Lake Forest Real Estate Market Makes Rehabbing More Appealing

LAKE FOREST, IL — A slower Lake Forest real estate market is opening up the market to younger homeowners, as properties that would have been torn down end up rehabbed instead. A local 29-year-old developer told Crain's Chicago Business that he has rehabbed and expanded seven houses since 2015. The majority have been sold to millennial buyers, he said, with the rest going to downsizers.

Peter Childs told Crain's all of his rehabbed sales were sold within about a mile of the downtown Lake Forest Metra station for $850,000 or below. He said in most cases, he was able to make deals that gave him time to find buyers for the rehabbed home. In the past, he said the homes he works on would be torn down and replaced with homes listed for more than $1.3 million.

"Millennial buyers want it to be new," he told Crain's, describing the generation of those currently in their 20s and 30s. "They're not going to buy that old house and rehab it themselves."

Lake Forest's walkable downtown with access to the lake and train and a good public school system make it especially appealing to millennial parents, Childs said.

It's one drawback: "[I]t's not as nightlife-friendly as some places."

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