Secret million dollar homes in Ravenswood

Who wants to be a Ravenswood Millionaire?

Ravenswood is a North Side neighborhood in Chicago experiencing it's share of growth and appreciation.  Six miles from downtown, Ravenswood offers many amenities you would like... public transportation, tree lined streets, parks, retail/restaurants, and a good mix of housing stock.

The historical boundaries are North Clark Street to the east, the Chicago River to the west, Foster Avenue to the north, and Irving Park Road to the south.  Those new to Chicago generally do not have much knowledge of this area ...even though it's home to million dollar plus homes and half million dollar condos.

As an owner of a duplex condo in Ravenswood, I like to know how much gets you what on the street... and why. Not only as an agent, but as a guy looking for the next place for my family. We bought our current place to improve both our neighborhood and our living space for our needs. Ravenswood happends to be our first choice of Chicago areas to live in and I can see moving up to a single family home in a few years here too.

My invesitgations as a nosey neighbor have led me to several "off market" single family homes for sale in the $1M to $1.5M range. Two are my block and being sold "by owner". One owner is a real estate broker and the other... well, I have not met him/her yet.

So I got to thinking..., how many million dollar homes are available to buy in Ravenswood at the moment? A quick look at the MLS shows that between North Ashland to North Damen and West Montrose to West Foster there are eight active listings on the market from $1M to $1.5M. These do not count the unrepresented sellers or cancelled listings that may come back on shortly.

In the past year, only three homes on the MLS have sold for over a million, and currently, there are four homes one million and up under contract. However, there are surely more in the bunch that sold in development, privately or just were not recorded on the MLS (for instance, niether my last personal home sale or purchase are recorded on the MLS). It's good to have knowledge of a few of the "unrecorded sales" to go into battle with when negotiating a single family home.

The $1M to $1.5M range will typically get you an oversized lot, 4.5 beds, 3.5 baths and a 2.5 car garage. The homes range from new construction on smaller lots to homes that need a little work on double lots. There are no homes currently priced over $1.5M for sale... but there is one under contract with an asking price of $1,568,000.00. In the past year, the highest priced home closed at $1,450,000.00.