Garfield Park

Garfield Park takes its name from the 184-acre West Side park whose gold-domed fieldhouse and lagoon-side landscapes form the centerpiece of Chicago's historic boulevard system — and whose Conservatory, two acres under glass, is one of the largest in the country. The surrounding neighborhood holds some of the city's deepest stock of greystones and graystone two-flats, much of it built between 1890 and 1915.

Apartments for rent in Garfield Park sit mostly in those vintage two-flats and courtyard buildings, where renovated units deliver space — formal dining rooms, bay windows, ten-foot ceilings — at rents far below the citywide median. The Green Line's Conservatory and Kedzie stops run the neighborhood's northern edge, reaching the Loop in under 20 minutes, and the Hatchery food-business incubator on Kedzie has seeded a growing local food economy.

Homes for sale are the neighborhood's defining opportunity: intact greystones and two-to-four-unit buildings at entry prices that allow full renovation budgets, plus city land-bank lots that have drawn new-construction infill. Institutional investment along the boulevards and sustained rehab activity near the Conservatory have made renovated comps easier to establish each year.