At a time when Chicago’s for-sale housing inventory is hitting new lows, one neighborhood is seeing a rise in its supply of single-family homes and could be a hidden buyer’s market.
Lakeview had 90 homes for sales at the end of February, which equates to roughly 7.3 months of supply, according to a blog posting from Gary Lucido, president of Lucid Realty.
The reason for the increased supply– homes are taking longer to sell.
According to Lucido, for the 12 months ending February 2016 the average market time for a single-family home in Lakeview was 95 days. At that same time, sales activity has remained relatively unchanged, with homes appreciating by less than 2 percent year-over-year.
He notes that the number of luxury listings is on the rise within the neighborhood. Currently the community’s median price home value stands at nearly $325,000.
One luxury listing to recently hit the market is a four-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot home in the neighborhood’s Southport Corridor. According to the Chicago Tribune, the mansion features a bathroom themed after the party game Twister. The 2010-built property was initially listed in 2013 for just under $5 million. Today it is being listed at around $3 million.
North Center real estate
Adjacent to Lakeview, the North Center neighborhood has more than four months of single-family home inventory. Of note, during mid-2015 the neighborhoods supply eclipsed five months.
Similar to Lakeview, home values in North Center have not appreciated significantly spanning the past year, by an estimated roughly 1 percent.
One notable recent transaction in the neighborhood involved Chicago Cub’s second basemen Ben Zobrist. The cub recently bought a newly-built, six-bedroom home in the North Center enclave of St. Ben’s for roughly $1.9 million.
Entering February, Chicago’s for-sale housing inventory, including condos, was at 7,292, down 17 percent year-over year. According to Lucido, Chicago’s supply of single-family homes sits around 3.7 months.
