Robert Darrow, @properties

Archive for the ‘Lincoln Park’ Category

Your Guide was chatting around the office cooler with colleagues yesterday.  We were discussing experiences with challenging sellers over the past couple weekends.  The consensus of our conversation is that prices were not as stable as we thought they were a month ago. 

An interesting article from the Chicago Sun Times (link here) examining statistics from the Illinois Association of Realtors examines prices in Chicagoland and reveals that the volume of sales is up – the 8th straight month in a row.  But prices are down significantly.  

Chicago metropolitan area home sales jumped 32 percent in February from a year earlier, the eighth straight increase, but the median price dropped 10.3 percent, the Illinois Association of Realtors said Monday.

We had seen signs that prices stabilized in November and December last year.  But the slide has started again. 

As Your Guide was working with Lincoln Buyers last week, here is the market data for the Lincoln Park neighborhood.  (Steve and Karen, this chart’s for you!)

Zillow Home Value Index

More Lincoln Park Home Values

UPDATE:  Great article from the Medill/Northwestern School of Journalism about the rising foreclosures in affluent neighborhoods of Chicago including Lincoln Park and Roscoe Village.

In the Lincoln Park neighborhood, foreclosures shot up 103.2 percent in the second half of 2009, according to the Woodstock Institute.

In fact, the number of foreclosures in swanky neighborhoods throughout Cook County last month drove the county’s foreclosures to highest level since the recession began with a total of 4,426 in one month, up 76 percent from 2,517 in the previous month and up a whooping 703 percent from 551 in September last year, according to RealtyTrac.

Today’s Tribune front page headline reports Trouble in condo land.  Chicago (city only) sales stats show that single family home sales surged from August, 2008, to August, 2009, but condo sales lagged anywhere from around 10% off to more than 30% off.  Prices seem to be down, too.

While August sales of single-family homes in Chicago rose 22.6 percent from a year earlier, the city’s condo market saw sales drop 19.1 percent. Condo and town house prices plummeted as well, down 15.3 percent to a median sales price of $271,000, the Realtors’ trade group said. Single-family prices slumped 30 percent, to a median of $154,000, a price drop largely caused by foreclosures and short sales.

In contrast, Your Guide feels that last August through January were the worst of the doldrums.  With one closing in August, and one contract written in September that dragged into the New Year, the period from last August through January was the worst in memory.  And we’ve been around long enough to have worked through the 1989 to 1991 recession.

On the other hand, we can not argue with the reporting on pricing.  Your guide has written about pricing and the new reality in recent articles.  The 15.3% price decline quoted above is a good average for much of the City, but in certain markets the figures are worse. 

Some examples:

• In Lincoln Park – I’m seeing prices holding steady
• In Lakeview – I’m seeing prices 20% off
• In Albany Park – I’m seeing prices 33% off
• In the South Loop – I’m seeing prices 17% off

NOTE: in the examples above these figures are from personal experience, not an evaluation of the market statistics as a whole.

The Sun Times reports this morning on the problems over at Hartland Park and the playground that has been a popular destination with neighborhood residents.

As part of its agreement with the City of Chicago when the project was approved for development, the builder was supposed to build a one-acre park, and then turn the park over to the Chicago Park District.

But the developer, Belgravia Group, seems to have not built the community streets and sidewalks to city standards.  Namely, the curbs are not Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.  So the City of Chicago has refused to take control of the streets.

This leaves the park at Hartland Park accessible only by way of private roadways.  The Chicago Park District says it can’t have a Chicago Park that is accessible only by way of private property. 

Belgravia Group, the developer, points the finger at the City of Chicago, which changed the standards for streets, curbs and sidewalks mid-way through the construction of the community.  The developer maintains that they built the community to the standards in place at the time the plans were filed at City Hall, and the plans that were approved by the City of Chicago.

Meanwhile, the Home Owner’s Association says that they will have to put locks on the gate to the park, and signs posted telling outsiders that they’re no longer welcome at the park. 

Sounds like quite a morass over at Hartland Park.  Your guide hopes that they get this straightened out as the new park is a draw to families as far away as where we live in Wellington Park.  Out here in West Lakeview/West Lincoln Park, new facilities such as these are sorely lacking.

And don’t get me started on the lack of progress over at Chi Che Wang Park nearby…

This site is the triangle of land located at North Avenue, Halsted Street and Clybourn.  A former BP/Amoco gas station was located here.  It’s a bit remarkable that a big retailer thought that the site was developable for a high-end, boutique computer store.  But this is the site of the new Apple store – as in computers.

(Gratuitous Simpson’s reference below)

Your guide recognizes that about a bazzillion cars drive past this location on a daily basis.  And that during the Christmas shopping season, navigating the streets around the Clybourn Retail Corridor is near insanity.  So we are collectively wondering – where are people going to park???

While walking back to the car from the new Apple site, I came across this lonely vision.  I call it “Popcorn, anyone?  ANYONE??”

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Chicago.  One of our favorite things to do is to throw the dog in the back of the car and head for Montrose Harbor and the Dog Beach located just north of the Harbor. 

When you park in Lincoln Park, you expect to feed the meters or pay to park in the attended lot.  And when you visit Grant Park or Millennium Park, of course you expect to pay to park in the underground garage.

A new plan is in the works for ALL of Chicago’s parks – from the South Shore all the way up to the north end of Lake Shore Drive.  The city plans to install pay parking kiosks that issue parking passes that visitors display in their cars.  Rates are expected to run about $1 per hour.

Get in the habit of grabbing a handful of quarters or a credit card on the way out of the house on weekend mornings.  The standard early uniform of sweats and a baseball cap does not always include remembering your wallet or change purse.

Much ado has been made about the closing of several Local Starbucks stores. Some community activists have even suggested that Starbucks is discriminatory as there are more closings in Cities than in Suburbs or in the Country.

In any case, I am losing TWO of my local stores. Thank God I’m still covered…

View Larger Map

Lincoln Avenue north of Fullerton was transformed late last week into a bygone era of newly refrigerated movie theatres and gangsters for the filming of the new John Dillinger biopic starring Johnny Depp, “Public Enemies.”

The Biograph is actually the Biograph Theatre. It’s a bit more modern today. Still air-conditioned.

The Chop Suey restaurant is actually a Burrito joint!

The fake trolley tracks screwed up traffic for nearly a week!

That’s how they do it!

While Chicago is not suffering the mortgage crisis as painfully as residents of the Coasts, Florida and Las Vegas, more and more foreclosure news has been creeping into the news lately. 

A roundup of foreclosures in the news in the last month:

March 3 Crain’s Chicago Business

Foreclosure flu spreads:  14,250 foreclosures in 2007, a 46% increase over 2006. 

Northwest Side neighborhoods like Albany Park, Logan Square and Portage park saw their numbers more than double, according to a new report provided to Crain’s ahead of it’s scheduled release.

Those areas drew newcomers in large numbers in recent years as first-time buyers sought affordable alternatives to pricier city neighborhoods like Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square and Lakeview.

Tower builder tie-up: Related Companies and Magellan discuss a combo as two major projects falter.

Talks to combine two of the Chicago area’s largest developers come at a critical time for Related Midwest LLC.  The luxury condominium developer is struggling with a slow sales start at its two newest projects and has been without a president.

Related Midwest LLC developments include:

• 340 on the Park – already completed
• Canyon Ranch Living – planning
• Pestigo – Planning
• Roosevelt Square – Under construction

Magellan Development is currently building several high rises at Lakeshore East on the New East Side.

Decline seen in apartment sales

Sales of Chicago-area apartment buildings could drop 30% this year, to $1.08 billion, from a record breaking 2007,  according to a report from CB Richard Ellis, Inc.

Signs of the slowdown were evident late last year, a time when sales activity typically spikes as investors hurry to complete deals before yearend.  But only 42% of the Chicago deals close din the second half of last year, as opposed to 69% in the last 6 months of 2005, the previous record year when sales totaled $1.89-billion.

March 10 Crain’s Chicago Business

A Sterling example of condo Bust:  Foreclosures, falling prices: a bad omen?

Over the past three years, lenders have filed 95 foreclosure suits, accounting for about $40-million in loans, on condominiums in the 389-unit high-rise, fueling a big drop in condo values throughout the building.

The tower represents a worst-case scenario in a downtown condo market that is weak but so far hasn’t seen the falling prices and rising foreclosures that have afflicted once-hot markets like South Florida.  The real test for condo owners will come over the next two years, when downtown developers are expected to complete more than 10,000 condo’s, an unprecedented jump in supply.

A nice building in a superior location seems an unlikely victim of rampant foreclosures, but artificially propped up prices along with developer incentives may have played a part in its unfortunate predicament.

American Invsco Corp attracted a lot of investors with incentives such as two years of free taxes, two years of free assessments, and artificially propped up cash flow.  One incentive offered to make up the difference between the rent and the mortgage + tax + assessment payments for a two year period. 

It was too good to be true for some buyers.  As the incentives wore off, many buyers saw their monthly payments soar to unsustainable levels.

A trickle of foreclosures in 2004 grew to a flood in the next three years.  Nearly 1/3 of foreclosures involve owners with multiple units in the building.

An American Invsco spokesman blames the Sterling’s troubles on the depressed market:  "It has nothing to do with our program."

In more stable neighborhoods where the inventory supply is more limited and there is not as much speculation, the number of foreclosure epidemic seems quite limited.  In the Lakeview neighborhood, for example, only had 126 foreclosures, but this represented a 94% increase from 2006. 

It’s interesting to watch the tale of two cities developing right inside the borders of Chicago.

A customer recently posed the question:  Should I buy a new duplex-up or a turn-of-the-century SFH?  I’m looking to buy in the Chicago near north area. Both are similarly sized and in good condition, just built a century apart. Which will have better appreciation/resale?

It’s such an interesting question because usually the same buyer would never be considering both at the same time. 

Here in Chicago, the history of the popular neighborhoods is such that they began their lives as working class neighborhoods filled with modest homes that do not lend themselves to modern living.  In the photograph above, this Victorian was the original farm house for the township built in 1889.  Despite its obvious charm, the inside layout was a jumbled mess of rooms that did not make any sense.  The basement was not accessible from inside the house.  Bedrooms were scattered throughout both levels of the home.  Some rooms were long and narrow, others did not have closets.

We were the third listing agents to try to sell this property, and after several months of reaching out to neighborhood residents who might enjoy this superior location in Lincoln Park, we pitched the property to a developer.  The lot was extra long, extra wide, and the zoning was generous (R4) to allow a large condo building to be built.

We sold the house to the developer for $700,000.  When the condominiums were completed, the developer’s agent sold the largest condo – the duplex on the first floor – for $741,000.  This was in 2005.

In 2006, the same condo sold again for $818,000.

I suppose that says volumes about the popularity of condominiums, and of the duplex floor plans.

Based on this anecdotal evidence (as well as a bunch of experience) our advice would be to only purchase the single family house if it’s a very good value and is sitting on a parcel of land that a developer would be very interested in when you’re ready to sell. 

Otherwise, the popularity and salability of new condominiums can’t be beat.

I helped out some clients today with renting out their investment condo, and since they brought the whole family in from the suburbs, and the condo is located near the Lincoln Park Zoo, I couldn’t resist dragging the family over to the new Children’s Park inside the Zoo.

The new Tree Canopy Climbing Adventure can be found just south of the Sea Lion pool inside the main gate to the zoo.  This thing is amazing.  Where were play parks like this when I was a kid? 

The multi-level environment is filled with exhibits featuring animals found in jungle canopy trees. 

Outside, other animals seemed to be making do in the early Spring snow. 

Yeah, this guy doesn’t look like he’s anticipating the warmer weather any time soon.

These two look like they took care of the Easter Bunny.