It’s been almost 5 years since I wrote about a beautiful 6000 square foot home for sale at 1457 W Addison on a 41 x 134 lot in Lake View with 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. It first hit the market on October 21, 2013 with a list price of $4,999,999 and a major open house event, including a Lincoln test drive with a dealership. As I originally wrote, the house truly is a work of art, with incredible thought and detail incorporated into the renovation and killer outdoor space. Check out that link to my original blog post to see a slide show of the original photos.
But here we are 5 years and 16 price changes later and the house still hasn’t sold despite a current list price of $2,190,000 (but only since July 9). In addition, much to my amusement, they are now on their 5th realtor. Haven’t they figured out by now that their problem is not the realtors? This is actually a very typical reaction from home sellers when a home doesn’t sell. Look for someone to blame – and 99 times out of 100 that’s the realtor. Sellers want desperately to believe that the right realtor is going to “market” the home just right to find that perfect buyer who is willing to pay more than anyone else.
Well, it just doesn’t work that way and the fact that they’ve had 16 price changes sorta tells us that they know deep down that their issue is not the realtors. However, on several occasions they did actually raise the price coincident with changing realtors. So either they felt that the market had sufficiently improved to justify that or perhaps they thought they found that perfect realtor – for a while.
In all likelihood these sellers now have the home listed well below what they put into it. So what’s the issue? Of course, we now have the benefit of hindsight but I’m going to speculate that it could be some combination of the following:
- The house is on Addison, a very busy street
- Although very beautiful, the style is extremely personal. Not everyone is going to go for it.
- I think 4 bedrooms is kinda on the light side for a home of this size in this price range
- Buyers see how long the house has been on the market and they’re afraid that could be them trying to sell in 5 years
Is this house finally listed at a price that is too good to be passed up?
#LakeView #ChicagoRealEstate #ChicagoHomes
Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service discount real estate brokerage. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market, get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry, or you just think he’s the next Kurt Vonnegut you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.