If you subscribe to the Time Out Chicago or Chicago Agent mailing list, you probably found this ad in your inbox this morning:
“Better than a foreclosure sale”? Hey, what isn’t?
Everything I know about the Front Street Lofts comes from the sponsored article we published in New Homes Magazine in July 2008. The development consists of 82 soft lofts and townhomes spread across four buildings and is part of a larger, 10-block redevelopment of downtown Lemont spearheaded by the village and the Marquette Companies.
The ad above directed me to the development’s Web site, which is promoting reductions of more than 50 percent off the homes’ original prices. One-bedroom lofts originally priced from the $190s to the $260s now start in the $110s, and two-bedroom, two-story lofts once listed from the $350s to $450s now start below $190,000.
The project is approved for FHA-backed loans, and buyers can close and move in for as little as $1,200, the site says.
My in-laws live in Lemont and we frequent the area often. I really like their Rolling Meadows sub-division where they built almost 10 years ago (and have done well). My wife and I have followed development there since.
We were really shocked by the pricing of the Front Street Lofts when they rolled out. Even two years ago when we thought about buying a place as an “investment” (we have several reasons to buy a condo in the downtown), we could not believe they were hanging on to their prices… I thought they were seriously $100K plus over priced on the one bedrooms for 250K we were looking at the time.
The “old” downtown has a couple good bars and restaurants, but is mostly very sleepy. I enjoy myself there when getting out of Chicago. But I don’t think one retail store has moved into the new development (I drove around the development not more than a few weeks ago) and it is seriously tumbleweeds there. We worry about some of the new businesses making it in the “old downtown” that opened over the past couple years let alone anyone new moving in.
The new prices you point out should move units… if they did this during thr first time buyers rage last year, they’d be down to 25% left. This may be too late too…. we’ll see.
I’ll have to take another look at this as well at $100K. Would be nice for our family to have the condo for the many visitors to the family home!