Whatever it takes: Chicago luxury home sales double in 2021

Anything goes when it comes to luxury homes in Chicago.

Some 100 homes sold for $4 million or more over the past 12 months – double the average of 51.5 over the past six years, Crain’s reported. The closest year was 2018, when 73 were sold in that category.

Of this year’s sales, 19 were in two new condo developments on the eastern side of the city, while 10 went for between $4 million and $8.4 million in the St. Regis Tower on Wacker Drive and nine in the redeveloped Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue. A Lake Bluff mansion that sold on Dec. 29 was the 100th sold in the high end of the market.

The Lake Bluff mansion at 1955 Shore Acres Drive was the 100th sold home. (VHT Studios)

People are saying, “I don’t care what I have to spend to get the house I want,” Emily Sachs Wong of @properties told the publication.

The pandemic helped prompt some buyers to seek properties with more room to work or attend school from home or even private beaches that allow physical distancing. A buoyant stock market has also helped, real estate agents say.

“When you look at the incredible wealth gains in the stock market, I’m not surprised to see such an uptick in the uber-luxury real estate arena,” said Debra Dobbs of the Dobbs Group, who represented the sellers of the year’s priciest home, a Lincoln Park mansion that went for almost $12.6 million.

So many high-end homes are being sold that the minimum is now $4.945 million, up from $4 million in 2015, according to Crain’s.

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[Crain’s] — Victoria Pruitt