Profile in WSJ today on struggles of high-end real estate market in Chicago. Again, no one is crying for these sellers, but it’s bad for tax base if property values get reset lower. More taxes for everyone else… We should aspire to have people competing to move here. Not out. https://t.co/RwLK9B6vEb pic.twitter.com/ngr7gKRtsD
— Stuart Loren (@StuLoren) December 7, 2024
Chicago’s luxury real estate market has been in spiraling decline since 2021 and a billionaire is the latest to sell his home for a dramatic loss amid soaring crime.
A trend of decline across the Midwest city has hit luxury condos the hardest, as wealthy billionaires like Citadel CEO Ken Griffin sold a portion of his penthouse at a 44 per cent loss of $15 million last month.
The hedge-fund manager had paid more than $34 million for the entire 37th and 38th floors of the condo tower No.9 Walton in 2017 and sold them last month for $9 million and $10 million respectively.
Griffin was quick to blame ‘failed political leadership in Illinois’, taking a stab at Democratic Govenor JB Pritzker for the rising crime and declining real-estate values.
‘The decline in value of Chicago real estate is representative of the failed political leadership in Illinois which is a loss ultimately borne by the people of the state,’ he said, weeks after shelling out $45million for an 150million-year-old set of fossils.
Some 28 per cent less of the windy-city’s homes sell for more than $4 million and the median sale price dropping from $5 million to $4.625 million.
The median price of Chicago’s condos above $1 million dropped 9.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2024 from the same period in 2021, according to a report by brokerage @properties.