Former Bears back Matt Forte lists River North mansion for $4.8M

Former Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte’s possession of a River North mansion has entered the redzone.

The two-time Pro Bowl running back who played with Chicago’s NFL team from 2008 to 2015 listed his five-bedroom, 11,000-square-foot estate for $4.75 million, the Chicago Tribune reported. Jeff Lowe of Compass is the listing agent. 

Forte bought the four-story mansion built in the Kingsbury Estates area for just over $4 million in 2014. It was built in 2003 and sits on a large, 34-foot-wide corner lot. Forte has made “significant investments” to renovate the home since buying it, Lowe told the outlet.

The mansion has four bathrooms and three half-bathrooms, two fireplaces, a roof deck, butler’s pantry, fitness room and a heated three-car garage. Lavish features include an elevator, home theater and a custom spa.

Kingsbury Estates is an area west of Orleans Street and south of Chicago Avenue dense with mansions built in the early 2000s where there were previously mostly parking lots for the Montgomery Ward headquarters. Other current and former Chicago pro athletes and, buyers and sellers tied to them, have made deals in the neighborhood over the years, including former Bull Jimmy Butler, who sold a 10,000-square-foot house on Huron Street for $4.2 million in 2017, which was $100,000 less than he paid for it two years previously.

In 2021, the Forte property’s tax bill was about $91,000. In 2016, Forte’s tax bill skyrocketed 164 percent from $48,408 to $128,269, which was the third-largest tax increase that year.

It’s tough to say how much the price will swing, if at all, given the unpredictable state of Chicago’s luxury home market.

On one hand, low inventory is putting many prospective buyers into a wait-and-see mode, forcing sellers to undergo at least one round of price chops while their homes sit on the market for prolonged periods. In other cases, buyers are desperate and snatch up homes quickly, paying well beyond the asking price as options are slim.

— Quinn Donoghue

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