By Don DeBat 29-Mar-15 – Luxury single-family homes and condominiums were in high demand and sold for top dollar in 2014 in Chicago’s most upscale neighborhoods – the Gold Coast/Near North Side, Lincoln Park, and Lake View, reports a new analysis.

“Chicago saw rising prices, the rebirth of new construction, and a shortage of housing inventory in key North Side neighborhoods,” noted veteran broker Louise Study of Baird & Warner. “With home prices on the rise, now may be the time to sell and move upward or onward, to ride the rising tide to greater equity.”

Since 1984, Study has published the annual Study Study of Residential Real Estate compiled from Multiple Listing Service statistics on sales of $500,000-plus residential units in ten target neighborhoods. Chicago’s three top upscale neighborhoods all posted price gains in 2014, said Study, her 30th annual survey reporting the following prices and transaction numbers…

Gold Coast/Near North. 30 luxury single-family homes and 400 upscale condominiums, co-operative apartments, and townhomes were sold in 2014. The median luxury home price last year was $3.07 million on the Gold Coast/Near North Side, compared with $1.62 million in 2013. The median price for upscale condos, co-ops, and townhomes rose to $899,000, compared with $600,000 in 2013.

(Right) The most expensive Near North home on the MLS, a six-bedroom with pool and gatehouse at 924 North Clark Street, yours for $13.9 million. (Click on image to view larger version.)

Lincoln Park. 77 luxury single-family homes were sold at a median price of $2,532,500 in 2014. Some 134 upscale condo sales were posted at a median price of $725,000. A year earlier, the median luxury home price in Lincoln Park was $1.35 million, while the median upscale condo price was $635,000.

Lake View. 47 luxury single-family homes were sold in Lake View at a median price of $1.85 million in 2014. The median home price was $1,124,500 in 2013. 104 upscale condos, co-ops, or townhomes sold in Lake View at a median price of $649,250. The median luxury condo price was $596,000 a year earlier.

Many homeowners still underwater

Home values of high-end properties may be rising in nicer parts of town but many homeowners are still slipping underwater in Chicago and other U.S. cities.

According to a recent study released by Zillow Group, in 21 of the 50 biggest U.S. housing markets, the number of borrowers who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth increased during the fourth quarter of 2014.

In Chicago that can range from 22 percent in Lincoln Park, 31 percent in the Gold Coast, and 43 percent in East Rogers Park. Nationwide, about 16.9 percent of all mortgaged homes were underwater in the fourth quarter. Zillow estimates that the normal share of underwater borrowers is around five percent.

Negative equity persists in many parts of the North Side even as home values continue to recover from the housing bust. The problem is that while average home prices are rising as noted above, the low end of the market in many areas are seeing stagnant value growth or even falls in some cases. Those properties hardest hit in the bust are now the slowest to recover.

Local real estate agents who specialize in short sales say they have seen the number of clients with underwater homes drop off but not disappear even as prices have rebounded.