It's not every month — or every year for that matter — that a Chicago home exceeds the eye-watering price of $10 million. But last month, a stately mansion on Lincoln Park's exclusive Burling Street, which we featured here in September 2017 and again earlier this year when it listed, sold for exactly $11.9 million — the highest price paid for a detached single family home in Chicago in nearly three years.
Completed in 2012, the 8,000-square-foot mansion at 1950 North Burling Street spans nearly four full city lots, its interior fully loaded with luxurious finishes and amenities. Despite the size of the property and its equally large price tag, the Mediterranean-style home sold quickly, closing less than three months after hitting the market.
It's not uncommon for ultra-luxe, ultra-pricy residences to sit for months waiting for the right buyer. But according to listing agent Janet Owen, a broker with KoenigRubloff Realty Group, this home just happened to be the right fit, which made for a speedy sale. “It was the right size,” Owen says. “The majority of the house opens to the side garden, which is absolutely dramatic.”
Burling Street has gained a reputation for sprawling mansions built on multiple lots. That includes the 20,000-square-footer at 1955 N. Burling that Owen sold in December 2015 for $13.345 million — the current record sale price for any single family home in Chicago.
And while that home at 1955 N. made a splash when it listed at $18.75 million in 2014, it was outdone in 2016 by a 25,000-footer up the street at 1932 N. Burling. That mega-mansion listed for $50 million, the highest asking price for a single residence in the Chicago area ever.
Per Redfin, there are currently seven mansions priced above $5 million for sale in the pocket of Lincoln Park bound by Armitage, Halsted, Larabee, and Willow Street. Lowering the price to $2 million and you'll find 11. In the past six months, there's been nearly $55 million exchanged between just 20 real estate transactions in the area. That’s an average of $2.75 million a sale in this tony enclave.
With the country's most recent housing bubble barely in the rearview, is there still an appetite for such pricey properties? Owen believes that for the ultra wealthy, there’s plenty.
“A lot of the market indicators are still very good,” she says. “There is an awful lot of people who feel very strongly about Chicago. If you look at region, it continues to experience high-priced home sales.”