Chicago Real Estate is still TOO Expensive! (condo, townhome)

[Jesse69]

My friend who's only a $21,000 a year Phlebotamist managed to buy a $80,000 bungalow around Cicero back in the 90's. He said later Real Estate Agents were asking him to sell around $150,000+ or so.

I live in an awesome 3 story Wicker Park house that I'll inherit and I just can't live in anything less or else my $32,800 20 bike collection + $22,000? [120 + skirt suit] collection just won't fit!

I'd say bungalows are only worth up to $100,000! They're small!

[chicagocubs]

Originally Posted by andrew61

I'd say keep looking. I'm quite sure I've seen some small bungalows advertised for sale in the low $200s (or sometimes even less) in some very nice Far Northwest Side neighborhoods recently.

I agree. Watch the foreclosure sales. There are some nice condos for sale for very good prices now. Just wish I could afford to invest.

[Jesse69]

But bungalows are located in the cheap parts of Chicago!

I started this thread because Real Estate prices are still too high! Maybe sellers aren't backing down their prices for a loss... It's really time to realize that housing costs are just too expensive for the avg Chicagoan...

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by coldwine

What I don't understand, Lookout, is this: if these neighborhoods have produced consistently high returns, and demand for housing is so outrageous... Why then do architects continue to build such godawful failures of design?

I don't mean to blame you personally, I just can't fathom why proven methods of success sit adjacent to horrific failures so bland and lacking they crush the soul.

I'm not sure if you're indirectly blaming me as part of the collective of "Chicago architects" for the new-construction residential architecture in Chicago or not...(kind of like saying "darn lawyers!"). I've largely worked on high-rise condo and office buildings, and only for modernist firms. The majority of my work has been foreign or in other states. It wasn't me, man! Though I can't say the same thing about the messed up urbanism in Shanghai and Dubai, unfortunately.

Most of the small-scale stuff you see in Chicago neighborhoods was not touched by an architect. Unfortunately there are many "stamps for hire" in Chicago that allow projects to get through the permitting process without any real designer's touch. Lord only knows who comes up with these crappy four-story brick condo buildings we see all over the city.

[chirack]

Originally Posted by Jesse69

My friend who's only a $21,000 a year
I'd say bungalows are only worth up to $100,000! They're small!

Dude, I live near a ghetto and once lived in a ghetto. Even in a ghetto you would be spending around 80k-90k to buy a house(more if it is a two flat). In my area housing goes at $120k-160K unless you got it as a foreclosure. The are a lot of large bungalows in chicago, what you won't find is housing equivlent in size to something in the burbs at that price range(mostly due to the cities older stock and smaller lot sizes). As for his 150k house, odds are that was the buble and at best his place might go for around 130k now.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Jesse69

But bungalows are located in the cheap parts of Chicago!

Wicker Park and Bucktown used to be the cheaper parts of Chicago. My father is amazed that people with dough want to live there in those "crappy frame buildings built for cheapass Germans".

[Venom]

So where are the cheapest houses in Chicago?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by andrew61

Move to Cleveland.

"Buy a house for the price of a VCR..."

[linicx]

I guess my question is why the OP is curious about the price of Chicago real estate if he is going to inherit property in Wicker Park? I would think if someone wanted the bikes bad enough they will get them unless the WP house is secured like Fort Knox.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Jesse69

My friend who's only a $21,000 a year Phlebotamist managed to buy a $80,000 bungalow around Cicero back in the 90's. He said later Real Estate Agents were asking him to sell around $150,000+ or so.

I live in an awesome 3 story Wicker Park house that I'll inherit and I just can't live in anything less or else my $32,800 20 bike collection + $22,000? [120 + skirt suit] collection just won't fit!

I'd say bungalows are only worth up to $100,000! They're small!

Depends on where and what you're talking about. "True" Chicago bungalows built in the main part of the bungalow boom between 1925-30 are usually around 2,500 - 3,000 square feet if you finish all three levels. Some are even bigger than that. Maybe not as large as a typical McMansion out in Oswego (thank God), but big enough.

People use the term "bungalow" pretty loosely I've noticed. Cicero has a lot of houses built in the 1920s which share some features with bungalows but don't have a second floor. Some refer to the smaller brick ranch houses built in late 1940s and 1950s in places like Garfield Ridge as bungalows. And there are "frame bungalows" that were built before the 1920s. Those too are usually smaller.

I think true bungalows in even the worst neighborhoods sell for a bit more than 100k. This isn't Detroit or Cleveland!