North Shore Views

Archive for the 'Winnetka' Category

Winnetka Community House Birthday Bash

The Winnetka Community House is celebrating its 100th birthday with a big House Party this Friday and word has it that it’s going to be a blast.

The menu will include pizza from the Homemade Pizza Company and Finch’s beer, as well as wine.  Dance to live music from Molly’s Suite 7.

When: Friday, January 27from 7:00-11:00 pm

Where: at the Community House, of course (620 Lincoln Ave.)

Tickets are in $50 in advance, or $65 at the door. Visit winnetkacommunityhouse.org for tickets.

Tags: Winnetka Communtiy House

Avoca Home Sales in Winnetka – 2011

There is one small part of Winnetka that does not attend District 36 schools and that is the unincorporated area that includes Woodley Road, Woodley Woods and part of Indian Hill. Most of this area is served by Avoca District 37 (and another small part of Indian Hill is served by Wilmette District 39, just to further confuse you). These are neighborhoods with expensive homes, as you can see by the average prices below, but not all of Avoca is this pricey. In fact, Avoca’s service area also includes parts of Glenview, Northfield and Wilmette, which tend to have more modest housing stock than the Winnetka part of the district.

Avoca Home Sales in Winnetka – 2011 vs. 2010

Source: MRED llc- Single family home data – Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Tags: Avoca District 37, North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends

Crow Island Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

This is the third installment of neighborhood-level real estate stats for Winnetka. It covers the Crow Island School “footprint,” the area bordered on the north by Pine St., on the west by Hibbard Rd., on the east by Green Bay Rd. and on the south by Hill Rd. Although sales in this area were up dramatically over 2010, median and average sales prices decreased 14% and 15% respectively.

Crow Island Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011 vs. 2010

Source: MRED llc- Single family home data. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email us with the address of the property and we’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: Crow Island School, Winnetka home sales

Hubbard Woods Neighborhood Home Sales -2011

Here’s the second in a series of posts providing hyper-local home sales data for Winnetka. Yesterday was Greeley. Today is Hubbard Woods, the area north of Pine St. on the west side of Green Bay Rd. and north of Tower Rd. on the east side of Green Bay. This neighborhood, whose sales were a bit lackluster last year, came charging back in 2011, posting a 31% gain in sales and a 17% increase in median price.

Hubbard Woods Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011 vs. 2010

Source: MRED llc – Single family homes data. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email us with the address of the property and we’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: Hubbard Woods, North Shore market data, Winnetka

Greeley Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

Last week I provided some hyper-local home sales data about Wilmette’s neighborhoods. This week I’m heading north to Winnetka, where I have broken down the numbers by the three elementary school neighborhoods in District 36 and one in District 37 (Avoca). First up is Greeley, which covers the area east of Green Bay Rd up to Tower Rd.

Although Winnetka sales overall were down 4% from last year, Greeley’s were down 29%. Greeley’s median sales price, on the other hand, was up 5% while Winnetka on the whole declined by 9%. Days on market for those homes sold decreased 37% vs. 16% for Winnetka as a whole.

Greeley Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011 vs. 2010

MRED llc- Data for single family homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email us with the address of the property and we’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: Greeley School, Winnetka neighborhood sales data

Opportunity to Build a Custom Home in Winnetka

It’s not every day that an opportunity comes along to work with award-winning HighGate to build your dream home. 1212 Westmoor is almost an acre of gorgeous property on a street of upper bracket homes in Winnetka.

You can either work with our architect or use your own to create your plans for a custom home ranging from 6,000 up to 11,500 square feet (not including lower level). There is a wide range of options to add amenities, including swimming pool, tennis courts, sports court or multiple garages.

HighGate is one of the North Shore’s most versatile and respected builders. You can see some of HighGate’s other magnificent homes below:

If you would like more information about this terrific opportunity, please give us a call at 847-712-0049 or email us at [email protected].

Tags: custom homes, HighGate, Luxury homes, upper bracket homes

Kenilworth is Third Wealthiest Zip Code in America

Businessweek.com recently released findings of a study to determine the 50 wealthiest zip codes in America. Three North Shore communities ranked in the top fifteen, with Kenilworth in third place with an average household income of $323,588 and an average household net worth of $1,558,833.

Lake Forest and Winnetka, which ranked thirteen and fourteen, respectively, were the only other Illinois communities recognized in the report,

Here’s a list of the other zip codes making up the top fifteen richest areas in the country:

#1 – Palm Beach, FL (33480)

#2 – Old Westbury, NY (11568)

#3 – Kenilworth, IL (60043)

#4 – Beverly Hills, CA (90210)

#5 – Portola Valley, CA (94028) Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: North Shore communities

Coldwell Banker Holiday Celebration

You’re invited!

Coldwell Banker Winnetka’s traditional holiday event is going to be even bigger and better than usual this year because we are holding it in our newly expanded, updated and upgraded office.

Here’s what planned for this year’s event:

• Horse and wagon rides through Winnetka
• Photos with Santa
• Craft-making for the kids
• Hot chocolate and treats
• Holiday songs performed by the New Trier Swing Choir

You can also try out our new interactive home search kiosk, which will be a permanent fixture in our new state-of-the-art office.

When: Saturday, December 3rd from 10:00 to 1:00

Where: 568 Lincoln Ave., Winnetka (Winnetka Galleria Courtyard)

Hope to see you there! I’ll be serving hot chocolate.

Tags: holiday festivities, Santa

Winnetka Home Sales by Elementary School (Jan-Sept 2011)

You can always come to this site to get home sales data for your own North Shore community. But even in a village like Winnetka, market activity and prices can vary significantly by neighborhood. So, once or twice a year, I try to get even more granular and show the data for three individual elementary school neighborhoods (Greeley, Hubbard Woods and Crow Island). Note: some Winnetka homes are in the Avoca School District (District 37), but this is a relatively small area. And a few Winnetka homes (part of Indian Hill) are in Wilmette’s District 39.

Since Greeley’s footprint is exclusively in East Winnetka, it has the highest median and average price of the three schools, but had the lowest number of sales (32). Crow Island has the biggest footprint, with the highest number of homes for sale and the highest number of sales year to date.

As for distressed sales, Crow Island has had three foreclosures and one short sale so far this year, while Hubbard Woods has had one of each and Greeley has had two short sales.

Home Sales by Elementary School
Year to Date through September 2011

Source: MRED- Data for single family homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Interestingly, though Hubbard Woods had the lowest median and average price, it had the single highest priced sale ($5,375,000 for 1133 Taylorsport). Greeley’s highest priced home was $5,150,000 for 722 Prospect, Crow Island’s highest priced home was $3,275,000 for 261 Linden.

And, although people don’t think you can actually buy a single family house in Winnetka for this little, there were eight homes in Crow Island that sold for under $500,000 (including one for $227,000), four in Hubbard Woods and one in Greeley.

You can go to Market Statistics for more details on homes sold in each neighborhood. You can go here to search for homes for sale  in Winnetka.

Tags: home sales by school district

Odds of Selling Your Winnetka Home

Yesterday I wrote about the odds of selling your Wilmette home depending on its price point.

For Winnetka, you’ll see that the best place to be if you’re a seller is between $700K and $999K, especially between $800K and $899K, where demand actually exceeds supply. So, if you’re selling and your price is just above $1,000,000, you might consider reducing it to $989K to $999K so as to attract more buyers. If you are buying in the $800K-899K you might not be able to negotiate a big discount. Be prepared to make a strong offer if you want the house.

Odds of Selling Your Winnetka Home by Price Point

Source: MRED -single family home sales in Winnetka June-August 2011

Tags: home sales by price point, North Shore market data, odds of selling