Rogers Park and Humboldt Park share some similarities: both are areas that were considered “edge neighborhoods”, up and coming during the housing boom; both were affordable alternatives to Lakeview on the North Side or Wicker Park on the west side; and both have stuggled with crime and the perception of crime in the past. Both offered developers inexpensive land on which to build new or affordable existing buildings to convert.
The supply of new condominium conversions was greater in Rogers Park, but both neighborhoods have been slammed by the housing recession. In Rogers Park in the first quarter of 2006, the median selling price of a condominium was $278,875. In 2006, 336 new condominium units sold, most around $200,000 to $275,000–affordable for those priced out of Lakeview, in which a condominium could be over $100,000 more.
As of last quarter, the median selling price of a condominium in Rogers Park was $62,000. Could this have been a quirk, representing a low median of just a handful of sales? No. Over 150 units sold in Rogers Park last quarter. Half were for less than $62,000, which means that well over half the sales were the result of short sales or foreclosures. Two quarters ago, 218 units sold for a median of $66,250.
It has been a similar story in Humboldt Park. In late 2008, condominiums sold for a median of over $300,000. Even as recently as 2010, some high sales pushed the median back up to $260,000. This was followed by quarterly price drops of 26%, 39%, 62%, 58%, and 63%. At the end of the year, the median selling price was $71,000.
Perhaps more remarkably, the upper quartile — the point above which 25% of units sold — was $103,500. That means that three-quarters of the condo units sold in Humboldt Park last quarter were for about $100,000 or less.
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