Uptown emerging as hot market for homes Uptown is emerging
as the hottest area on Chicago’s north lakefront for condominium
and single-family home sales, according to Sudler’s Lakefront
Market Survey. The quarterly
report on residential resale property values noted that Uptown currently
is the strongest neighborhood in the city for condo and co-operative
apartment sales. Condo and co-op sales volume rose 30.2 percent, to
$87.5 million, during the second quarter of 2003, and transaction
volume was up 29 percent, to 373 units, Sudler reported. The average
Uptown condo or co-op sold for $234,584. Uptown also recorded an 80 percent increase in single-family home sales volume and a 33 percent rise in the number of homes sold. The average home sold in Uptown in the first half of 2003 was priced at $686,187. “This shows that the Uptown neighborhood is an emerging alternative for lakefront housing,” said Jeanine McShea, president of Sudler’s residential brokerage division. Although Uptown may not yet be “Yuptown,” revitalization of the neighborhood, bounded roughly by Irving, Foster, Lake Michigan and Clark, has been in progress for more than a decade, real estate sources say. “Home shoppers
looking for everything from affordable condos and rental apartments
to posh lofts and a Queen Anne mansion can take their pick from the
diverse housing stock in the Uptown neighborhood,” said developer
Mark Baumgarten, senior vice president and director of operations
for Joseph Freed Homes, which currently is developing the $24.3 million
Phoenix at Uptown Square, a new 37-unit condominium and retail development
in Uptown. “Today, Uptown
is a safe and affordable community,” said Harold W. Lichterman,
president of Kenard Corp., a veteran developer who, with his wife,
Gerry Lichterman, spearheaded the landmark movement in Uptown’s
Buena Park historic district and rehabbed more than 250 rental apartments
in the area. Kenard now is one of the key developers involved in Wilson
Yards, a mixed-use development planned for a five-acre parcel between
Montrose and Wilson avenues just west of Broadway, in the heart of
Uptown. Despite the continuing
economic slowdown, gradually rising interest rates, and longer market
time for homes and condos, the Sudler report noted that the overall
Chicago housing market “remains a strong and stable force.”
Prices for single-family homes, co-ops and condominiums rose modestly
during the second quarter, while the length of time required to sell
residential properties increased. The Sudler survey
looks at all resale transactions reported by the Multiple Listing
Service of Northern Illinois (MLSNI) involving single-family homes,
condominiums and cooperatives in six Chicago neighborhoods: the Loop,
Near North, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Uptown and Edgewater. Resales of co-ops
and condos during the first six months of 2003 totaled $1.389 billion,
an increase of 5.2 percent over the comparable period last year, while
the number of units changing hands rose 0.8 percent, to 4,277 this
year from 4,242 last year. The average lakefront
condo / co-op was priced at $324,770, 4.3 percent more than the average
for the January-to-June period last year. The average market time
needed to sell a condo or co-op rose to 111 days during the first
half of the year, up from 44 days during the same period last year. “Demand for
condo and co-ops was strong throughout the first half of the year,
but buyers don’t feel as rushed to make a decision this year
as in prior years,” said McShea. “…Buyers are showing
caution in response to the relatively high price of residential real
estate on the lakefront. Also, there is a larger inventory of units
from which to select, so there is less sense of urgency.”
The number of lakefront single-family homes changing hands declined
13 percent, to 205 from 236 sold during the first six months of 2002.
The average price of $951,366 was up 6.4 percent from the same period
in 2002. The average lakefront
condo price during the second quarter was $325,059, up slightly from
the first-quarter 2003 average price of $324,301. However, the average
price rose 5.1 percent compared to the same quarter in 2002. The number
of units changing hands held steady at 1,631 this year compared to
1,643 in 2002. The average price
of a single-family home stayed relatively stable at $961,777 during
the quarter, up 1.2 percent from the same quarter last year and 2.9
percent from an average of $934,415 recorded during the first quarter
of this year. |