List Price: $1.674 million
Sale Price: $1.55 million
The Property: Formerly a three-flat, this 116-year-old building in Lincoln Park was being converted into a single-family home when its owner defaulted on a $2.6-million mortgage. But unlike most sellers of foreclosures, the entity that put this one back on the market (not the original lender) didn’t leave it in its junked condition but put it back into livable shape.
“They had to dump some serious money into it,” says the sellers’ agent, Angela Gianfrancesco of @Properties, although she wouldn’t give a dollar figure. The work included installing a front door, interior banisters, and most of the components of the kitchen, as well as many smaller details.
As a result, the house sold in less than 60 days, Gianfrancesco says. The combination of a nicely finished property and a bargain price were like catnip for luxury-level buyers, she points out. “It’s nice to be able to buy a quote-unquote distressed property that’s really an immaculate, move-in place,” Gianfrancesco says.
The four-story home has five bedrooms, five-plus baths, four decks, and three fireplaces. The kitchen is part of a big family room, and the master suite occupies the entire top floor. The sidewalk level has a private entrance to an in-law or nanny suite, and the two-car garage in the rear has a rooftop deck. With new cabinetry, high-end appliances, a whole-house sound system, and a very desirable location, it’s no wonder that Gianfrancesco wrote in the listing that the property was the “nicest 4Closure you’ll C.”
The 4,700-square-foot home went on the market in July and went under contract September 3rd with buyers who are not yet identified in public records. The sale closed October 5th.
Price Points: Documents at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds show that Bozena Domaradski bought the property in 2006 (for an amount that isn’t recorded) and a few months later took out a $2.6-million mortgage from the State Bank of Countryside. In March 2009, the bank started foreclosure proceedings against Domaradski. (I could not reach Domaradski for comment.) Gianfrancesco says that at the time, the house was being offered for sale at $1.7 million without a kitchen or completed bathrooms. Under a judicial order, in February 2010 the title to the house was transferred to a limited liability company, which is presumably the entity that fixed up the house to get it back on the market. Gianfrancesco won’t divulge details about the seller, but she says “it was worth it to them to spend some money to get it sold quickly.” The buyers, she adds, “absolutely got a steal.”
Listing Agent: Angela Gianfrancesco of @Properties; 773-512-0657