This has to be the strangest listing in Chicago that I’ve ever seen – also the most overpriced one. David Piche of Remax just listed a 980 square foot 4 bedroom, 2 bath single family home at 3710 N Kenmore in the Wrigley Field Adjacent Area for the bargain price of $9.9 MM. The lot is zoned RM-5 and is a whopping 40 x 50 feet. According to the listing:
Truly unique opportunity to leverage this property’s status as the first boundary-line building defining The Wrigley Field Adjacent Area w/ special zoning rights (see Chapt 4-388 of the Municipal Code of Chicago). Approx 536 ft from home plate. If structure is torn down, highest-and-best use might include rooftop advertising (possibly digital billboards) or special club license. Zoned RM-5, building to South is RT-4.
House is being sold in as-is condition with no warranties. Seller makes no legal claims as to what can be done or cannot be done with the land or business use. No interior showings, drive-by only.
What? No interior showings? I would think that if I’m going to pay $9.9 MM for a house I should know what I’m buying. OK. Clearly it’s not about the house but the location and the potential for a Wrigley Field rooftop view . The satellite image below shows where it’s located relative to Wrigley Field. So is it worth $9.9 MM to be able to watch the Cubs play from a rooftop or stick a billboard up there?
But it’s not just the price that’s strange on this listing. For one, they’ve been trying to sell this lot for 2 years without luck and the price keeps going up:
- $5 MM dollars in October 2007
- $8.5 MM in July 2009
- $9 MM as of yesterday
I guess that means you should buy this now before the price goes even higher.
Each time they put this place on the market they get a new real estate agent because, of course, the real estate agents are the reason the place is not selling. Of course, it does beg the question of why an agent would take a listing like this.
Then there is this Web site that someone created to sell this place at www.3710NKenmore.com, which immediately launches a video slide show accompanied by this really obnoxious Macy Gray song – Oblivion. For that matter I find all of Macy Gray’s songs obnoxious. Her voice is like fingernails scratching on a blackboard. But I digress other than to ponder why anyone would associate their property with this song. Be sure to check out some of the compelling bullet points on the home page:
- The Chicago Cubs has agreed to provide capital to the Rooftop business, at 3621 N. Sheffield Ave.
- Chicago Cubs likes buying Real Estate in and around Lake View
- The Possibilities are endless
- This is Disneyland
I have to admit that I think there is a lot of truth to that last bullet point. Someone is definitely living in Fantasyland. You should also note that they are only entertaining…ahem…serious inquiries.
I also ran across this ad on OLX advertising: land next to cubs park-wrigley field adjacent area. There is a lot of similar descriptive information and one of the photos is very similar to one of the photos on the other site so I suspect that it’s the same property but I can’t be sure. The thing is that nowhere does it give the address of the property and the description is total gibberish.
Hey, if anyone knows anything about this property that I’m missing please fill me in.
That’s crazy! In addition to the $9.9 you’re already shelling out you’ll have to build all of the “endless possibilities” yourself! If this came with a ready-made rooftop, then I can understand the price. So, basically you’re paying that much to have drunk Cubs fans around your house and no parking for the entire summer.
You can build it to be a venue for watching the game. If you have a capacity of 1,000 and charge $200 for the good games, you stand to take in $200,000 for a days work (and food and beer). Say you charge 100 people $200 for 80 games per year. That’s over $1.6 million in revenue per year before expenses. This is in addition to rental income for residential below. So you’re paying about 5x revenue for this business before capex? I’ve heard of crazier ideas.
$200 for a seat outside the stadium? Is that what they charge for rooftop seats? Of course, no one has jumped at this opportunity at the lower prices.
Sure, if the owner gives me a concession of about $9,885,000.00 on the purchase price.
As the other commenters indicate, apparently the seller is selling the lot for redevelopment as one of the hideous cement block “apartment building” rooftop clubs like on Sheffield. One can certainly see the quality of that construction from the L.
Obviously, no one is going to pay over, maybe, $140K for that as a house. However, based on your links, I see you had no problem posting the multiple listing on your firm’s site.
Not sure what your point is about putting the MLS listing on my site. We have all the MLS listings in our target areas on our site. If we didn’t then our search and browse features would be worthless.
It seems like you guys have never been to one of those. It is more of an all-inclusive party, as opposed to “seats outside.”
You also have to remember that we are about to hit a huge credit shock in the overall market and banks aren’t exactly jumping on the opportunity to lend on commercial real estate. So, whoever buys it will have to have cold, hard cash.
Thanks for the explanation. What I meant was that it appeared, to an outsider, that you were both endorsing and dissing the listing.
Sounds to me like each subsequent agent is reading the headlines (but not the full story) about Wrigley Field expansion, renovation, improvement, etc and thinking that will make this purchase “instant equity”.
Wouldn’t these expansions fall under public domain and people would only get whatever is determined to be fair market value for their land?
I suspect you are referring to the right of eminent domain. I’m not sure how that works exactly but you are correct that you can’t just demand any price you want. Regardless, buying this property would be a huge gamble.