Market Conditions: Gold Coast Mansion Sells for $8 Million
Not everything is doom and gloom out there as the most expensive single family home to sell in Chicago this year just did so for $8 million.
The house in question is 43 E. Burton at the corner of Burton and Astor Streets in the Gold Coast. I can’t post any pictures and Google Streetview has interestingly NOT done any streets in the Gold Coast (although the rest of the downtown is mysteriously mapped).
Here’s more info:
43 E. Burton: 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, 1 half bath, 9560 square feet, 2 car garage
- I couldn’t find a prior sales price
- Originally listed in June 2008 for $9.45 million
- Sold in December 2008 for $8 million
- Taxes of $25,500
- Central Air
- Built in 1917
- Pamela Sage at Baird and Warner had the listing.
Never thought I’d say this but how the heck do these taxes manage to be so low relative to the price?
Gary, I notice that high end (over $2M)properties are taxed very lightly relative to lower-priced properties, a pattern I’d like an explanation for. Oh, yeah, houses belonging to elected officials tend to get off pretty lightly, too. A search of tax records a few years ago, by a citizen, revealed that a West Side AlderCreature was paying half the taxes on his dwelling as were neighbors in comparable houses.
How comforting it is to know that some folks have $8 M to drop on a house. People in this bracket aren’t ruffled by the downturn.
hmm… Somewhat ruffled- someone let go of a Mil/Five from the asking price- thats like, four Four Ferraris and a big Bentley! Ha.
But about the Google Maps/Gold Coast- they HAD mapped all of GC, but then it was taken down, maybe six months ago…
“But about the Google Maps/Gold Coast- they HAD mapped all of GC, but then it was taken down, maybe six months ago…”
That’s very interesting. If they took down Obama’s neighborhood- that I would understand (and maybe they have.) But the GC?
here is a pic i found.
http://www.prupref.com/prupref-photos/property/MLSNI/80/06944480_01.jpg
nice home.
I’m pretty sure this was Jamie Dimon’s house (CEO of JPMorgan/Chase).
Not Dimon’s house.
Dimon’s house on Bank St., truly
Sabrina,
When all else (streetview) fails, you can often pull up pictures of pictures of properties from the Cook County Assessor’s website, though the pictures are all circa 2000.
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/data/searchflat/ParcelImage.asp?pin=17031030010000
Laura,
Ask those invested in folded hedge funds or other investments that tanked. This downturn has taken its toll on many in this segment. They’re just not the quickest to publicize it. It hard to garner much sympathy when you’re networth goes from 10MM->5MM, unlike those who went from 100k->50k.
In other news…back in the real world. Watch out for a couple of more south loop buildings to go rental. Newer developments are getting massacared (and I mean massacared with >50% of previously “sold” units returning to the pool) with flipper walkaways.
sartre–wow. link for that 50% contract fail rate?
Kenworthy, unfortunately no link, this is based on conversations with some folks very close the the ‘action’.
SRS at $85… buy buy buy!!!
yes. I would buy buy buy. I sold 1/2 my holdings above $200 and made a nice year end bonus. It prob won’t go higher than $150, but 85 is worth the gamble.
the Dow and RE index will go down after all the fanfare dies down. There hasn’t been a single report to come out to justify the recent gains in the Dow. Quite the contrary. more layoffs, more bankruptcies, retail sales at 26 year bottom, etc, etc. Not 1 single positive story except the FED inflating the sh!+ out of our currency and bailouts for everyone except citizens.
wave theorists are predicting a s&p rally back to 1090, which is quite plausible. I agree on SRS medium term, but you may see further downside from here.
“hasn’t been a single report to come out to justify the recent gains in the Dow. Quite the contrary. more layoffs”
Layoffs are sometimes a positive for corporate earnings. Evidence that management is “dealing with the problems” and the like.
tfo,
I agree w/ you a little bit, but I hardly consider that reason for the recent market rally. the layoffs are going to affect foreclosures which will hurt banks which will hurt credit, etc. ad nauseum
ChiGuy:
And I agree with you; just found it (mildly) amusing that the first listed “bad news” could be seen as “good news” from the perspective of an individual stock.
I’m interested in people’s thoughts on how the debt load plays out. The debt has to be paid down. Meanwhile, our government is racking up even more debt. So interest rates have to go up eventually. But what does that do to the economy? And you can’t have exorbitant unemployment for extended periods of time because that’s a waste of resources. Eventually, they should all get hired.
I’m trying to figure out the long run macroeconomic outcome.
Long run there is only one possible outcome – USA default on its debt.
What happens? Being total realistic we start to look more like Europe, more specifically Italy, Greece and France. We carry higher debt burdens, unemployment at elevated levels is the norm, a more generous social welfare state will be forthcoming as employment becomes more difficult. It will become more difficult to hire workers and more difficult to lay them off or fire them. A few weeks ago I overhead a guy say that to be a bureaucrat is the way of the future!
I wonder if the fact that the Cardinal lives up the street has anything to do with the fact that the area isn’t visible on google? I know security around the house is pretty tight. Maybe they don’t want people trying to case the joint from up above. Just a thought.
I think the reason that Europe has such high unemployment is because they are not competitive and they have created a welfare state. I hope we don’t do that. Assuming we don’t, then our unemployment should eventually go down to a reasonable level. The only question is what exactly will we produce and for whom. The only way to pay down the debt I assume is to export our way out of it. The dollar will probably tank.
As for defaulting on our debt…I think it’s more likely we inflate the currency to pay it off with cheaper dollars.
I’ve wondered if the reason that Europe has such high unemployment rates is that the welfare state encourages you to report as unemployed. The US lacks such benefits (less incentive to keep reporting as unemployed), and generally has more part time workers. The traditional, U3 unemployment rate was up to 6.7% in November, and the U6 unemployment rate (includes discouraged workers, the marginally attached, and part timers, plenty of whom aren’t part time by choice) is up to 12.5%, the highest level since they started keeping data on it in 1994.
Chiguy –
“I agree w/ you a little bit, but I hardly consider that reason for the recent market rally. the layoffs are going to affect foreclosures which will hurt banks which will hurt credit, etc. ad nauseum”
You will have to wait 6 months to read the headlines on why the market went up today. The market tends to look a little past yeaterdays data and headlines.Hence the stock market rally after the jobs announcement Friday…
How about the possibility that we inflate out of the debt and all turn out to be just fine. Hello 1979!!
Gary,
All the econoblogs say that interest rates have to go up eventually. Maybe so. But eventually is a pretty open ended term. How many of these econohags were predicting that China would be buying our debt in sufficient quantity to plug up our massive federal deficits over eight years? Not many. What is the demand to buy up our government debt? Anybody that says they know is lying.
Yes foreign investors have been burned badly by other classes of assets but never US federal gov’t debt. Sure it’s not yielding anything right now but its a good store of value for foreign investors. So when will interest rates go up? Who knows.
Will paying off these debt be painful? You bet. Just like if you have a 50k credit card balance at 0% but you finally have to start making payments on it.
Steve,
Six months from now nobody cares about an intraday market swing six months prior. The market had this rally the past nine days because people believe it was oversold. Its tough to disagree with them when you consider how much the S&P dropped from its 52week high down to 750. The market is still in price discovery mode.
IMO just as S&P 1,500+ was freaking ridiculous beyond belief last December so was S&P below 800 this November. The market is just trying to figure out an equilibrium for the new lower earnings reality. Was November a bottom? Who knows. But it seems volatility is finally getting in check so maybe it was unless things deteriorate much worse.
I know this home well. Lived a couple of doors down the street. It went through a complete gut job with the end result being simply stunning. The job from start to finish took nearly 3 years and the woodwork alone is worth the price of admission. I don’t believe the home was ever occupied or if so it was for a scant amount of time.
If I recall, the seller purchased it for around 5MK. Bravo to him for selling in this wacky market.
Now here’s a twist. Just before we moved out of the ‘hood in August, there was an Eastern European woman who would bang on the door knocker incessantly, hours on end hollering at the top of her lungs for the door to be opened. The police would eventually show up whereby the woman would claim to be the rightful owner of the building. They’d cart here away only for her to return in a day or two. This went on all summer. Hmmmmm. Wonder if the new owner was made aware of the “rightful owner?” 🙂
“Unique imported European door knocker that makes a stunning first impression” was not in the listing?
I guess the fact that foreigners are willing to still hold our debt at ridiculously low rates is a good sign for us. But the party can’t last forever. If nothing else, their savings rate will eventually decline, causing rates to rise.
We have never defaulted on our debt but I imagine that if the interest burden becomes too great at some point we could inflate our way out of it. But then that would just cause rates to go up more. So the debt has to be paid down. It’s not a bottomless punch bowl. But how do we pay it back? With what? In the past we’ve been really good at selling overpriced assets – e.g. Rockefeller Center, Spire Condos, MBSs.
That tax figure is correct? So they’re paying one third of 1% in property tax? 0.30%? Wow. Gimme some of that action.
This previously sold in 8/04 for $6,000,000.
The assessor has it assessed at a market value of approx $975,000 for at least 2004/05/06/07/08. If one considers the “real” assessment level, it is at a market value of approx $1,500,000.
Should this be open for public use with that level of tax subsidy?