Could there be a glut of McMansions in Lincoln Park? It might be one reason the average price of the city’s toniest residences (the single-family homes of L.P.) has dropped $100,000 in 2005 and the plush pads sat on the market for an average of 161 days this year while their hedge-fund manager and day-trader owners twiddled their thumbs impatiently.
The average price is down from $1.4 million in 2004 to the bargain-basement price of $1.3 million this year, according to new figures from the Chicago Association of Realtors. What are you waiting for?
Some 181 of the homes sold between Jan. 1 to Dec. 1, 2005, according to CAR. For perspective, look at the stats from previous years. In 2004, CAR says, the homes sat on the market for an average of 131 days and 193 were sold. More sold, and faster.
2003? There were 172 properties sold for an average price of $1.1M and the market time was a whippet-fast 58 days. The CAR stats don’t tell us how many homes are on the market for any of those time periods, but we hear that custom-builders keen on teardown projects are racking up a backlog of unsold homes.
On one hand, construction prices are up these days, there are only so many buyers in this market, and the buyers are getting more discerning because they know desperation when they smell it.
Many of the homes in L.P. are of course staggeringly beautiful and the “Mc” word is a dirty one in these parts, used to refer mockingly to supersized manses in the ‘burbs. But surely some of these Lincoln Park houses qualify?