthright if we can’t live upper-class lifestyles on middle to upper-middle incomes. If these people had bought a smaller unit requiring less maintenance and taxes- say, one of the 3 bed 3 bath simplex units in the same building- they would probably be having no problems paying for their keep.
Also, did these people take out HELOCs? How much debt is there against this place?
regarding central air in this building… other units seem to have their air conditioner compressors suspended on the side of the building. Can’t imagine what that costs to install and maintain..
“regarding central air in this building… other units seem to have their air conditioner compressors suspended on the side of the building. Can’t imagine what that costs to install and maintain..”
I had no idea this was an option.
This unit just reduced to $699,000.
$550K will probably do it.