Rogers Park 61-unit apartment building sold amid strong interest for multifamily properties

Family-owned Becovic bought a 61-unit apartment building in Rogers Park, south of Evanston and not far from Lake Michigan, as Chicago’s multifamily market rebounds.

Becovic paid $7.3 million to buy Juneway Gardens, a 1920s-era courtyard building at 1548 West Juneway Terrace, from an entity named BCHJuneway. It has 18 one-bedrooms, 34 two-bedrooms and nine three-bedrooms. Available one-and two-bedroom apartment units range from $1,005 and $1,240 a month, Apartment Guide’s website showed.

Multifamily property sales in Rogers Park have rebounded to surpass pre-pandemic levels. Some $73 million of properties were sold in the 15 months from last July to this September, about 50 percent more than the same period prior to Covid’s arrival in the spring of 2020, according to CoStar.

That matches a wider trend in the Chicago area, where $1.4 billion of multifamily buildings changed hands in this year’s first seven months, compared with $1.3 billion for all of last year, according to Yardi Matrix data.

Kiser Group’s Ron Plonis expects the strongest demand from the suburbs market and Fulton Market, a pocket of the central business district.

Inventory outside downtown is set to increase by about 2,200 units from July to December this year, while less than 500 units are expected to be built in urban Chicago, according to Marcus Millichap.

Becovic, established in 1973, bought an 11-building portfolio in East Rogers Park two years ago for $28.5 million. The firm owns more than 2,000 apartment units in Chicago and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.