Page 2 - Chicago homeowners question staying in city after unrest 8.11.20

Ald. Brian Hopkins, whose 2nd Ward covers a wide swath through the Near North, worries about a
cascading effect if retailers stung by big losses of merchandise over the past couple of days elect
not to reopen. If that were to happen, he worries, residential living with fewer nearby shopping

opportunities might look much less appealing.

“I’m talking to retail chains that say their sales in Chicago had not been recovering recently like
sales have increased in the suburbs,” Hopkins says. “Then comes this latest violence, which is

contributing to a perfect storm of reasons for people to decide they no longer need to live in or near
downtown.”

He adds: “The volume of calls and emails I’ve gotten in the past couple of days from residents who
no longer feel it’s safe to live downtown is shocking. They are telling me they are giving up and

moving away. I hope this is not the final reality. My hope is that we can still save downtown.”

Ames, the broker, still sees signs of optimism. She listed a two-bedroom house in Jefferson Park

recently at $289,000 and within 24 hours fielded a half-dozen offers. She expects the sale to close
soon at more than $300,000. She also has a home on a double lot in Lakeview whose sale is
pending after receiving multiple offers. The asking price was $2,995,000. “If you live in a high-rise
in the Loop and must take an elevator up and down, then your condo is going to be harder to sell,”

Ames says. “But if you’re farther north with some yard for kids to play in, that still looks good to
families enduring this pandemic.”

After the smoke from the first round of looting around Chicago’s Loop and North Side had cleared
in late May, bruising an already-hurting real estate market suffering due to the pandemic, violent
mayhem struck again late Sunday night that left some neighborhoods north of downtown with

smashed storefront windows and empty retail shelves.

If they aren’t going as far afield as the Rockies, Ames says, other clients are showing renewed

interest in such suburban markets as Lake Forest and the rest of the North Shore. Jim Kinney, vice
president of luxury home sales at Baird & Warner Real Estate in Chicago, had a showing of a
house listed at $900,000 scheduled for Lake Forest today, in fact.

“At higher price points, lots of people are looking to get out of the city and go north,” Kinney says.
“This exodus is likely to pick up speed as a result of the violence of the past 24 hours, though some
property owners in the city are going to be challenged in selling their space before they can make a

move.”

The Chicago real estate this year has endured, as Kinney puts it, “a triple whammy of sorts.” First
came mounting dissatisfaction with rising property taxes and higher state income taxes.

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