Crain’s Reports on Foreclosure Suits Filed on Lincoln Park Mansion Sites
In case you might have missed this story because you have a summer work time schedule on Fridays, Crain’s reported about a foreclosure lawsuit on 3 Lincoln Park luxury home sites.
From Crain’s:
Foreclosure suits seeking more than $8.2 million have been filed against two sites controlled by a developer of high-end Lincoln Park homes whose customers have included Eric of the “Eric & Kathy” morning radio show.
State Bank of Countryside is seeking to collect more than $5.7 million on the two parcels at 1701-03 N. Dayton St., where ventures controlled by developer Seth Harris, president of SMH Development LLC, has started construction of two 6,500-square-foot homes.
Separately, Lakeside Bank is seeking to collect just over $2.5 million on a nearly completed 5,100-square-foot home at 2140 N. Clifton St., about seven blocks away.
Is this the beginning of more foreclosure suits against developers on the high end of the housing market in Lincoln Park but also elsewhere in the city?
“These homes were planned when things were still good,” says Ron Benninga, president of Red House Development Inc., another Chicago luxury homebuilder not involved in the three foreclosure cases.
See a picture and the listing of the home at 2140 N. Clifton here.
Foreclosure suits hit Lincoln Park luxury home sites [Crain’s, Samantha Sleevi, June 12, 2009]
Foreclosures in Lincoln Park? This is impossible. The Crain’s article must be a lie. If it is true, then it is just an isolated incident. Prices will continue to rise on sfh in LP.
rise exponentially!! It’s LP!!
Another clueless agent. Don’t they know its 2009 and typing the listing in ALL CAPS makes them look like a maroon?
Its not 1985 and these aren’t being punched up on a TRS-80.
All good things come to an end or at the very least have the rules of supply and demand take effect.
$3 million? Are they really asking three million or am I still hung over from the weekend….
Selling for 3 million and they cant even take pictures of the inside. Realtor should be fired.
Bob,
Please tell me you can delete your comment calling someone clueless and a “maroon” (moron) for typing in all caps. I am a little embarrassed for you.
I think there is going to be a sea of high end foreclosures in Chicago. We never had enough people that could genuinely (w/out interest only or stated income loans) afford all these homes. One would think Banks would have looked at the amount of truly qualified potential high end homebuyers before funding all these projects…
“ABSOLUTELY SMASHING”
lol nice…
As for 3 mills for this McCrapbox? lol again!
Maroon is french for Moron ;-P
“lauren on June 15th, 2009 at 8:06 am
I think there is going to be a sea of high end foreclosures in Chicago. We never had enough people that could genuinely (w/out interest only or stated income loans) afford all these homes. One would think Banks would have looked at the amount of truly qualified potential high end homebuyers before funding all these projects…”
Ah, but you forget all the wealthy foreign buyers 😉
Bugs Bunny also used the term “maroon” I think in the same way that mac cited.
Maroons were also runaway Black slaves who formed armed communities in the Caribbean Islands to fight white plantation owners.
I love when insults backfire. It makes me smile.
“One would think Banks would have looked at the amount of truly qualified potential high end homebuyers before funding all these projects…”
Why would they? They (banks) bet the firm. In most cases the firm survived due to John and Jane taxpayer. Bankers behavior in retrospect was completely rational and aligned with their compensation. Its the idiot docile populace, content that their 401k is up a bit since March, who are the real losers here as no major overhaul of the financial system is now planned.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
ma?roon1??/m??run/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [muh-roon] Show IPA
–adjective 1. dark brownish-red.
2. Chiefly British. a. a loudly exploding firework consisting of a cardboard container filled with gunpowder.
b. a similar firework used as a danger or warning signal, as by railway brakemen.
ma?roon2??/m??run/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [muh-roon] Show IPA
–verb (used with object) 1. to put ashore and abandon on a desolate island or coast by way of punishment or the like, as was done by buccaneers.
2. to place in an isolated and often dangerous position: The rising floodwaters marooned us on top of the house.
3. to abandon and leave without aid or resources: Having lost all his money, he was marooned in the strange city.
–noun 4. (often initial capital letter) any of a group of blacks, descended from fugitive slaves of the 17th and 18th centuries, living in the West Indies and Guiana, esp. in mountainous areas.
5. a person who is marooned: Robinson Crusoe lived for years as a maroon.
Origin:
1660–70;
Jason — Gotta hit up the urban dictionary…
“A term of derision often uttered by Bugs Bunny when referring to an interaction with a dopey adversary. It is a mispronunciation of the word “Moron””
Do all of you still live at home in your parent’s basement? When was the last time any of you went outside….or went out on a date?
This goes under the “don’t build $3 million homes in shitty locations”
North and Dayton is not ideal. Neither is 2100 N Clifton
Jason.. while you are beating a dead horse let’s not forget the original name of the Montreal Canadians.
My husband and I own one of the houses next door to Seth Harris’ Dayton mess. We joined with our neighbors to get the McMansions as far away from our property line as we could. After months and months of dealing with his minions, we finally got the conversation we had asked of him when the alderman and RANCH Triangle (they were great!) stepped in and brokered a compromise. At the time of that meeting, we told Seth and Alderman Daley that we had studied his business model and didn’t believe he could afford the property. We also went on record with the RANCH Triangle Association with same.
Sadly, we have discovered that there is something worse than having a McMansion five feet from your property line. And that is a third built McMansion in foreclosure right next to you. The place is a mess and we can’t get the City to do anything. A Porta-potty is wedged right up against our fence and when we call the company to come get it, they say they can’t because they haven’t been paid. The insulation is starting to buckle and is covered with mold. And somebody has abandoned a shopping cart. The fence is locked so we can’t even get in there to clean it up ourselves. The only thing missing is a car up on cement blocks!!
Seth Harris has apparently disappeared. Somebody at RANCH says he’s moved in with his mother-in-law. His office on Webster appears to be abandoned. I ran by it yesterday and stopped to look inside. There was a letter from the IRS right on top of the mountain of mail.
Any ideas for how to deal with this maroon? Ha ha
Just about spit my water all over my screen when I read this bit o’ wisdom from good ol’ Steve H:
‘This goes under the “don’t build $3 million homes in shitty locations”
North and Dayton is not ideal. Neither is 2100 N Clifton’
Come on, buddy…you are really stretching. 2100 N Clifton is surrounded by multi-million dollar homes, is about 4-5 blocks from the el, is next door to a park and a great school, is near restaurants, bars, etc. and is in the heart of Lincoln Park. The only possible downside to the location is that it is somewhat close to Depaul, but that doesn’t seem to bother the hoards of other people paying 1M+ for the privilege.
Seems to me your logic amounts to: if it doesn’t sell, its a shitty location.
The MLS default is all caps.
“is next door to a … great school”
OM has become “great” in the past two school years? Honest question–I’m surprised (happily) if it’s true.
Shitty location for $3 million homes. The addresses supprt $1.5 million homes but not $3 million homes. $3 million homes are on Howe, Orchard, and Mohawk. Not 1700 N Dayton and 2200 n Clifton.
It is a fact!
Honestly, this guy paid $2.7 million for two 36′ lots? In the very best locations in Lincoln Park, typical 25′ X 125′ lots sold for $1 million.
How does this purchase make any sense and is it a suprise that he went belly up? Even if the market was as strong as 2004, this guy overpaid for the dirt by $750k.
Looks like someone screwed up pretty bad!
@ Wendi –
Sadly, there’s probably little you can do to erase the mess left by a greed driven developer. You’d be hard pressed to get the city to squeeze blood out of that already dried out turnip… just one of the joys of urban living.
However, there is something you and your neighbors can do to prevent future Seth Harris slash and burn con-artists from ruining your block, and trust me they will surface again when this mess calms: landmark it.
The Mid-North area of LP is all landmarked (since the late 70’s), and in the 20 years I’ve lived in my home, the architectural integrity of the neighborhood and of my street hasn’t changed… at all. No French McFaux towering walls blocking the sun that shined in your back yard since the 1880’s, no endless construction that damages your foundation, no guessing games on what style of castle you’ll have to live next to the rest of your life, no ‘dude where’s my party deck’ trader.
Another thing I’ve discovered by living in a landmarked area is that the type of buyer who values an older home that has construction restrictions attached to it, is generally just the kind of neighbor you want living next to you… they tend to take it for what it is and make it better. That old framed workers cottage that would have been ripe for a new 6000 sq ft lot to lot piece of crap, suddenly gets a restored facade and a new creative interior that you get to see through the restored windows when you’re walking the dog at night. Boring area, maybe, solid top-dollar real estate when you want to sell…. definitely.
I knew this guy was in trouble when I heard he was soliciting just about everyone to raise cash, even in $10,000 increments (this was over a year ago). He simply overpaid for a lot of land at the peak. Land owners are going to get wiped out right now if they are leveraged. If the property were finished the bank would have some shot of getting some capital back.
It took me two seconds looking at his financials to realize he was way over his head. If he is forced to sell all his portfolio of land it will impact land prices in the short term in LP (I would be curious if there were personal guarantees or not, probably if he is living with his mother in law)
aside from overextending himself and overpaying for land, SMHs’ biggest problem is that they built absolute garbage. horrible details and equally bad execution. Every single house looked the same from the exterior down to the address stone with the black highlighted numbers….tacky.
Oscar Mayer converted to a magnet montessori school in, I think, 07-08. That said, “great” was probably not the right word to describe the school. “great for CPS” is probably a better descriptor.
Thanks, Jay, for the Landmark designation information. I didn’t know anything about it and agree with all your points…it is a good way to guarantee architectural integrity and neighbors you like next door.
And to clarify Steve’s point above, Seth Harris purchased the Dayton property, which is just short of three standard city lots, for $2 million. The additional $800k was a construction loan. Contiguous land in LP generally gets a premium. I think the $2 million price for that lot was a fire sale from McHugh, who bought up the condo units one by one on that property and spent much more than $2 million to do so.
To bjb’s point, Seth was definitely WAY in over his head at this time last year, so I’m not feeling too sorry for the bank holding his note. He didn’t close on the Dayton location until the end of July 2008, he never paid vendors a dime for the work they did starting in October of 2008, and if a non-banker/finance person like me can figure out the guy was a financial tsunami, it should have been easy for them to discover.
The “burr under the neighbors saddle”, if you will, is that he and his people were absolutely awful to us, wouldn’t return our calls and emails with very specific questions, when he did finally meet us he treated us like we were the stupidest group of idiots alive, and made it very clear that our concerns, which included one of our front doors a scant four feet from the 43 foot brick wall of his house, did not matter. His direct quote: “I don’t care if your property value is impacted. My only concern is to make money.” He was marginally better in front of the alderman and RANCH and we finally got 5 1/2 feet, a small compromise at best.
So, you could argue the guy is getting what he deserves, but again, at our expense.
Was there really any point of name-dropping Eric Ferguson in this story?
This just in: The FBI is going door-to-door on Dayton asking about Seth Harris. He’s either mobbed up or in mortgage fraud.
The problem in Lincoln Park has been brewing for a long time. There are a whole slew of developers who were over leveraged and greedy as all get out. There were also a group of concerned neighbors, RANCH, and merchants who tried to stop, in any way they could, the destruction of our lovely neighborhood from the greed and selfishness of these speculators. Alas, we were right in predicting the future and wrong when when tried to stop the (in the eyes of people like them). It’s all a senseless shame. When you look at all of the stores that were displaced on Armitage and replaced with what? Nothing. Vacant storefronts. We didn’t learn from the history of Clark St in the 80’s and we let it happen again. I wonder what Tim Glasscott thinks about this since he was the most vocal about both Landmarking and the Retail Ordinance (both of which would have stopped the destruction of our neighborhood). It will be a long time before Linclon Park bounces back from the destruction caused by Seth Harris, Mark Hunt, Fred Latsko and others.
The problem in Lincoln Park has been brewing for a long time. There are a whole slew of developers who were over leveraged and greedy as all get out. There were also a group of concerned neighbors, RANCH, and merchants who tried to stop, in any way they could, the destruction of our lovely neighborhood from the greed and selfishness of these speculators. Alas, we were right in predicting the future and wrong when when tried to stop the (in the eyes of people like them). It’s all a senseless shame. When you look at all of the stores that were displaced on Armitage and replaced with what? Nothing. Vacant storefronts. We didn’t learn from the history of Clark St in the 80’s and we let it happen again. I wonder what Tim Glasscott thinks about this since he was the most vocal about both Landmarking and the Retail Ordinance (both of which would have stopped the destruction of our neighborhood). It will be a long time before Linclon Park bounces back from the destruction caused by Seth Harris, Mark Hunt, Fred Latsko and others.
fred latsko another foreclosure
Rush & Oak