My wife and I visited some friends of ours in nearby Portage Park, a neighborhood in Chicago. Portage Park has long been an immigrant community, mostly Polish in the past but now hispanics are prevalent there as well. The Park itself is rather nice and the neighborhood may be considered up-and-coming if not exactly there yet.
Our friends have had a foreclosed home right next door that had been on and off the market a few timed over the past couple of years. It has recently sold. Our friends couldn't remember exactly the sale price but they thought it was around $130K. They also told us that it once sold for $450K near the peak of the housing bubble. I thought that sounded a little far-fetched so I went to Zillow.com to try to find the sales records. Yup. he was right. Here it is.
4933 W. Byron
Sale History
05/04/2009: $134,000
03/21/2007: $450,000
05/15/2006: $390,000
That is a 70% decline between actual sales in two years.
Here are some more examples in that neighborhood.
For example, here is 4136 N. Monitor Ave. .
Sale History:
05/06/2009: $134,000
01/17/2007: $480,000
12/17/1998: $189,000
That is a 72% decline in actual selling price in a little over two years!
5146 W. Dakin St.
Sale History
06/23/2009: $90,000
11/03/2004: $289,000
A 69% decline between sales and that is only 2004, two years before the bubble peaked.
5706 W. Wilson Ave.
Sale History
01/22/2009: $174,000
06/29/2006: $410,000
12/08/2005: $337,000
A 57% decline in 2.5 years.
5919 W. Warwick
Sale History
09/17/2008: $5,000
06/25/2004: $340,000
08/29/2002: $240,000
This one takes the cake, a 98.5% decline! Ok, that might have had a tax lien or something but still.
6028 W. School St.
Sale History
03/23/2009: $118,000
09/11/2006: $425,000
A 72% decline in 2.5 years.
Amazing stuff. This area must have been big into the subprime lending fiasco. Most of these houses must have been foreclosures that were auctioned off or sold by the bank.
