A new Wicker Park home sold at near list price before completion

By the time I met Sergio & BanksDemetrius Simpson at a nearly-completed Noah Properties’ home in Wicker Park late last December, it was already under contract.

The 5-bedroom, 3 ½ bath home at 1524 N Wood St had been listed for sale at $1,299,999. It closed last week at $1,275,000.

Noah Properties has been one of the city’s hottest developers during the past several years, and I’ve seen the sale-before-completion scene play out dozens of times on the company’s single-family homes and condos.

Sergio & Banks has a “coming soon” section on its website where buyers and their agents can learn about new construction offerings before they make it to the Multiple Listing Service. The more time-honored way for agents to stay ahead of the market is feet-on-the-street in areas where new construction is happening. There’s quite a bit of new construction underway in small infill projects, and quite a few pre-completion, pre-listing sales.

Vik Wadhwa of Urban Living, one of our sponsors, is one of the agents paying attention to new construction before it’s listed for sale. He represented the buyers of the Wood home, and sent along the following note:

Our clients are very happy. We were lucky to get in to see the home before it hit the MLS. There were several other buyers who wanted to make offers, but we were able to act fast and reach a deal quickly.

There’s been a great deal of media coverage recently devoted to the low number of homes on the market compared to prior years, and a much greater amount of buyer lamentation about a perceived scarcity of attractively priced, move-in ready homes. Buyers and agents who sit back and wait for homes to hit the MLS before looking at them, and then are slow to make decisions, are likely to remain dissatisfied with the options available to them.

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