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Uptown Chicago’s housing market has joined the million-dollar club.
Chicago’s hot residential market pushed the median price of single-family homes in Uptown to $1.06 million last year, a 19 percent increase over 2020, according to a Crain’s analysis of data from the Chicago Association of Realtors, Midwest Real Estate Data and Showing Time.
Buyers are looking for more space without having to leave for the suburbs as many continue to work from home.
“People are starting to realize they can go to Uptown and get a good discount from the $2 million they’d pay for the same square footage in Lakeview,” Nick Libert, an Exit Strategy Realty agent, told Crain’s.
The neighborhood median may continue to rise, as five homes have sold for at least $1 million so far this year, compared with a total of 24 last year, according to Crain’s. According to a recent Zillow report, the number of U.S. cities with median home prices of $1 million grew by 43 percent last year; in Chicago, Uptown was the only new neighborhood to cross that threshold, joining places like Lakeview and Lincoln Park, according to Crain’s.
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While prices in Uptown may seem steep to the average buyer, they’re still below other ritzy Chicago neighborhoods. Libert told Crain’s he represented a buyer who paid $1.15 million in September for a five-bedroom house in Uptown on a 4,950-square-foot lot, roughly 1.6 times the standard 25-by-125 lot in the city. Uptown’s history as an affluent neighborhood roughly 100 years ago led to the area having bigger lots than other places in Chicago.
Compass agent Jackie Pepoon said clients of hers who looked for homes on the swanky North Shore turned to Uptown as an alternative, where they got five bedrooms and 6,000 square feet.
Many of the $1 million homes are west of Ashland Avenue near Ravenswood. The cheapest home sold in Uptown last year was a two-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot house in the Andersonville part of Uptown that went for $460,000, according to Crain’s.
[Crain’s] — Harrison Connery