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Humboldt Park
Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago is “a nonprofit neighborhood revitalization organization committed to helping homeowners and strengthening neighborhoods.” It concentrates its efforts on West Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, Back of the Yards, Chicago Lawn, West Englewood, Auburn Gresham and Roseland. NHS recently launched a series of videos at YouTube spotlighting its focus neighborhoods as “Neighborhood ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 19, 2013
It was November of 2008 when YoChicago first looked at the new condominiums at 1555 N Talman in Humboldt Park, and expressed skepticism about the development’s claimed location in “West Wicker Park.” The building was incomplete at the time, and a 2-bedroom unit was listed in the $490s and a 3-bedroom in the $640s. Fast ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on March 15, 2013
The blocks just south of North Avenue east of the park in Humboldt Park have seen a great deal of new construction activity in the past ten years, both single-family homes and condominiums. It’s all been small-scale infill development. Walk the streets, as I did last August when I took these photos, and you’ll see ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 9, 2013
Two Humboldt Park new listings slid into our email inbox over the weekend, a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo asking $299,900 and a 4-bedroom 3 ½ bath single-family priced at $359,900. The condo, Unit 504 at 2800 W North Ave, is in a building that we first noted in May of 2009, just before it was branded ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on July 23, 2012
It seems like every article about Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail contains a mandatory reference to New York’s High Line. Last Saturday I made my second visit to the High Line. I visited the initial phase two years ago, and this was my first look at the second phase. I’ve been along the path of the Bloomingdale ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on June 4, 2012
There’s an idealized Humboldt Park and a real one. You can find the idealized version at a real estate site: A diverse, family-friendly area full of mom-and-pop shops, plenty of greenery and neighbors chatting on front stoops is the core of Humboldt Park living. But the real treat is that the neighborhood hustles and bustles ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 27, 2012
In Chicago, a Safe Park Zone sign is a warning that you may encounter gang activity, drug sales and weapon-carrying teenagers. You won’t find Safe Park Zone signs in safe parks, but you will find them, for example, in parts of Humboldt Park. Safe School Zone signs are helpful in determining whether there’s gang or ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 10, 2012
There’s a part of Bridgeport east of Halsted that some of the locals mockingly refer to as Bridgeport Heights in light of the area’s supersized homes. I’d never heard of “Humboldt Heights” before spying the above sign on the 3200 block of Potomac Ave, just off Humboldt Park. There are few references to Humboldt Heights ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on March 30, 2012
You have to love a sassy Aussie – but not everyone does. Especially one who talks about moving her business from Humboldt Park to Bucktown because of “too many bullets in the cake” and cops who “would knock on the door and ask to taste the crack.” The remarks by Naomi Levine, owner of the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 23, 2012
Condominiums in Rogers Park, Humboldt Park and Irving Park — three neighborhoods that once had strong new development and high selling prices — are now selling for 25%, 27%, and 40% of their peak price levels in 2007 or 2008. As of last quarter, the median selling price of a condominium in Rogers Park was ...
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Posted by Jeff Baird on February 14, 2012
View the 500 block of N Central Park Ave in Google Street View and you’ll see a very different scene than the one, above, that I saw early yesterday afternoon. Google Street View serves up a historical snapshot of a part of Humboldt Park that has deteriorated rapidly over the past several years. West of ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 29, 2011
A recently-listed new construction home at 910 N Richmond Ave in Humboldt Park is holding an open house this Sunday, October 16, from 11 AM to 12:30 PM. The 4-bedroom, 3 ½ bath home includes hardwood floors on the main and upper levels, a large fenced yard, and a 2-car garage in the $389,000 listing ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on October 13, 2011
The newly-built home at 2448 W Cullom Ave in the fictional “south Ravenswood Manor” has more than 70 entries, beginning in May of 2006, in its listing history at Redfin. The latest is a $100 price reduction – to $874,800. Another recently-built home, at 1106 N Christiana St in Humboldt Park, has 3 dozen entries ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on September 22, 2011
Real estate brokerage sites typically feature upbeat overviews of Chicago’s neighborhoods. The articles often appear to have been authored on a low budget by people who’ve never set foot in the neighborhoods they describe. For example, you’ll find the following description of Humboldt Park, word for word, at both a real estate brokerage site and ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on June 19, 2011
We’ve long been skeptical of the West Bucktown moniker, but ongoing redevelopment lends some legitimacy to real estate brokers and the West Bucktown Neighborhood Association’s renaming of the area bounded by North Ave (1600 N), Armitage Ave (2000 N), Western Ave (2400 W) and California Ave (2800 W). Ultimate Homes has been building new construction ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 13, 2011
The Hispanic population of Humboldt Park fell by 4% in the past decade, dropping from 31,607 to 30,337, according to new Census data. But due to a steeper rate of decline in the community area’s total population, Hispanics actually became the majority demographic in Humboldt Park, rising from 48% in 2000 to 52.5% in 2009. ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on January 4, 2011
Jeff Baird is a real estate valuation consultant based in Chicago. He founded Lakeshore Analytics to bring comprehensive, understandable housing data and analysis to Chicago-area readers. The site features a blog with free market news and charts, summary data on 20 top neighborhoods, and quarterly data subscriptions. Many neighborhoods have faced a rocky road during ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on November 8, 2010
This new single-family home at 1706 N Rockwell St west of Bucktown features three to five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a family room, a theater room, and a ton of well-selected upgrades that are standards with its builder. It also has something that buyers say is missing in most homes priced under $800,000 — a real ...
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Posted by sponsored post on September 14, 2010
Yesterday afternoon I pulled up a list of homes priced at or near $500,000 (a range of $490,000 to $510,000, if you must know), that have been on the MLS for no more than 30 days. Here are seven examples of homes currently on the market for a half-million in neighborhoods spread across the city. ...
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Posted by Joseph Askins on August 24, 2010
Earlier today I walked through a beautiful new home at 1738 N Rockwell, in the neighborhood that Realtors have been calling “West Bucktown.” I’ve long been a skeptic of the “West Bucktown” name, but it appears that local residents and home buyers have been adopting it. That, at least, is the take of Melissa Govaderica, ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on July 23, 2010
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