The Property: A brick bungalow that’s undergoing rehab after passing through foreclosure is on the market at $279,900. That’s 78 percent of what it went for in 2006, before either of those episodes.

Originally built in 1925 in Belmont Cragin a hometown-in-the-city link in Chicago’s beloved Bungalow Belt, it’s being redone with a brand-new kitchen, new mechanical systems, and three full baths, according to the listing flyer. (The listing agent has not responded to my e-mail and calls, so I’m not certain of the present state of the home’s interior.)

Belmont Cragin was one of the city’s two biggest-selling neighborhoods in September, according to Chicago Agent magazine. Several of those sales were foreclosures that are or will be rehabbed and sold or rented out, creating a nucleus of new rehabs that will add to the stock of already-rehabbed bungalows in this vintage neighborhood. Here’s one a few blocks from today’s property that sold last month for $267,000, and another that went for $269,900.

Another one on the market and also nearby is also a “Steal This Home” candidate, at $259,900. It has four bedrooms (three upstairs and one in the basement; today’s top property has five (four upstairs, one in the basement.)

While the neighborhood had a high rate of property crime in the early 2000s, according to the Chicago Tribune’s neighborhood crime index, that has subsided and it’s now got a rate in the lowest one-third of city neighborhoods. The rates of violent crime and quality-of-life crime have both declined, too.

This house is on a photogenic block that’s lined on both sides with prim brick bungalows, as you can see in this YouTube video from last February. A limited liability company (LLC) bought it in August for $138,500. The photos that accompanied that listing and this YouTube video from last February show that the home’s interior was dated and plain. The photos in a current flyer show the kind of finishes this developer puts into rehabs. Public records show that the same LLC has bought at least half a dozen other properties in similar neighborhoods in the past few years. Again, I haven’t reached the developer—because the LLC has nobody’s name attached—or the agent, so I can’t say what’s inside at the moment; the flyer that I linked to above says that buyers still have time to choose their own finishes.

The Cook County Recorder of Deeds documents on the property show that it sold in March 2006 for $354,000; in October 2009, the lender, Deutsche Bank, started foreclosure against the 2006 buyer in 2009, and by 2011 it was back in the bank’s hands. The lender sold it to the LLC for $138,500 in August, and the rehab began.

The house is within a healthy walking distance of both the Healy and Hanson Park Metra stations, and has both Cicero Avenue and the Kennedy nearby.

Listing Agent: Magda Antillon of M.A.G Realty, 773-988-1688 and maggie@magrealtyinc.com

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