List price: $2.195 million
The Property: This rugged stone and cedar retreat hidden away on nine wooded acres is just minutes from downtown St. Charles. The place has a bulky exterior—a massive pyramidal wood shingle roof and deeply recessed window and door openings—but inside it lightens up, with an open floor plan, soaring ceilings, and an outsized skylight. Built in 1978, the 6,259-square-foot residence has four bedrooms, five-plus baths, and five fireplaces; the place also has a tennis court and a pool. “That big a house was unheard of [in the 1970s],” says Jeff Jordan, the Re/Max Excels agent listing the house for its sellers. While he declined to name them—and Kane County records do not identify them—Jordan says that they have been in the house for about twenty years, and that they updated the kitchen in 2005.
Price Points: Last October, the sellers listed the house for sale only with its immediate four acres, at $1.75 million. They would have sold the rest to developers, as they have with 36 adjacent acres they used to own. But as Jordan notes, St. Charles has a glut of homes in the $1-million to $2-million price range. (According to the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois, nine homes in St. Charles sold for $1 million or more over the last six months; currently, 99 houses are listed for sale in town priced in that range.) So in May the sellers tossed in the remaining land and upped their price to $2.195 million. The added land is zoned as three buildable lots. It’s an unusual tactic—raising the price when the house doesn’t sell—but Jordan believes it will put the house in a more exclusive bracket and make the property a better investment. “You can buy the property and hold those lots until down the road, when the market is faster, and sell them then,” he suggests. In 2006, three St. Charles houses sold for over $2 million, according to the Multiple Listing Service; so far, in 2007, there have been none. “That part of the market is very slow right now,” Jordan admits.
Listing Agent: Jeff Jordan, Re/Max Excels, (630) 262-4370
While there is no shortage of jobs in the northwest suburbs, the real-estate boom of the past decade has made it tough for many of the low- and middle-income people who hold those jobs to live within a reasonable commute of their place of employment. According to the Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), workers who earn less than $50,000 annually make up 70 percent of the work force in five northwest suburbs. Unfortunately, only 40 percent of the housing stock in those communities lies within the price range of those employees.
On May 18th, the mayors of Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Mount Prospect, Palatine, and Rolling Meadows addressed this problem at a breakfast at Arlington Park, where they discussed the benefits of employer-assisted housing (EAH) with about two dozen local employers. (The breakfast was co-hosted by Charter One Bank, which has a sizable work-force housing program of its own.) “You can’t separate out jobs, housing, and traffic congestion,” said Arlene Mulder, the mayor of Arlington Heights. “They all go together.”
Most often, a company’s EAH fund helps employees with the down payment on a home in the form of a forgivable loan (under the condition that the employee stays with the company for five years). Since 2000, 60 employers in Illinois have helped more than 1,000 employees buy homes, according to the MPC. The employer gets a state tax write-off on half of the amount it puts into an EAH; based on the experience of companies that have participated in the program, the savings realized by the company in the diminished cost of employee turnover often makes up the difference.
MarySue Barrett, MPC’s president, explained that the plans have worked well for “place-based” institutions such as the Chicago Public Schools, the city of Evanston, and the University of Chicago. It’s an innovative solution to the increasing problem of jobs landing in one part of the region and affordable housing in another. Illinois has been a national leader in EAH plans, thanks in large part to the MPC’s efforts. As Mayor Mulder told the assembled employers: “You will benefit within your heart and soul if you can find a way to help. The payback will come.”
For more information about EAH, go to www.reachillinois.org (REACH Illinois—Regional Employer-Assisted Collaboration for Housing—is a partnership between the MPC, Housing Action Illinois, and other groups).
List Price: $1.095 million Sale Price: $1.06 million
The Property: One of seven charming brick-and-stone row houses on a busy block of Clark Street, this three-story, four-bedroom home dates to 1888—and is just 18 feet wide. The sellers, Andrew Wolfe and Yoon Hie Jung, gutted and completely rehabbed the interior after buying the place for $520,000 six years ago. They did preserve an original glass skylight above the stairs, the only source of natural light aside from front and rear windows, says their agent, Rubloff North Shore’s Deborah Dwyer. The couple also managed to cram in some modern conveniences, such as the kitchen’s two ovens, two sinks, and a warming drawer. They nodded to the home’s vintage with wide-plank quarter-sawn oak flooring—and subway tile in the kitchen.
The slender home “is like the amazing trick house that gets bigger and bigger when you get inside,” Dwyer says. “The rooms are all large, and the ceilings get higher as you go up to a higher floor.” Because of its thick construction and snug row-house confines, she says, “when you walk in off noisy Clark Street, suddenly you have peace and quiet.” There is no yard, but Lincoln Park is only a block east, and in the rear, the house has the only fenced parking space on this row. It’s a quintessentially urban location—perhaps too crowded for some people—but Dwyer says the buyers (whom she would not name) aren’t likely to be bothered: they’re from New York.
Price Point: Here is a house that demonstrates how essential right-pricing is these days. When the sellers got word last year that they would be transferring to another city, says Dwyer, they initially priced the house at $1.299 million. They dropped it to $1.199 million, but still nothing happened; they took it off the market in fall 2006. When they left town this past April, says Dwyer, they put it back on the market with an asking price of $1.095 million, and by the first weekend, there were six competing offers, with a final sale price of $1.060 million. The deal closed May 22nd.
Buyers: Not yet identified in public records Sales Agent: Deborah Dwyer, Rubloff North Shore, 773-350-5300
The Property: The developers Tim Lambert and Peter Delp of the Sheridan Park Group are converting a picturesque two-flat in Uptown into a spacious single-family home. Built in 1916, the place will have five bedrooms and a 640-square-foot living room (fashioned from three smaller rooms) with an original Arts and Crafts–style fireplace, as well as other period details preserved or replicated throughout. Complementing those vintage touches are such contemporary amenities as a second-floor laundry room and recessed lighting—which prompts Linda Kanoski, the project’s architect, to joke that, when finished in mid June, the home will feel “freshly historic.” And opening up the 5,300-square-foot living space should give this residence an airier feel: the interior staircase, for instance, becomes a showpiece of carpentry rather than a dim, self-contained passageway to the second-floor apartment.
The building is in the hot western section of Uptown, now known as Sheridan Park. While most of the buildings on the block—a mixture of old and new multifamily dwellings—go lot line to lot line, this place actually has some green space: its lot, which is big for the city, is 50 by 160 feet, while the building is only about 35 feet wide and 100 feet long. Uptown’s music venues and ethnic restaurants are a few blocks east, and Montrose Harbor is within walking distance.
Price Points: The developers acknowledge that their asking price puts them at the very top of the market for this neighborhood. Data from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois show the highest price paid for a single-family home in Sheridan Park is $1.05 million, for a massive house from 1895, totally restored and a block down from this one. “But there’s a lot of value in all this space and a four-car garage,” Delp says. “We’re very positive about what’s happening in Uptown,” referring to the new Target store planned for Broadway and Montrose, and the other new construction and rehabs going on in this diverse neighborhood. For a buyer who’s willing to roam a bit north of the higher-priced Lake View, this roomy building’s blend of new and old could prove very appealing.
Listing Agent: Tim Lambert of KSGMAC, 312-343-1789
The primary home-selling season is in full swing, and the hot topic is “right-pricing”—as in, is your home priced right to sell? That has become a crucial question in this softening home market, where sellers must tune their expectations properly. They can’t ask for the moon, as they might have a few years ago, but they don’t want to lowball their homes either. With that in mind, here are some tips from Chicago-area real-estate agents on how to know if your home is right-priced:
• “When a listing is put for sale, if excitement is not generated—if there’s a lull in showings or if there aren’t repeat showings—most likely the price is the culprit. As a seller, you will recognize that the price is right when you start to receive second showings, or when real-estate agents are interested in showing the property” to their buying clients. –Linda Feinstein, the broker-owner of ERA Jensen & Feinstein Realtors, Hinsdale
• “Your best shot at getting the price you want is in your first ten days on the market. After that people lose interest; they love new [listings]. So if you’re priced right, you will sell it quickly, even in this market. If after a month you’re not getting a lot of showings or any second showings, it’s time to start thinking about lowering your price.” –Robyn Brooks of Prudential Preferred Properties on Michigan Avenue, Chicago
• “Three or four showings a week is healthy. If you aren’t getting that many, then you’re in trouble.” —Anthony Rouches of @Properties on Fulton Street, Chicago
• “Look at everything else that’s on the market in your price range and be honest with yourself about what they have and don’t have compared to yours. The price might be substantially less than you expected a year to 18 months ago, when people had a much higher level of confidence and almost cockiness about what their properties were worth.” –Jeff Matheson of Baird & Warner, Gurnee
• “If ten others have sold in your price range in the past thirty days and yours hasn’t, then the market thinks you’re over-priced.”—Jack Ehlert of John Green, Realtor, Naperville
List price: $2.995 million Sale price: $2.95 million
The Property: This new 11-room house on a tree-lined street in Lake View is one of four homes built by the developer Patrick Landrosh within half a block of one another. At 37 feet, its lot is somewhat wider than the Chicago norm of 25 feet, making for more spacious rooms indoors. With roughly 6,200 square feet of living space, the house has five bedrooms, four-plus baths (including a spa-like master bath), and a media room and a wet bar in the basement. There is a full-scale mudroom (not a hallway that doubles as one) fitted out with cubbies, and a detached, heated three-car garage with a rooftop deck. Southport Avenue’s restaurants, theatres, and shops are a block to the east, and Wrigley Field is only six blocks farther.
Price Point: This spring, after the nearly identical house next door (also by Landrosh) had been on the market for about a year, Landrosh’s sales agent, Ron Meadows, got offers from two different buyers over one April weekend. This place was not yet on the market, but that didn’t deter Meadows. “We said, ‘Let’s offer one of them the house next door [this property],’” he says. Both houses sold for the same price—$2.95 million—although this one was the first to close, on May 16th. The price is in the upper tier, but not out of the ordinary, for this part of Lake View (where another house a few blocks away went for $3.1 million a year ago). Meadows say that the land alone for this house—and the place next door—cost Landrosh $1 million per lot. “That’s a premium neighborhood,” he says. Meadows himself is building a house a few blocks away that he plans to price at $3.3 million.
Buyers: Not yet identified in public records
Sales agent: Ron Meadows, Sudler Sotheby’s International, (773) 244-9900
The Property: This 19th-century red brick house has been extensively—and, in some places, zanily—restored. The boldly painted cornice and entry only hint at the quirky details that William Lavicka, a longtime rehabber on Chicago’s West and South Sides, has included in his latest project. Inside, there is a mix of restored objects—four of the five fireplaces are originals, their ornate wood mantels stripped of years of paint—and salvaged architectural gems: a snazzy Art Deco tin ceiling in a chevron pattern in the kitchen and the basement party room. There are also some unconventional touches, such as the 12-foot sunflower stalk on the master bedroom ceiling that is actually a functioning heat conduit painted green; the flower’s petals are old ceiling-fan blades.
Lavicka, who has restored dozens of old city homes over the last 35 years, bought this one for $160,000 in October 2003, his first project in the Bronzeville neighborhood, which extends from the lakefront to the Dan Ryan Expressway between 26th and 51st Streets. “The whole first floor had been eaten out by termites and was about ready to cave in,” he says. “It needed a lot of work, and that’s what I do.” The house did have some great basic features, including eight-foot-tall windows in the main rooms, sturdy brick construction, and towering trees on the lot and nearby.
In addition to the extensive rebuilding, Lavicka put a new two-story addition on the rear of the house (for a breakfast room and the master bedroom). He also trimmed the house with his characteristic flair. The kitchen has onyx countertops with copper edging and a mural on the floor depicting all the planets. Upstairs bathrooms have glass fanlights with hand-painted scenes of the rising and setting sun. And the stairs to the backyard have bowling balls atop their newel posts instead of the customary wood knob. “A lot of this is my dad entertaining himself,” says Amber Lavicka who, although not a real-estate agent, is handling the sale for her father.
Price Points: The $899,000 price tag is high for the historical sections of Bronzeville, where the top sale price recorded so far by the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois is $705,500. (Some newly built homes on land formerly occupied by public housing and other structures have gone for more.) But the Lavickas aren’t concerned. “When you have something this unusual, you expect to wait for it to sell,” says Amber Lavicka. “We need to find the buyer who appreciates the care that’s been lavished on preserving it.” Adds her father: “I know that I’m above the game for the neighborhood, but they’re quickly catching up, so I put more money into it than I would have. I’m comfortable with that. You will rarely see a house as interesting as this.” Listing representative: Amber Lavicka: 312-927-2792
At first glance, the news was disturbing—reports earlier this week that downtown condo sales had nose-dived by 46 percent in the first quarter of 2007. But contrary to those early reports, the downtown condo market has not stalled, only slowed.
According to Gail Lissner of the Appraisal Research Counselors—the local real-estate consultants that provided the data for this latest round of news—sales did drop by 46 percent, but only when compared with the first quarter of 2006. But the market of a year ago differs considerably from today’s. The more appropriate comparison, Lissner suggests, is to the two quarters immediately prior to first quarter 2007—periods when the new, slower pace of sales prevailed. With the more recent figures in mind, the recent sales report “wasn’t an improvement, but it wasn’t a decline,” says Lissner. “It leveled off.” The number of units sold in the first quarter was approximately equal to the number of new units that came on the market, she notes. Which is to say, the logjam of new condos didn’t clear, but it didn’t get any more crowded, either.
By one measure, the condo market even showed slight signs of improvement in the last quarter. Because enormous numbers of new condos came on the market in 2006, Lissner points out, the number of finished but unsold condos kept rising throughout the year. “That’s stabilized now,” she says, “and that’s a positive feature.” Most of the unsold inventory Appraisal Research is tracking now, Lissner explains, is proposed condos still on the drawing boards; that is, they are not yet under construction. Some of those units might be postponed indefinitely, easing the logjam even more by providing time for the market to absorb what’s already been built.
In Chicago’s June cover story about the South Loop, Appraisal Research noted that 45.6 percent of the condos sold in downtown Chicago in 2006 were in the South Loop. The latest figures show that the neighborhood continued to lead in sales. About 47 percent of all condos sold in the downtown area in the first quarter of 2007 were in the South Loop, according to the company’s data. “There is still a very strong indication of demand for South Loop condos,” Lissner says.
The Property: Situated on a secluded country lane in Barrington Hills, this 11-room house, built in 1990, has four bedrooms, an in-ground pool and hot tub, and a modern metal barn, as well as access to the local network of horse trails. The previous residents lost the home in a bank foreclosure, and the bank, eager to get the property off its books, listed it for sale in late March “as is” with the Baird & Warner agent Linda Rengel. The house was showing wear, she acknowledges: the entire interior needed paint, new carpet, and bathroom upgrades; the landscaping was an overgrown mess; and the garage stunk from its former use as a dog kennel (“That has to be fumigated,” Rengel says). On top of all those issues, there was no way to warrant the pool’s condition; it had been drained and covered for the winter, and potential buyers couldn’t be told with certainty that it had no leaks or other damage.
But the property has advantages, too. Because it’s only 17 years old, the house has the room sizes and impressive, semi-traditional exterior that appeals now, Rengel says. “In Barrington Hills, you find a lot of dated houses in styles people don’t like. They’re on gorgeous pieces of land, but you have to build. This one looks more like what people want.”
Price Point: If thoroughly prepped for sale, Rengel estimates, the house would have been priced in the mid-$900,000s. Given the house’s condition, she priced it at $749,900. But within two days of listing it, Rengel was entertaining five competing offers, and bidding took the price up to $775,000—still a bargain considering that any repairs (which the buyer began promptly after the May 1st closing) “shouldn’t go past $125,000,” Rengel says. Even spending that much, the buyers will have acquired the wooded, five-acre property at a significant discount. “That’s not just the deal of the week,” she insists. “They got the deal of the year.”
Buyers: Not yet identified in public records Sales Agent: Linda Rengel, Baird & Warner
The Property: A converted coffee and tea showroom beneath an antique copper ceiling, this McKinley Park residence is that rarest of finds: a true industrial loft. “They’ve all disappeared,” says Mario Greco, the Rubloff agent representing the seller. With its great aged factory doors, original hardwood floors, and big storefront windows, the place has the requisite funky patina—but it’s also got such contemporary touches as concrete countertops and hanging glass shelves in the kitchen. The main floor is about 1,700 square feet, configured as one enormous main room with the kitchen at one end (there are also two full baths and a laundry room). The master bedroom (along with more open space) is perched on an L-shaped mezzanine, and there is a small terrace off the back of the kitchen and a grassy public playground across the alley. The 1,100-square-foot basement, unfinished and with no windows, could easily be turned into workspace or a cavernous family room. There is one indoor and one outdoor parking space.
The seller, Dan Delany, bought the space five years ago, when Bridgeport, the neighborhood that lies just east of McKinley Park, had just begun to flourish. A consultant for not-for-profits, he has been spending more time in New York lately and has decided to sell.
Price Points: To get this much space on the North Side, you would easily pay twice the price. But to buy so low, you do have to give up some things. The building is on busy Archer Avenue (with a front-door view of the above-ground Stevenson Expressway), and the surrounding neighborhood is working class. Some potential buyers might find it hard to do without the hip boutiques and cafés, but there are thriving arts communities in Bridgeport and nearby Pilsen, and good restaurants in Chinatown, on South Oakley Avenue’s Italian strip, and in the South Loop. There is a grocery store and other shopping a block away; the buses, El trains, and expressways are close at hand; and you can make the trip into the Loop in less than five minutes. Listing Agent: Mario Greco, Rubloff, (773) 687-4696
The Property: This rugged stone and cedar retreat hidden away on nine wooded acres is just minutes from downtown St. Charles. The place has a bulky exterior—a massive pyramidal wood shingle roof and deeply recessed window and door openings—but inside it lightens up, with an open floor plan, soaring ceilings, and an outsized skylight. Built in 1978, the 6,259-square-foot residence has four bedrooms, five-plus baths, and five fireplaces; the place also has a tennis court and a pool. “That big a house was unheard of [in the 1970s],” says Jeff Jordan, the Re/Max Excels agent listing the house for its sellers. While he declined to name them—and Kane County records do not identify them—Jordan says that they have been in the house for about twenty years, and that they updated the kitchen in 2005. 
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