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The 2013 Oak Park Real Estate Market is seeing a rapid increase in sales and short market times for sellers. Single family house are selling with-in days. Oak Parks close proximity to the Chicago Loops downtown areas has helped make Oak Park a desired destination for families. There are a variety of Oak Park single family styles, just like the diversity in the community. Prairie and Victorian Style architecture mixed with frame, stucco and brick properties make up this unique neighborhood with lots of character.  Oak Park is a community surrounded by …

Investment Opportunities in Oak Park Real Estate The old saw, “location, location, location” has kept Oak Park property values strong and stable, and with green concerns and energy costs, continues to provide a leading edge for this community that is centrally situated between urban downtown Chicago and the Far West suburbs. Vacancy rates in Oak Park investment property remain consistently low; interest in redevelopment remains high. Many opportunities exist in the multiple commercial and business districts as well as in the residential sectors.
Ideal Location Chicago Real Estate’s broker Eli Schultz, …

Prairie Style architect E.E. Roberts led the way in Oak Park’s multi-family residences when he built an innovative  multi-unit structure in the heart of the community’s residential district. That building, now a condominium, reflects Oak Park Real Estate’s mix of multi-unit , two-flat, and single-family residences that are interspersed throughout the neighborhoods. Many vintage buildings offer large proportioned space for condominium living, with high ceilings, interior decorative details including wainscoting and molding, and leaded glass windows. There are also 50s and 60s buildings, convenient for commuting, and a new surge …

The Chicago Bungalow is world-renowned and in Oak Park hundreds of brick, stucco, and frame versions of this comfortable family home can be found throughout Oak Park’s neighborhoods. Called the all-American house, bungalows are one and ½ stories, and most of the living space is on the first floor.  An efficient floor plan has the living room at the center, with kitchen and dining room clustered around. Many bungalows in Oak Park Real Estate have been expanded and offer additional second floor living areas. Large basements with high ceilings and …

Influenced by the Prairie Style, builders constructed American Foursquare houses in Oak Park in the twentieth century. These houses have roomy interiors and share many features with the Prairie style homes.  They can be found in all the Oak Park neighborhoods. Often they have been dressed up by borrowing elements from Queen Anne, Mission, or Craftsman architectural features.  In Oak Park, “foursquares” come in brick, stone, stucco, and wood siding. Many wood-sided foursquares display the original narrow horizontals and trim that the Prairie architects used and homeowners have painted the …

When the arts and crafts movement hit the Midwest in the late nineteenth century, it dramatically influenced architecture, interior design, and home furnishings. Elements of the original arts and crafts ideal surface in Oak Park property in its neighborhood houses, and in contemporary arts and crafts designers, restorers, and antique arts and crafts dealers. Craftsman houses are known for the interior built-ins, including cabinets, shelves and seating, superior carpentry, lots of lead-glass and stained glass windows, and dark wood wainscoting and moldings. Many craftsman houses have beamed ceilings and open …

When the Gunderson Brothers built houses in Oak Park more than one hundred years ago, they had families in mind: lots of spacious bedrooms and dining and living spaces for get-togethers and gatherings.  The Gundersons wanted the best quality and hired an architect, Frank Osborn De Money to design the homes. They even brought craftsmen from Norway to build the houses. These were going to be homes that were comfortable and built to last. Several hundred houses in the Prairie-style dotted Oak Park properties and are now designated as Oak …

One of America’s greatest architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, began designing homes in Oak Park in 1889. Radically new in conception, the Prairie Style Homes designed by Wright featured low horizontal lines, open floor plans, and clerestory windows; they fit the landscape and the exterior brick and stucco in earth tones were a dramatic contrast to Victorian frame houses. Wright worked with other architects including Richard Bock, William Eugene Drummond, Marion Mahony Griffin, Walter Burley Griffin. Other architects in the Prairie- Style School—George W. Maher, John Van Bergen, and E.E. Roberts …

Victorian Houses In the Oak Park Real Estate Market
Famous for being the birthplace of writers Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Rice Burroughs (“Tarzan” novels), Oak Park, established in 1848, grew up as a village in the Victorian period and its graceful, tree-lined streets have Victorian houses galore. These “painted ladies” feature spacious wrap-around porches, arches, turrets, gingerbread trim, and external ornate details. Interior space, first designed for large families, now continues to provide ample living areas, with multiple bedrooms, high ceilings, impressive moldings, fireplaces, and frequently third floors with additional space …

The Oak Park real estate market on some level is an extension of the Chicago Real Estate market and currently has many interesting opportunities available both for home owners and investment property.
Chicago’s urban tree-canopied suburb of Oak Park offers families and singles an array of comfortable Prairie four-squares, painted Victorians and townhouses & condominium developments alongside Frank Lloyd Wright landmarks.
Just nine miles from downtown Chicago’s financial and commercial center, Oak Park’s residential front-porch neighborhoods are dotted with excellent local schools, recreation centers, and playing fields. One of Chicago’s top schools, …