A buyer lost a condo near Lakeview in a multiple-offer situation, then bought a one-bedroom in Roscoe Village as the only buyer who toured it.
Listed $269,000 · Sold $275,000 · Closed April 2026 · 1BD/1BA condo, Roscoe Village · Vesta represented the buyer
In March, just as the spring market was getting crowded, a buyer reached out to the Vesta team and was connected with Gen Bashford. She was renting in West Town and started her search there, but the first West Town unit they toured was too small for what she wanted. So she turned to Lakeview, a part of the city where the competition was toughest.
The first one got away
Early on they went to an open house for a one-bedroom near the Lakeview–Lincoln Park border. The location was great, and people kept coming in and out the whole time they were there. On the way out, the buyer told Gen she wanted to make an offer.
Gen knew the asking price wasn't going to decide it. She checked with her team at Vesta, who expected it to sell well over asking. So Gen wrote the offer with an escalation clause. That's a clause saying you'll beat any competing offer by a set amount, up to a ceiling you choose. You stay in the running without putting your top number on the table from the start.
Then the seller's agent called. Three offers were close to the same, and she asked whether the buyer would sign an appraisal gap waiver. That means if the bank's appraisal came in below the contract price, the buyer would pay the difference in cash. In this case that could have been tens of thousands of dollars.
Gen explained it and the risks involved, and then she told her client the decision was hers. The buyer said no. The seller went with another offer.
Widening the search
Gen also knew the longer they stayed in Lakeview through the spring, the more of these situations they'd run into. So she started looking at the neighborhoods nearby. Her mentor at Vesta, Anastasiia, had suggested she check the listings with no interior photos. Most buyers assume those places look bad, and a lot of agents do too.
Roscoe Village sits directly west of Lakeview, between Belmont and Addison, and a straight shot north of West Town, where the buyer was already living. There, Gen found a one-bedroom, one-bath listing with two images: a floor plan and the outside of the building. She put the address into Google and found older photos of the unit online to see that the living room had big windows, character, and exposed brick. It was a walk-up with a large porch. It felt a lot like the unit they'd just lost.
The phone call
The buyer wasn't sold right away. She still wanted Lakeview. Gen called her and laid out what the rest of the spring would probably look like: more offers competing on the same units, and more requests to waive the appraisal. She suggested looking right next door to Lakeview, somewhere that wasn't getting the same attention.
The buyer agreed to see it.
The only one there
In person, the unit held up. It was on a tree-lined street, tucked into the neighborhood, and a short walk from a busier stretch with restaurants, bars, antique shops and a lot of locally owned businesses.
The listing was only a few days old, and they were the only buyers who toured it. She offered a little over asking. The seller accepted right away, with no counteroffer and no other bids. They closed in late April.
Gen thinks it would have been a very different story if the listing had gone up with a full set of photos and an open house. More buyers would have seen it, and it likely would have ended up with multiple offers.
What made the difference
First, Gen didn't pressure her client into a risk she'd already turned down. Second, she looked into a listing most buyers would have skipped. The first protected the buyer on the condo she lost, and the second got her the condo she bought without running into another multiple-offer situation.
Gen was so great to work with! She was so helpful in helping me find my condo and I couldn't be more happy with my decision. The market was super competitive and she really pushed me to give my now condo a chance, which gave me the opportunity to get in early and avoid another bidding war. She was so helpful and understanding of my needs and my limits. I would definitely recommend working with Gen!
— Zillow review, September 2026
Represented by Gen Bashford, Vesta Preferred Realty
You're not hiring one agent
Gen didn't work this deal alone. The read on what the Lakeview condo would sell for came from her team. The idea to dig into listings with no photos came from her mentor. That's how every deal at Vesta runs: when you work with one of us, you work with all of us.
Buying in a market where the good places get multiple offers? Competing without overpaying is a big part of what we do, and the whole team is on it with you.
