You've got to laugh to keep from crying, Yo readers. That's why we're celebrating "Gallows Humor Weekend" at YoChicago. Think of it as our own real-estate-themed prelude to Halloween.
To get things rolling, we'll pass along this hot-off-the-presses news release:
Coming Soon…
We're delighted to announce a GRAND OPENING WING DING for…
TRAMP TOWER
Blair Kamin says: “Wee doggies, they got a pen'house an' one o' them tables what got a umbrella!”
Featuring:
All surface-mounted wiring
"Indoors" outhouse
Kustum Kitchens by Possumbility
Passive solar heating & cooling
Vintage wind generator
Highly sustainable environment for native species
Enjoy sustainable, locally produced dietary regimen of tasty local critters
Low population density affords easy supply of road kill
Porches, decks and stairwells mostly in compliance with OSHA standards
The comment section is all yours, boys and ghouls!
Anyone who has looked at a PageRank meter recently or uploaded a video onto YouTube knows that Google has plenty of data about traffic on the Web. One toy we've been playing around with this afternoon is Google Insights for Search, which can compare search patterns across regions, categories, and time frames. For example, what is the more popular query among Google users - "new homes Chicago" or "new construction Chicago" - and how has the number of those searches changed over the past four years?
As you can see in the chart above, "New homes Chicago" (in blue) is used just a little more frequently than "new construction Chicago" (in red), but searches for both have tanked by about 80 percent from the halcyon days of early 2005.
And what if you add "real estate Chicago" (the orange line below) to the mix?
The trend line is the same, but "real estate Chicago" definitely blows away the other two.
For what it's worth, Google says the top five searches related to these phrases are:
I didn't take this photo, but whoever did sure had a knack for framing that Nissan Altima in the foreground. Can you blame them? It's a sweet-looking ride, but this is a real-estate site, not a car-lover's site, and probably for good reason.
Miller Place has been on the market for quite some time. We first wrote about the Pilsen six-flat at 1615 S Miller St in April 2007. Pamela Holt from @properties says she didn't have access to the building, and therefore wasn't able to show it, until February of this year, after which she quickly sold three of its condos. Interest has dropped off since then, she says.
According to the MLS, each of the remaining two-bedrooms have 1,160 square feet. Two of are priced in the $340s and the third is priced in the $350s, Holt says. Parking is included with each home.
The remaining units have been discounted slightly: Our last post said these condos were started in the $360s, so it seems likely that the price has dropped by as much as $20,000 for at least one of these homes.
Miller Place's Web site says the homes will feature oak hardwood floors with Brazilian cherry borders and a Frigidaire appliance package, and the building will have access to a landscaped back yard. The building was designed by Studio D Architecture, the same folks that brought us Cullerton Corners in Pilsen.
Every morning, we survey scores of local and national newspapers and magazines, amateur and professional blogs and other interesting Web sites in search of stories that are relevant to Chicago home buyers. We add those stories to own news feed, thereby creating a one-stop news source for anyone interested in Chicago's neighborhoods and new-home market.
"A year or two from now, we'll all be living in trailer parks."
I'd fallen into a discussion of economic conditions with an old friend who's one of Chicago's most experienced and successful real estate developers. He said this in all seriousness.
It's only a matter of time before another big red checkerboard emerges in the 1900 block of South Calumet Avenue. The second tower from the Museum Park Place development is coming out of the ground in the Enterprise Companies' Central Station super development, and it's growing fast.
It has been a little over a month since I last posted a sales update for this building at 1901 S Calumet Ave, and it looks like they've been adding at least one floor per week. I count at least 11 residential floors on top of the parking garage, and windows have been added to the first few residential floors. When completed, the building will have 29 stories and 276 one- to three-bedroom condos.
When I spoke with Ralph Oliva from Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in August, he said a little more than half of the homes in the building had been sold, and that there were still units available in every floor plan. Prices for most of the condos run from the $250s to the $600s. There will also be west-facing townhouses starting in the $860s.
Park Kingsbury Luxury Lofts is located at 678 N Kingsbury St in River North, just a couple blocks away from the YoChicago office, but it recently occurred to us that we haven't toured the sales center since Jameson Real Estate took over the project's sales and marketing duties. To change that, I took a stroll down to Kingsbury Street yesterday and met with Jameson agent Lindsey Delrahim, who showed me around the two-bedroom furnished model.
Park Kingsbury is the only new loft development in River North listed on NewHomeNotebook.com, and it's notable for the size of the lofts that will be available. During our tour, Delrahim said the smallest loft, aside from the model, has 1,700 square feet of living space, and the largest has 3,100 square feet. Prices run from the $470s to $1.6 million.
During our chat about Joffrey Tower earlier this week, Diana Luo mentioned that Smithfield Properties would start closing units at its other new tower, SoNo, starting the first week of November.
SoNo's sales staff will move into a new sales center inside the high-rise, located at 860 W Blackhawk St on the Near North Side, on Oct. 24. Models will open up for visitation shortly thereafter, she says.
If our earlier reports are any indication, the percentage of homes under contract at SoNo has dropped steadily over the course of the year, from 65 percent in March to 60 percent in June to around 55 percent today. Prices on the low end haven't changed: One-bedroom condos still start in the $290s. On the other end of the spectrum, prices appear to have inched upward slightly - the three-bedroom "lofts" on the tower's third through sixth floors top out in the $590s instead of the $570s that we've reported through most of the year.
Luo would not confirm the rumors that Smithfield has scrapped plans for SoNo's twin tower to the east, saying only that the company had not make a decision about the project's future phases.
