Chicagoist: Condos Are the New Black

guest

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:15:27 -0600

Curmudgeon makes an important point. It is kindof silly to sit around saying "Oh No, Condos!" when the nation is in the beginnings of a housing glut. A lot of first time buyers are not going to be able to qualify for loans anymore, and those condos are going to sit empty until someone turns them back into DUN DUN DUNNNN Apartments. You simply cannot discuss this without at least mentioning what is goign on in the real estate industry nationally. There is a huge housing glut right now, and prices in chicago have finally started dropping last quarter.

guest

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:12:15 -0600

Yeah extra supply means lower prices. Not higher prices.

guest

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 07:47:49 -0600

Curmudgeon, How does more rentals available drive up the rental prices? I probably misunderstood your statement - can you clarify? thanks

curmudgeon

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:29:09 -0600

Last week I heard on the news that there are so many condos in Chicago sitting unsold that they were being offered as rentals and driving up rental prices. It made sense to me. It doesn't help people in my economic group but it at least you don't need a large down payment.

Sinep

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:19:15 -0600

Makes you wonder why they keep trying to raise our sales tax to some ridiculous amount when they are obviously collecting so much more in real estate taxes as a result of this phenomenon..

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:31:34 -0600

i didn't.

Ferdy

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:46:08 -0600

I understood it.

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:33:32 -0600

I think Chicagoist knows where Pullman is. Perhaps--but this is pretty poor sentence construction. You should generally avoid confusing adjective-preposition combinations and more prepositional parity. A cleaner way of composing the sentence would be: "From Rogers Park in the north to Pullman in the wild-wild hundreds...." This still is a dreadful deployment of adjectives, but it makes more sense.

vit

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:15:00 -0600

uh ... From Rogers Park up north to Pullman in the wild-wild hundreds, Chicago is a town full of renters. But there is a problem. I think Chicagoist knows where Pullman is.

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:05:32 -0600

From Rogers Park up north to Pullman in the wild-wild hundreds, Chicago is a town full of renters. But there is a problem. Jesus Chicagoist Editors! Pullman is south of Rogers Park!

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:38:50 -0600

AMERICAN INVSCO are parasitic scum.

Stephen

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:33:15 -0600

for every 1,000 condos that a neighborhood gains, 27 small apartment buildings and six large apartment buildings are lost OK, fine, but, how many living units does 27 small apartment buildings and six large apartment buildings represent? I'm more interested in the loss/gain of living units than I am in the loss/gain of physical structures. It's tough. The problem as I see it is that it seems you can't have well-maintained historic architecture and affordable real estate. Am I wrong? Please tell me I am. Most of the historic single-family building in my neighborhood (Ukie Village) go for ~$600K, and they're in terrible condition. So either you fill your neighborhood with beautifully rehabbed historic homes and highly affluent buyers, or build much cheaper condos that first-time buyers can afford.

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:19:51 -0600

That said, there are some nice condos going up around the city that look particularly sexy, but I am really just talking about the private gated communities that sprouted up all over west lincoln park.

guest

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:18:25 -0600

I wanted to get a job in sales and one of the places i applied to wanted to start me off in "tear-downs." That is, you call a landlord, say we will take the property off their hands for a certain price - which is more than you will make in rent even if you throw your money in just a savings acount at 5% - then have a developer knock it down and build condos. It made me sick to my stomach and i realized how and why Lincoln Park looks the way it does today - cause of these guys (and the buyers of course). Maybe I am going into the wrong business (I am historic architecture lover), but really, I cannot wait for the condo development boom to be over. What a shit industry.

leavitt

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:54:47 -0600

How is 17 out of 31 especially "distressing"? And does the loss in apartments caused by the new condos account for condo owners that choose to rent the condo they just purchased? It seems like the study cited doesn't support the argument this article is trying to make.