Housing sales skyrocketing in city's `hot' neighborhoods Series: HOT HOUSES

Chicago's home sales market is in orbit.

"Nothing is going down. Everything is going up," said JimAscot, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors.

Sales of houses, condominiums and town houses for the first sixmonths of 1998 set records, association statistics show.

A total of 9,460 homes were sold in Chicago during the period,surpassing last year's record of 8,117 for the same period. Pricesalso rose, and homes were on the market for an average of 55 days, 10fewer than in 1997, the data show.

The demand for condos and town houses in "highly desirable"areas is so strong that bids are being made within 10 minutes oftheir posting on the Multiple Listing Service computer, said FranGoldstein, an agent for Koenig & Strey Realtors who specializes inGold Coast and Lincoln Park properties.

Before the markets began to soar, Goldstein would scheduleshowings only on Saturdays.

"But now the market is so hot that by the time Saturday rollsaround, nearly 50 percent of the properties are sold," saidGoldstein, who described the current buying frenzy as the most heatedof her career.

Every city neighborhood enjoyed an upswing in sales from 1997 tothis year.

The hottest spot was in the downtown area, where sales of condosand town houses were up 24.1 percent in the first half of the year(5,101 vs. 4,109 the year before) and prices were up 11.1 percent.

The 15 "hottest" condo and town house markets and the number ofunits sold in them were:

Near North Side (976), Lake View (834), Lincoln Park (668),Uptown (356), Edgewater (332), Near West Side (294), West Town (274),Loop (206), West Ridge (157), Rogers Park (149), Logan Square (97),Hyde Park (93), Lincoln Square (68), North Center (49), Near SouthSide (47).

Goldstein says the home ownership boom is being fueled by ashortage of rental property, the narrowing gap between the expense ofrenting and owning and the availability of low-interest mortgages.

"People can own for almost what it cost to rent, and unless youare extremely rich or poor, you should not be renting. There is toomuch mortgage money out there with low down-payment programs,"Goldstein said.

Realtors interviewed for this series agreed that the ingredientsfor a hot neighborhood are proximity to downtown Chicago, proximityto public transportation, accessibility to expressways and diversehousing options - condos and single-family and vintage homes.

The surge continues to be led by the Lincoln Park, Lake Viewand Near North Side areas along the lakefront, all of which havesimilar housing stock, say North Side broker Roger Lautt and otherRealtors.

Empty-nest baby boomers and their adult children, some withchildren of their own, are fueling the skyrocketing housing marketnear the city center and along the lakefront, Lautt said.

"It's a double effect," said Lautt, who said that Chicago'simproving public school system is making young families less leery ofrearing their children in the city.

Still, single people are big business on the north lakefront,as always. And the economic incentives are inviting them to buy atyounger ages.

Amenities and the desire to build equity prompted Jean Chiang,26, an accountant for a Loop brokerage firm, to purchase aone-bedroom condo in a Lincoln Park high-rise this month.

Convenience also was a factor. "It was close to everything -restaurants, my job, the park and running path," said Chiang, who hadconsidered buying in the Loop but felt it was more of a business areathan a community.

"Lincoln Park gets sort of loud on weekends, but it's betterthan living downtown and having to deal with a lot of tourists."

Pamela Booras, in her 30s, was one of the buyers who "got tiredof throwing my money away on rent" and late last year purchased aone-bedroom condo in an older high-rise in the 3900 block of NorthLake Shore Drive in Lake View.

"With everything - mortgage, assessments and parking - I ampaying the same as my rent payment was, but I am also gettingequity," said Booras, a child life specialist at Cook CountyChildren's Hospital.

The housing demand has created a ripple effect. As prices haverisen in Lincoln Park, the Near North Side and Lake View, pockets inLincoln Square, North Center, Edgewater, Uptown and, to a lesserdegree, Rogers Park are becoming more attractive, said Thom Boyd, asalesman at Coldwell Banker Residential-Lincoln Park.

"People are going where they get more bang for their buck andstill have access to amenities and public transportation," Boyd said.

Boyd predicted that the Buena Park and Margate Park sections ofUptown, Ravenswood and Ravenswood Manor in Lincoln Square, and theincreasingly trendy Andersonville, Balmoral and Lakewood sections ofEdgewater will get "even hotter" over the next three to five years.

West Ridge, on the Far North Side, west of Rogers Park, showed a16 percent jump in the median price of single-family homes from 1995to the first half of this year. Demand also was strong for condosand town houses, with the average market time falling from 72 days to46 days.

Young single professionals are leading the charge on the NearWest Side, where less-expensive loft units are the mainstay of theonce mostly industrial area, real estate agents say. Two other areaswest and northwest of downtown, West Town and Logan Square, areshowing strength, too.

Young two-income couples are spearheading the gentrification andoccupying the town house and loft condos of the once mostly transientand desolate Near South Side, which includes portions of the SouthLoop.

The area, which runs along the lakefront from Roosevelt Road toCermak Road, is home to Mayor Daley, who lives in its Grand Centralsection. The mayor's home is a stone's throw from Lake Shore Drive,Soldier Field and the museum campus.

The lively lakefront market isn't just for the North Side anddowntown. Hyde Park and Kenwood on the South Side showed increasesof more than 60 percent in the median prices of condos and townhouses sold between 1995 and 1998.

In communities away from the city center and Lake Michigan, thebulk of the transactions were for single-family homes that, in mostcases, make up more than three-quarters of their housing stock, datashow.

There were 4,359 houses sold during the first six months thisyear, compared with 4,008 during the same time last year. Thecitywide median price was $150,000.

The most houses were sold in the Ashburn area on the SouthwestSide, where 301 properties sold. There were 227 sales in PortageParand 226 each in Belmont Cragin and Dunning, all of which are on theFar Northwest Side.

"With Chicago schools coming back, those communities are viableas starter homes for younger couples, many of whom owned condos whenthey were singles," said Cam Benson, owner of Wildwood Caravan Realtyon the Northwest Side.

Tuesday: The next hot spots