Page 1 - Chicago homeowners question staying in city after unrest 8.11.20

August 11, 2020 12:53 PM

Homeowners questioning city life after this week's unrest

H. LEE MURPHY

"People are now shifting ideas about where they want to live and work. Some are deciding they no
longer have to be in a city center. The latest violence has prompted people to consider new options
for the first time.”

Jennifer Ames, a partner at North Side real estate brokerage Engel & Volkers, has had calls
recently from Chicago clients who have found homes in Montana and Boulder, Colo., to purchase.

“They want to sell their houses here,” Ames says. “People are now shifting ideas about where they
want to live and work. Some are deciding they no longer have to be in a city center. The latest
violence has prompted people to consider new options for the first time.”

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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