My mission this past weekend was to check out a two-bedroom condo on the North Side of Chicago selling for less than $200,000. As if that didn’t narrow the field enough, I determined it should be near the lake – and I don’t mean a 20-minute walk or even a 15-minute walk. I mean a five-minute-stroll-in-your-flip-flops walk.
The Grove at Greenleaf, marketed by Jameson Realty Group, met all the major criteria. The 44-unit conversion of a courtyard apartment building is at 1358 W Greenleaf Ave in Rogers Park, so close to the lake that on a clear day you can see the water sparkling through the trees at the eastern end of the block. Two-bedrooms with one bath start at $169,800.
One of these is still available, according to a price sheet I picked up at the open house. The other remaining units, all two-bedrooms, are priced from $174,800 to $259,800. The project is about 60 percent sold, according to Cheryl Turchi-Bussmann, the Jameson agent manning the open house Sunday. She said Trimensions is the developer.
I took a look at model for the unit in the $160s. It was, predictably at that price, on the small side. The 13-by-11-foot living room fit a couch and a coffee table but not a dining table or chairs – eating would have to happen at the breakfast bar. The 12-by-seven-foot kitchen was nicely set up with cherry cabinets, stainless steel appliances and granite counters. The bedrooms were also pretty small: the master was 12 by eight feet and the second bedroom was 11 by 10 feet.
Fitting two people (and their stuff) into that space would mean making a serious commitment to feng shui. But it could be done, especially if the pair in question is sharing a bedroom. I checked out another, slightly larger model, for $214,800, which while still pretty small had enough room for a dining room table.
The condos seemed like a reasonable investment for first-time homebuyers in the market for a new (or just rehabbed) home. Two-bedrooms in Edgewater or Uptown that aren’t much bigger routinely sell for $100,000 more. Whether you’ll be able to resell your unit at a profit within a few years is another, more complicated question.
Some people are scared of Rogers Park. I’m willing to concede that it can be rough in places, but I’m partial to the cluster of businesses around the Morse el stop (just a couple of blocks away), like the Heartland Cafe, a Rogers Park standby.
