Conversions of sturdy and often beautiful old two-flats and larger apartment buildings account for a big chunk of the housing market in Uptown and Edgewater, and also are changing the demographics of the neighborhood.
“There are fewer families and more singles and couples all over,” says Joyce Dugan, president of Uptown United, a consortium of non-profits. “Apartment buildings with six big flats that used to house families of six have been converted into condos with one or two people living in them.”
Often, the newcomers are more affluent, too. Uptown’s median condo price was $275,000 in 2006, up from $230,000 in 2003, according to Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois figures compiled by the Chicago Association of Realtors and real estate agent Killian Walsh of Century 21 S.G.R.