60646 Blog

Edgebrook / Sauganash / Gladstone Park Market Conditions – First Quarter 2011

Markus Azadeh — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:38:04 +0000

In zip code 60646, Q1 2011 did not start out with a bang. Edgebrook which had just finished the year 2010 on a strong note, showed signs of weakness again in Q1 2011, and Sauganash and South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park (SEGP) were still playing catchup.

This way to the details ↓

Edgebrook Real Estate Market Conditions Q1 2011 ↓↑

Sauganash Real Estate Market Conditions Q1 2011 ↓↑

South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park Real Estate Market Conditions Q1 2011 ↓↑

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Edgebrook / Sauganash / Gladstone Park Market Conditions – Fourth Quarter 2010 And Year-End Stats

Markus Azadeh — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:09:28 +0000

This post is way overdue. My sincere apologies for that. But I’ve compiled the figures now, and they’re important to digest, because no other blog or website in the Chicago area drills down to the real estate market stats of Edgebrook, Sauganash, and South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park like 60646 Blog.

In a nutshell: 2010 could be (cautiously) dubbed as the “comeback year” for Edgebrook real estate. Sales volume was still very soft compared to previous years, but median home prices finally rose above last years’. Sauganash on the other hand, still suffered from value erosion, but had a great year volume-wise. Similarly, South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park saw decreased median values, but steady sales volume.

For more details, please hit the individual neighborhoods below.

Edgebrook Real Estate Market Conditions Q4 2010 and Full-Year Stats ↓↑

Sauganash Real Estate Market Conditions Q4 2010 and Full-Year Stats ↓↑

South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park Real Estate Market Conditions Q4 2010 and Full-Year Stats ↓↑

Ten Images Of The Aftermath

Markus Azadeh — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:38:25 +0000

On Tuesday, June 21, 2011, in the early evening hours, the Chicagoland area was hit hard by a devastating rainstorm, actually coupled with some twisters that came uncomfortably close to the Edgebrook and Sauganash area (the suburb of Mount Prospect was hit by an EF1). The aftermath was not pretty. Many of my North Edgebrook neighbors were without power for days, which is not surprising at all, given the fact that we are surrounded by so many tall and mature trees on the city’s far northwest side. Many heavy branches of these trees simply snapped and fell onto the power lines. Game over. Below are a few pictures of the aftermath in Wildwood that I took on Wednesday.

The left picture in the third row depicts Medford Ave in Wildwood, where a tree fell from the south side of the street onto a tree on the north side of the street – thereby blocking the street – and the collision caused the tree on the north side of Medford to fall on the roof of the residence adjacent to it. Dominoes. The owner of that home with whom I spoke, assured me that he’s not happy, but that’s what insurance is for. He took it definitely better than I would have.

Mortgage Interest Deduction – The Holy Grail Of Homeownership Under Attack

Markus Azadeh — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:57:13 +0000

photo credit: JD Hancock

You may have read or heard that the Obama Administration is seriously considering the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction (MID), as one of the remedies to the federal budget’s shortfall. Frankly, this is a very political topic, and your standpoint on this issue may depend on which political camp you favor. Our trade association, the National Association of Realtors®, along with its state and local governing bodies, vigorously defend MID, and don’t want to see it eliminated. I am not here to convince you one way or the other, however, I will offer a compilation of links/sources with regard to this topic to you that you can peruse at your convenience, and subsequently, hopefully be able to form your own opinion.

• Home Mortgage Interest Deduction [Wikipedia]
• Defending the Mortgage Interest Deduction [National Association of Realtors®]
• Are Mortgage Interest Deductions on the Way Out? [Chicago Agent Magazine]
• Obama should ditch mortgage deduction [CNN]
• REALTORS® Defending MID [Illinois Association of Realtors®]
• Save My MID [National Association of Homebuilders]
• The Case Against The Mortgage Interest Deduction [Business Insider]
• Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction Go Bye-Bye? [The Notorious R.O.B]
• Who does the mortgage-interest deduction benefit? [Washington Post]
• Is It Time to Roll Back the Mortgage-Interest Deduction? [The WSJ]
• Proposal to Limit or Eliminate Tax Deduction for Homes Is Unpopular, Could Raise Billions [Fox News]

60646 Blog Was Inaccessible For Almost A Week

Markus Azadeh — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:02:30 +0000

So, here’s what happened: A few weeks ago, I noticed that this website loads quite slowly, and is rather sluggish, in general. A call to my hosting provider confirmed that this site is hosted on an old (shared) server, and should really be hosted on a fast (grid) server. Thanks guys for letting me and my readers go through this before you proactively suggest a solution to me. Anyway, towards the end of last week, my hosting provider proceeded to migrate the blog from slow server to fast server, and that’s when the nightmare happened: The database got lost in the process! Without the database, NOTHING will work. In fact, all is lost, blog posts, comments, everything. That’s the bad news. The good news is that my hosting provider had an image of the database somewhere that they simply had to resurrect, and 60646 Blog would be back in business. Of course, this is nothing that will be solved in a matter of minutes. It takes numerous calls to tech support, issues will find themselves in a long resolution queue (we’re talking 3 to 10 business days!!!), and reps have to be begged to escalate the ticket.

Yesterday afternoon at 3 pm, 60646 Blog was finally back online. To my loyal readers, I apologize for the inconvenience and downtime. Steps have been taken to make pretty certain this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Hopefully, this site loads faster for you now than it did for the past couple of months, but if it doesn’t please feel free to comment below, or notify me by email.

Post thumbnail image courtesy: MrFaber under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Edgebrook / Sauganash / Gladstone Park Market Conditions – Third Quarter 2010

Markus Azadeh — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:39:24 +0000

Third quarter sales stats for 60646 this year are somewhat similar to 2009 Cook County second installment property tax bills: They are both delayed beyond belief, with very little time before the next edition is due. The difference being that I’m not deliberately tardy, and, I’m not running for any kind of political office. I assure you though that nothing earth-shattering happened in zip code 60646 during Q3 2010, as far as residential real estate sales are concerned.

Also on behalf of RE/MAX Cityview in Edgebrook, I wish you and your families a wonderful holiday season, and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011. Fourth quarter 2010 and year-end stats for zip code 60646 are coming up in a few short weeks.

Edgebrook Real Estate Market Conditions Q3 2010 ↓↑

With a total of 11 closed homes in Q3 2010, Edgebrook saw a 38.9% decline of sold units vs. Q3 2009, and worse, a 66.7% decline vs. Q3 2008. There are no specific reasons for this drop-off, as far as I can see, other than the general culprits of bad economy / hideous job market / stingy mortgage lenders. Only one of the closed sales was a bank-owned / foreclosure / REO property which again proves that the Edgebrook and Wildwood markets are not pre-dominantly affected by foreclosures. On the plus side – and those figures are not included in this analysis – six condo units at Edgebrook Pointe (intersection of Touhy and Caldwell Ave.) were sold/closed in Q3 2010 at a median price of $227,000 (all 2 BR-2 BTH units). The previously unsold condos at this project had been purchased from Archer Bank by an investor who managed to sell all but one of the residential units in an average of 38 days, as a result of very aggressive pricing. Nicely done!

Edgebrook Q3 2007-2010 Units Sold

Not only were sales soft, but home values seemed to take a nosedive in Edgebrook as well in Q3 2010. At $324,000, the median price for a single family home in Edgebrook fell by 22.8% in Q3 2010 vs. Q3 2009. This is a relatively steep drop, given that the decline in value from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009 was “a mere” 9.2%. Obviously, not every home in Edgebrook and Wildwood is a luxury home, hence, there is a suspicion that the 11 sales did not (or hardly) involve any luxury properties, which in turn could explain why the median value was “only” in the lower 320′s in Edgebrook in Q3 2010. I’ll expand on that farther down below. Average market time improved marginally from 154 days in Q3 2009 to 142 days in Q3 2010.

Edgebrook Q3 2007-2010 Sale Prices

While the downward change in median home values in Edgebrook was nothing to write home about, a look at the sale-to-list-price ratio reveals that Q3 2010 home sellers in Edgebrook did not compromise their expectations by much, compared to last year’s sellers in Q3. In Q3 2010, sellers were not willing to part with their homes for more than an average of 7.5% below asking price, while in Q3 2009 that figure was 7.2%. More realistic pricing had certainly something to do with that.

Edgebrook Q3 2007-2010 Sale-List Prices

And finally, a look at the breakdown of sales by residence size sort of confirms that Q3 2010 was not particularly geared towards luxury home sales in Edgebrook. The vast majority of transactions involved homes with 3 bedrooms or less, and sold below $375,000. Only two homes had four or more bedrooms, selling for $415,000 and $430,000 respectively.

Edgebrook Q3 2010 Stats by Home Size

With 40 homes currently for sale in Edgebrook, the MSI-Index (Months Supply of Inventory) stands at 10.9 months which means that if no other homes came on the market for sale, it would take 10.9 months to sell off the existing inventory of homes in Edgebrook.

Sauganash Real Estate Market Conditions Q3 2010 ↓↑

16 homes sold in Sauganash in Q3 2010, and that includes one residence that is located in the Brynford Park area (bound by Victoria St., Tripp Ave., Bryn Mawr Ave., and Pulaski Ave.) We could debate whether that patch is still Sauganash or North Park, the fact though is that it’s zip code 60646, and it’s closer to Sauganash than it is to North Park. Besides, there is not that much real estate activity to report of from that area anyway. So, 16 sold homes means an 11.1% decline of unit sales vs. Q3 2009.

Sauganash Q3 2007-2010 Units Sold

Now comes a pleasant surprise: Average and median home values in Sauganash rose in Q3 2010 vs. Q3 2009. Average by 35.4% and median by 41.2%. Granted, among the inventory of closed homes in Q3 2009 in Sauganash, we had four bank-owned / REO sales and one short sale, whereas in Q3 2010, we only saw one bank-owned / REO sale and two short sales among the 16 closed units. Nonetheless, a $116,000 median home value increase a year later is quite impressive. But, I think it’s still way too early to call this a market turnaround. Average market times rose to 227 days, which is a bit of a skewed figure, as that one residence in Brynford Park closed after a cumulative 814 days. Without that property, the average market time in Sauganash in Q3 2010 would have been 188 days.

Sauganash Q3 2007-2010 Sale Prices

More good news: The sale-to-list-price ratio in Q3 2010 rose to 93.5% from 91.8% in Q3 2009. If we disregard the three distressed sales in Q3 2010, the ratio would be 92.9% which is still higher than Q3 2009′s ratio including 5 distressed sales. So, this might be an indication that the era of “fire sales” – if there ever were any in Sauganash – are coming to an end.

Sauganash Q3 2007-2010 Sale-List Prices

With 37 homes currently for sale in Sauganash, the MSI-Index (Months Supply of Inventory) stands at 6.9 months. This is an absorption figure that is almost indicative of a balanced real estate market . As I said before, I’m not going to call this a turnaround until I see the upcoming fourth quarter sales figures for 2010, and put them into a full-year context.

South Edgebrook/Gladstone Park Real Estate Market Conditions Q3 2010 ↓↑

Illinois 2010 School Report Cards – Let The Competition Begin

Markus Azadeh — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:45:25 +0000

The annual compilation of elementary school and high school performances in Illinois for 2010 has been published since late fall, and I am just getting around to posting the links for the pertinent schools in and around zip code 60646. You can review the results for other schools at the Chicago Tribune.

The Sun Times provides their school rankings here, here, and here, and Chicago Mag offers their rankings here. As usual, school rankings are often subject to heated discussions, so please feel free to form your own opinion on this topic.

CPS attendance area elementary schools:
Wildwood World Magnet â— Edgebrook â— Onahan â— Hitch â— Farnsworth â— Sauganash â— Solomon

CPS attendance area, charter, and selective enrollment high schools:
Taft â— Chicago International Charter School (CICS) – Northtown Academy â— North Side College Prep

I Finally Made It To “Mia Figlia” In Edgebrook

Markus Azadeh — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:57:13 +0000

Just in case you didn’t know, in Edgebrook, we have a relatively new Italian restaurant called “Mia Figlia” (“My daughter”). The restaurant is located at 5304 W Devon Ave in downtown Edgebrook. Mia Figlia’s doors have been open since the middle of July of this year, and as I drive by the place, almost on a daily basis, visiting the restaurant had been on my to-do list ever since.

Prior to another appointment nearby, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop by to take a few exterior pictures of the building. A gentleman stepped out of the restaurant, and asked me why I was taking pictures. So, I introduced myself, and explained 60646 Blog to him. Turns out I was talking to John Boudouvas, one of the two chefs/partners at Mia Figlia. John invited me into his restaurant, and we had a 15-minute conversation about eateries and businesses in the neighborhood, and realized that we both shared the pleasure of supporting local neighborhood businesses, be they restaurants, hardware stores, or supermarkets. John invited me to visit with my family for dinner soon, and I promised him that we would.

This week, my family and I finally had a chance to visit Mia Figlia for dinner, and let me just preface this by saying: Mia Figlia is a culinary delight. And they didn’t pay me to write this, but folks, take a look at the photos below. Still, don’t take my word for it, go and find out for yourselves. You will not be disappointed, in fact I’d be willing to wager that you’d go back again and again. Unfortunately, we missed John on the evening that we visited his restaurant, but his partner/co-chef Armando Lopez was there. Service was prompt and courteous, prices for this level of quality Italian food are very reasonable, and on Mondays, kids eat free from the kids menu. They also do Sunday brunch. The dessert that we shared to end a perfect Italian food experience: Tiramisu! OMG, don’t even get me started…that’s how out-of-this-world good of a Tiramisu they purvey here. Mia Figlia may not have made it into the 2011 Michelin Guide. But in my book, they get 3 stars. We are lucky to have such a fantastic restaurant in Edgebrook.

Mia Figlia also has a presence on Facebook. Go visit them, “Like” their page, and say hello.

Autumn In Wildwood – A Photo Perspective

Markus Azadeh — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:41:55 +0000

More pictures to be added, as autumn progresses…

As Seen In Wildwood: Huge Tree Branch Hits The Street In The 6800 Block Of Hiawatha Ave.

Markus Azadeh — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:49:18 +0000

Fallen tree branch on Hiawatha Ave in Chicago's Wildwood neighborhood

Well, the massive 50-mile-per-hour winds sure did a number on our trees, yesterday and today. This poor guy in the 6800 block of Hiawatha Ave. lost a big limb, blocking all of the street around 4 pm today. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The branch was moved to the side of the street by someone within a couple of hours.