Selling the $5 Million Gold Coast Mansion: 1500 N. Dearborn Parkway
This 4-bedroom vintage mansion at 1500 N. Dearborn Parkway in the Gold Coast has been on the market since July 2009.
The listing now says it is “priced to sell” and that the seller will “entertain all offers.”
The 6290-square foot house was built in 1889 and has 3 fireplaces.
Built on a 30×150 lot, it also appears to have much of the original woodwork still intact.
Three out of the four bedrooms are on the second floor with the fourth on the third floor.
The house also has a 23×15 library, central air and 2 car parking.
Jennifer Piser Wright at Prudential Rubloff has the listing. See the pictures here.
1500 N. Dearborn Parkway: 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 2 car parking, 6290 square feet
- Sold in December 2005 for $4.466 million
- Originally listed in July 2009
- Currently listed for $5.495 million
- Taxes of $21,577
- Central Air
- Bedroom #1: 21×16
- Bedroom #2: 16×15
- Bedroom #3: 16×15
- Bedroom #4: 17×10
It’s hard to comment on this house when the pictures look like they were taken with a low end cell phone camera. It’s a $5,000,000 house yet they can’t pay a small fee to for professional pictures. This will not end well.
how in the HELL are the taxes only $22K for this? My taxes are $6.5K and let’s just say this is valued at just a wee bit more than 3x my humble abode…
Is that a picture of the kitchen on their yacht? I suppose if you own a $5mil mansion you don’t care much that your chef has to work in such a tiny space.
This agent should be embarrassed. Those pictures are terrible. This place is beautiful on the outside, but the interior looks like a dump. And not a single picture of any bathrooms? Why do I have the feeling that all the bathrooms are totally dated and need refurbishing?
LOL about the kitchen. 6300 square feet & they couldn’t allocate more than 100 sq ft. for the kitchen?
And, re the taxes, don’t know if there was some special deal, but my suburban house–worth around $850,000 has taxes almost equal to those on this $5 MM house!! Something definitely seems funny with the tax level on this house.
Its like the agent just blew up some thumbnail size pictures… wtf. As for the house, um yeah it looks amazing on the outside, like a damn castle, but the inside (thanks to the piss poor photos) makes it look a lot less quality than a 5 million dollar house would need to be.
note to self: do not work with Jennifer Wright. it’s pathetic that someone selling this nice of a house would do this to their customers. maybe they will see this listing and ask her a few questions.
the more i learn about real estate the more this stuff does not surprise me. people need to buy homes and often times don’t shop around for agents at all, there really isn’t enough of an incentive for these people to try their hardest at their jobs. the good news is that things are becoming more transparent, i predict things will be a changing over the next 5 years.
Did everyone miss that this place is “priced to sell”??? If it’s priced to sell, that means you don’t have to do anything to put the place in shape or waste your time taking quality photos!!! Duh!
There may well be plenty to complain about re: this property’s marketing, but the original pics are at least not fuzzy on this page:
http://www.rubloff.com/property/chicago/07264038.cfm
or on the virtual tour link:
http://tours5.vht.com/Viewer/PhotoGallery.aspx?ListingID=1197113
That kitchen is ridiculous. I’d be surprised if two people could fit past each other.
I’m also surprised it’s priced over the 2005 purchase price. Has any work been done to justify pricing over near-peak bubble?
Dayum Jennifer WRight has a shitload of $2 million plus listings… I’d imagine one of her minions did the piss poor job with the photos on this listing, there’s no way that someone so incompetent would have that many good listings
The finishes in this place remind me of my first apartment in Lincoln Park… my roommate and I paid $1500/month for that dump.
I still can’t get over that kitchen. Could one even in stand in front of the oven if it was open?
I know a nice kitchen isn’t everyone’s priority, but if you’re buying a $5million mansion, chances are you have a family and like to entertain, and actually being able to prepare meals might come into play.
Oh no, I was so excited when I saw the exterior photo! But yeah, everything you guys said and I’ll add RED carpet and terrible outdoor shot-what wasted space.
At $5 million I doubt the target market looks at those photos. The buyer’s agent probably has a virtual 3D holographic R2D2 machine that their wealthy clients can use to view the property.
Or at least that’s what I would demand if I was going to buy a $5 million house with crappy listing photos.
Regarding the taxes on this place, which are absurdly low relative to the tax bills modest home owners are getting:
In case you all have not noticed, upper bracket properties are very lightly taxes relative to modest condos and homes, while shacks in the worst areas are paying as much as $5000 a year, or more than 10% market value, for homes that would barely sell for $40K. Needless to say, these folks cannot come up with the dough and are being blasted out of their humble little cottages onto the sidewalks. The lucky ones will perhaps score a tax-subsidized “affordable” apartment at Wilson Yards, that cost the taxpayers $447,000 a unit to build.
We are so out of balance and crazy in the manner we tax and what we spend the taxes on, that historians will be scratching their heads 1000 years from now trying to figure out just what the hell we were thinking with all our prattle about “fairness” and “justice”, to say nothing of our fiscal management.
Sorry for the typo in the second sentence. Of course I meant to write “taxed” but my finger slipped.
“Regarding the taxes on this place, which are absurdly low relative to the tax bills modest home owners are getting: ”
Assessed value went up over 50% (from 153,607 to 233,216) then was reduced slightly on appeal (228,817). 2009 taxes will be north of $32k.
“shacks in the worst areas are paying as much as $5000 a year”
You keep saying this, but I’ve seen NO evidence. Cite, please.
“2009 taxes will be north of $32k.”
I’ve brought this up before & was shot down, but I’ll say it again – I consider listing taxes that are known to be incorrect as fraud.
now I will say that even the most modest dwelling requires a good amount of govt services & infrastructure to support, and everyone needs to pay their share.
but a $5 million mansion should be paying more than $32K if my frame two-flat at Belmont and Kimball is getting hit for over $6,500. My house isn’t worth a million bucks!
anon, I know of two property owners in the Englewood area who are being hit for this much.
Give till Monday to pull the tax records, and I’ll have some for you.
But here is one I do have on hand, a pretty W. Rogers Park condo, recently priced (and sold) at $64,900. 7024 N Rockwell, Pin number 10-36-211-032-1003. Taxes $3,092, which I submit is WAAAAY out of line for a unit now selling in the $60-70K range. I don’t care what it presumably sold for in 2007, which was around $200K, a bubble price.
My friend who owns the liquor store around the corner has a house worth $500K in West Rogers Park, and he received a tax bill for $15,000, way out of whack, and very expensive relative to the bills for upper bracket properties. The house might have sold as high as $900K at the bubble peak, but I doubt it.
I am looking at a number of W. Rogers Park, Rogers Park, and Edgewater condos, and am struck by how high the taxes are relative to the prices of the properties. $3000 is a typical tax bill for these cheap places.
“I consider listing taxes that are known to be incorrect as fraud.”
As I keep pointing out when Laura brings up the outrageous “tax bills” that people have “received”, no one *knows* what their 2009 tax bills are. I believe–for very good reason–that the 09 net rates (EQ Factor x Tax Rate) will be higher than 2008 rates, but do not *know* this. So, with higher rates, any property that has a higher ’09 AV will have considerably higher taxes.
That $32k amount is using the *known* ’08 taxes and applying the same rate to the higher ’09 AV. And the “at least” is to reflect my expectation that the ’09 rates will be higher.
But, in this case, the listed taxes are the last *known* full year taxes. Also, note that that amount includes a Senior Exemption, but that was only a ~1% decrease.
anon, I understand your skepticism (ha), but you’re ignoring the 800 lb elephant in the room, which is the City’s tax levy.
It isn’t going down.
In fact, I’d bet one would be hard pressed to show that the City’s overall tax levy has EVER gone down, and if it has, for more than just a year or so.
I am puzzled on the Senior exemption – I thought it was a lot more than that.
The tax bills I’m referring to are 2008 tax bills, which were stupefying.
My friend, however, got the first half of this year’s, which is $7800. There will be another $7800 due in fall, for a house worth $500K.
“10-36-211-032-1003. Taxes $3,092,”
Nope. 2008 taxes were $2,849.34. 1st installment of 09 is delinquent. Does seem ripe for appeal, tho, as the AV has been 24,585 (07), 19,863 (08) and now 22,341 which is crazy, even accounting for the fact that the sale was a distressed sale.
“a house worth $500K in West Rogers Park, and he received a tax bill for $15,000”
Does he have a HO exemption filed?
“I am puzzled on the Senior exemption – I thought it was a lot more than that.”
There is the exemption and there is the freeze. The freeze is larger.
“My friend, however, got the first half of this year’s, which is $7800. ”
It’s 55% of last year’s total; what the 2d installment is depends on the ’09 AV and the ’09 EQ Factor and mill rate. $14,000+ for ’08 would be an AV of about $100k (meaning an old MV of about $600k), which has generally translated to a new MV of about $1mm; if the last actual sale of a decent comp for your friend’s place was around $1mm (even if 4 years ago), that’s what he’s stuck with, possibly even after an appeal.
“shacks in the worst areas are paying as much as $5000 a year”
Laura i saw You say the more than once. I don’t think its the tad man as the owner not doin due diligence. Appeal!!!!!!!!! i am on a 49×150 lot in a so so area my taxes barely hit 4k (second bill may have me over 4k)
something don’t seem right about your example
tad man=tax man
tad man=tax man
Groove, are you drunk?
Laura,
The tax bill on shacks in the worst areas should be higher. People in this city/county need to have more skin in the game so they’ll stop voting for the fools and crooks that promise everything and deliver nothing.
I did notice on the tax bill that it is a two 2-unit. Why no mention of that in the listing?
The fireplace under the stairs…interesting feature…very cool place…
Tipster, should their bills be high enough to render them homeless?
As for “skin in the game”, I believe that if you have been paying for your home for years and own it, with substantial equity or outright, that you HAVE skin in the game.
And don’t blame the poor for ALL the crooks and scum who get elected- these people have the lowest voter turnout of any bunch of people. Blame our broad, complacent middle classes.
Personally, I’d like to see NO property tax, because this is tax you must come up with on something you already bought and paid for, whether you have the money or not. It essentially means we never own our property.
This country was conceived as a place where property rights are sacred and that you are entitled to keep what you have- that whether you have $10 or $10 Billion, it is yours. Since we have set things up so that we MUST tax, the least we can do is set caps on government expenditures, and tax on income, or charge higher user’s fees for parking and licenses. We could also charge for contract protection, and you would be charged according to the size of the contract you wish enforced. That was Ayn Rand’s suggestion.
Is it possible that the kitchen used to be in the basement and that they crammed the modern kitchen into what used to be the old butlers pantry? I’m not in Chicago, out east the kitchen would frequently be in the basement, and the servants would hump the grub up and down the stairs, or they would use a dumbwaiter.
Great points Laura, but I think tipster is on to something too. As I see his/her point, only when the poor, and I’ll add the lower middle, are thrown out onto the streets because of out-of-control property taxes, will we ALL find any hope of tax reform. The people who tend to use the most in proportion to what they actually pay (# of kids in public schools, police, fire, city/county programs, etc.) have no problem with voting in Todd Stroger, Mike Madigan or Joe Barrios for example, all of whom consistantly block any form of property tax caps.
‘Caps’ were for keeping the rich in their mansions – a sentiment I heard over and over at the countless neighborhood meetings I attended years ago when excessive taxes were a problem of only the north side. But what’s the worry, let those wealthy downtown, northshore, and commercial owning folks pay for it all… they can afford it right? The chickens are coming home…
Jay, it’s not who people “vote in” so much as it’s who they won’t be bothered to come to the polls to vote OUT.
These losers get in over and over because most people don’t participate in the political process. Ever see the voter turnout for county and municipal elections? Especially municipal, which take place in February in odd-numbered years.
Poor people are the people least likely to vote at all, and middle income people aren’t much better. I personally know a few folks not registered to vote because they’re afraid they might get called for jury duty if they do. Did anyone ever tell these people what an accomplishment for individual rights the guarantee of a jury trial is? Yet these are the people who howl the loudest about the depradations of our crook politicians and their cronies.
And watch how most people act when they see somebody holding a petition. Petitions and voting are two means by which citizens can participate- you can force an issue onto a referendum by a petition. Yet people will back away from you like you are an ebola carrier if they see you in front of Dominick’s holding a petition out. I know, I’ve done it a few times.
So, in a sense, tipster is right.
February 2011 is election time in Chicago, by the way- please come and vote your local bum out, folks
The pics of the interior looked pretty hi-res according to the links posted by Roma so then is it the realtor’s fault also that the kitchen is small, the red carpeting is ugly and the price (prob. pushed by sellers so they’re not “giving it away”) is too high?