Gold
Coast real estate was Remember 1984?
The Dow Jones average was 1,154, compared to a sky-high 10,791 in
2004. A gallon of gasoline
for your brand new $20,000 Corvette cost $1.10 in 1984. Today, the
sticker price on a new ‘Vette is about $60,000, and gas is $2.29
a gallon. A new house in
Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood was priced around $800,000
in 1984 – if buyers could swing the payments on a 13.5 percent
mortgage. Twenty years later, that same house went for $2.5 million,
but the interest rate was an affordable 5.75 percent. Despite the relatively
low rate of inflation during the past 20 years, if you bought residential
real estate in Chicago’s Gold Coast or Lincoln Park neighborhoods
during the early ‘80s, it was like putting money in the bank. That, in a nutshell,
is the conclusion of a recently completed study of Gold Coast residential
sales between 1984 and 2004 by veteran Realtor Louise Study Lefkow,
author of “The Study Study of Residential Real Estate,”
now in its 20th year of publication. Here’s a
Lefkow snapshot of four Gold Coast homes that have sold multiple times
over the past two decades: • A single-family
home on North Astor Street sold for $525,000 in 1984, then was resold
for $1.825 million in 1995. It was sold again in 2004 for the exceptional
price of $4.04 million. • In 1990,
a single-family home on North Dearborn Parkway sold for $595,000,
then was resold for $975,000 in 1995. It resold again in 2003 for
a whopping $3,062,500. • A home
on West Scott Street sold for $530,000 in 1995, then was resold for
$1.25 million in 1999. It was sold again in 2003 for $1.9 million.
• In 1991,
a home on West Cedar Street sold for $420,000, then was resold for
$995,000 in 1996. It resold again in 2001 for $1.9 million “A look back
over the past 20 years of reports demonstrates that Chicago, the heart
of the Midwest, has maintained price stability and falls in the middle
of fairly priced U.S. cities,” Lefkow observed in the report. “Additionally,
Chicago’s market has realized steadily rising home values,”
said Lefkow, who sold more than $19 million in real estate in 2004
and is celebrating her 10th anniversary with Rubloff Residential Properties
as one of the company’s 10 top sales associates. “Twenty years
ago, there were only a few select neighborhoods where one would find
substantial housing options,” Lefkow reported. “Today, there
are many more options because the number of prime neighborhoods has
dramatically increased.” Twenty years ago
boundaries of the “Gold Coast” were Oak Street to North
Avenue and Lake Michigan to Clark Street. “The Gold
Coast’s boundaries have expanded along with the creation of new
neighborhoods in which distinctive properties may be found,”
Lefkow said. “Realtors and buyers have pushed the parameters
of desirable markets, encouraging developers to build in old neighborhoods
now transformed by the competition for renovated homes and new construction,”
the study noted. Here are highlights of the 2004 Study Study of Residential
Real Estate, an analysis of the marketplace covering 12 Chicago neighborhoods: • Gold Coast
/ Near North. Thirty-six single-family homes were sold in 2004, with
a median price of $1.41 million. Sixty-one percent of the homes in
this area sold for more than $1 million. In addition, 1,198 condominiums
were sold, with a median price of $740,000, and 28 percent were priced
at more than $1 million. • Lincoln
Park. A total of 208 single-family homes were sold in 2004 and had
a median price of $1.24 million. Sixty-seven percent of the homes
were closed at prices higher than $1 million. About 361 condominiums
were sold at a median price of $610,000, and 42 percent of them were
more than $1 million. • Lakeview.
Some 166 single-family homes were sold in 2004, with a median price
of $899,450. Forty percent of the homes sold for more than $1 million.
In addition, 334 condos were sold, with a median price of $580,000.
Only 1 percent was priced at more than $1 million. “In the new
millennium, housing prices should continue to outpace the cost of
living index,” Lefkow predicted. |