Hamlin Park area house and condo prices up in western Lakeview

A coveted dog run park at Hamlin Park adjacent to lighted tennis courts.

I spent a gloomy morning last Thursday checking evaluating a client's condo near Hamlin Park in western Lakeview.  Parks are great identifiers for Chicagoans when considering a home purchase.  Hamlin Park offers lighted tennis courts, a field house with outdoor pool, a dog park (!), and plenty of baseball diamonds for league sports. 

For our purposes, we'll use the boundaries of West Belmot to West Diversey and North Ravenswood to North Western Avenue.  The area west of the river is certainly separated, but there is a cluster of housing there nonetheless.

House Sales around Hamlin Park January 1st to September 12th, 2014

Newer construction and modestly renovated houses stand side by side directly across from Hamlin Park.

43 detached homes have closed this year in the the Hamlin Park sales area.  The median price of a house is about $900,000 (up $100,000 from last year's median).  Several higher end new construction homes helped lead the pricing surge.  Two newly built homes on 31.5' wide lots at 1905 and 1909 W Fletcher sold for $1,774,000 and $1,740,000 respectively. Homes closer to the park and east of Damen are relatively more expensive than homes closer to Western Ave and south of Clybourn.

60 detached homes sold same period 2013 in a hot market with a median price of $800,000. The lower median price in 2013 reflects more dated or small homes bought for development. 

There were several sales in the Picardy Place community of single family homes southeast of Hamlin Park.  These small homes are close to Chi Che Wang Park as well but benefit from the many established leagues and amenities of Hamlin Park.  The median price for one of these homes currently is about $475,000.

Condo Sales around Hamlin Park January 1st to September 12th, 2014

Attached condo sales around Hamlin Park tend to be in buildings built over the last 15 years.  However, large vintage buildings like Alcott Prep keep the architecture around the park interesting.

103 attached condo units (including town houses) sold from January 1st to September 12th this year.  The median price is about $372,000. 108 units sold with a median price of about $347,000 over the same period last year.

The most expensive sale was 3203 N Oakley #304, a duplex penthouse unit in a newer construction elevator building.  The 2900 sq/ft unit sold for $749,000.  Several duplex-down condos along Damen sold in the high $400s to $500s near the park. As one would imagine the lower priced condos in this sales area reside mostly on busy Western, Clybourn and Diversey Avenues.

Over 146 houses and condos switched hands. 5 (two-four flat) multi-unit buildings sold and a couple land deals went down.  That's a lot of action around a roughly 3 square block radius around the park!