Chicago’s high-end residential market stronger than record-breaking 2021. So far.

Last week’s sale of two $5M+ homes brings tally of luxury home sales to 12 this year

2043 N Clifton Avenue and 451 E Grand Avenue (Google Maps, iStock)
2043 N Clifton Avenue and 451 E Grand Avenue (Google Maps, iStock)

Last week’s sale of two homes for more than $5 million in the city of Chicago brings this year’s tally of luxury single-family houses, condominiums, and co-ops sold to 12, outperforming last year’s numbers during the same period.

A 4,800-square-foot, three-bedroom condo unit on the 61st-floor of One Bennett Park in Streeterville sold for $5.73 million and a 7,790-square-foot, six-bedroom single-family home at 2043 North Clifton Avenue found a new owner for $5.45 million last week, according to Redfin.

The big yard, which is a rare find for single-family homes in the city, is in high demand and was one of the biggest appeals for the buyer of the Lincoln Park neighborhood home, said Emily Sachs Wong, the @properties agent who listed the property.

“In a neighborhood full of houses that are 24-, 25-feet wide, anything wider than that is in high demand,” said Wong. “There’s little inventory of that so we don’t have a lot of those houses in Lincoln Park.”

The first four months are the busiest for luxury homes, following a slow market for real estate with holidays and school winter vacations in November and December. “We are as busy as last year, if not more,” Wong said.

The number of the city’s single-family homes, condos, and co-ops that sold for $4 million and more this year is three times higher than during the same period in 2021. For all of 2021, 66 city homes sold in the same category, according to the Multiple Listing Service. In the city and suburbs combined, more than 100 single-family houses and condos sold with a price tag of more than $4 million in 2021, setting a record for the city’s luxury market, Chicago Crain’s previously reported.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

While high demand, inflation, and low interest rates are pushing prices of properties, “the property needs to be priced correctly for the market and market conditions” said Janet Owen, a broker from Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago. Home prices should not only reflect rising property taxes but should be priced according to the comparables of similar properties, she said.

“You will see that properties that were priced right, sell very quickly,” said Owen. “Properties that started out too high will sell for less than if they had started out correctly from the beginning.”

The hike in interest rates and the escalation of violence in Ukraine, which could potentially affect the U.S. market, are also risks brokers list that could impact the well-performing luxury market.

For now, the drop in Covid cases in Chicago since the end of January, partial return to offices, and low interest rates are encouraging signs for the city’s prospective buyers, who turned to rent during the pandemic.

“People are not waiting to buy,” said Owen who represented the seller for the six-bedroom, 8,400-square-foot home in Lincoln Park in February, this year’s record for the neighborhood.
“They’re not afraid to make a large investment in Chicago. They are selling their smaller homes and upgrading,” she said.