A Change of scenery: part 2
And we’re back…
In early spring of 2023, I started considering a home purchase. I use “considering” because there was really nothing driving me to move out of my 1 bedroom apartment where I was paying well below market value to purchase something with equal sunk costs plus a mortgage. I started loosely looking around the neighborhood to get a feel for the market. Two properties stood out: One, a River North loft style with exposed beams, open floor plan, immense natural light, and an outrageous tax bill of $25K a year. The other, a vintage condo in the Gold Coast that was absolutely hideous and priced as if it had just been remodeled and yet it clearly hadn’t been touched since 1983. Needless to say, I let both these properties go.
Fast forward a year, I’m back on the hunt. Low and behold, the should-be-gut-job was back on the market, for over 20% lower than what it was listed at the year prior. At this point, it was time to take a serious look.
I called my good friend and realtor, Katie Hutchens and explained the situation. With her connections in the market, she set up a walk through with the seller’s agent and a general contractor for a closer look. I walked through with the contractor calling out my dream wish list to get maxed out estimates to make this home what I knew it had potential to be. Once I got the numbers back, I knew I had some negotiating to do. I didn’t get it down to my initial offer, but Katie was able to find out the absolute lowest the seller was willing to go, and we had a deal.
This property was on and off the market for two and a half years. The sellers didn’t need the money, but also had no interest in bringing the property to life, so I had to decide what was worth it to me. The one concept that kept taking me back to this place was that this was an extremely rare opportunity to buy a property in a well established market with actual potential for large gains.
The amount of work to be done and the forecasted expense was beyond intimidating. On more than one occasion I questioned if I had absolutely lost my mind (I’m still asking myself this),
and through many doubts, this was the best advice I received: “Nothing that is going to meet your standards will be in your price range. And your price range won’t get you the square footage you want. You might as well go for it and customize it to everything you want.” And that is exactly what I did.
During the five month renovation I heard countless times “you need to blog about this!” I assured eager audience members I would, it’s just hard to pick out what will be important down the road when in the thick of things. So, here we are. I moved in December 15th and getting settled in the new space I now cal home. City Chandeliers is getting a revamp as I’ll be sharing my learning experiences through renovating a three bed / two bath Chicago condo.
