At a time when Chicago’s for-sale housing inventory is hitting new lows, one neighborhood is seeing a rise in its supply of single-family homes and could be a hidden buyer’s market.
Lakeview had 90 homes for sales at the end of February, which equates to roughly 7.3 months of supply, according to a blog posting from Gary Lucido, president of Lucid Realty.
[Tweet “Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood a buyer’s market?”]
The reason for the increased supply– homes are taking longer to sell.
According to Lucido, for the 12 months ending February 2016 the average market time for a single-family home in Lakeview was 95 days. At that same time, sales activity has remained relatively unchanged, with homes appreciating by less than 2 percent year-over-year.
He notes that the number of luxury listings is on the rise within the neighborhood. Currently the community’s median price home value stands at nearly $325,000.
One luxury listing to recently hit the market is a four-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home in the neighborhood’s Southport Corridor. According to the Chicago Tribune, the mansion features a bathroom themed after the party game Twister. The 2010-built property was initially listed in 2013 for just under $5 million. Today it is being listed at around $3 million.
North Center real estate
Adjacent to Lakeview, the North Center neighborhood has more than four months of single-family home inventory. Of note, during mid-2015 the neighborhoods supply eclipsed five months.
Similar to Lakeview, home values in North Center have not appreciated significantly spanning the past year, by an estimated roughly 1 percent.
One notable recent transaction in the neighborhood involved Chicago Cub’s second basemen Ben Zobrist. The cub recently bought a newly-built, six-bedroom home in the North Center enclave of St. Ben’s for roughly $1.9 million.
Entering February, Chicago’s for-sale housing inventory, including condos, was at 7,292, down 17 percent year-over year. According to Lucido, Chicago’s supply of single-family homes sits around 3.7 months.
