Another W. Lyon Farm sale

I don’t usually report on condominiums, but the revival of West Lyon Farm has caught my eye the past year as the units, mostly unwanted for years, have suddenly become a hot item. For instance, 420 W Lyon Farm came on the market in July at $1.425 million and has just sold for $1.525. That’s not a huge paper profit for the seller: she paid $1.520 for it in 2004, but calculate the rent that was saved for 19 years and it’s not bad.*

The unit, seemingly untouched since this development went up in 1977, sold in 2003 for $825,000 to someone who completely gutted and renovated it and resold it to this seller for that $1.520 in ‘04. There was a long time — I’d say 2007 through 2019 — that she couldn’t have come close to recouping that purchase price.

*Of course, that’s pretending that a 2022 dollar is worth one from 2004, and this handy inflation calculator says it’s not. But neither would have been a 2017 sale price of, say, $900,000, so there’s that — we’re looking at trends here, not constant dollars.