More Than He Asked For!

I wrote about Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey's unpaid property taxes in April.  I found it abhorrent that a member of the body that collects property taxes was a number of installment payments behind.

Peter von Boul, a writer for Inside Publications, has been following the saga of the unpaid property taxes and the foreclosure of the Commissioner's home.  This week Peter published a story about Fritchey's house finally being sold.  His story is below.

Real Estate Boom Back?

Near foreclosure, Fritchey’s home sells

for $11K more than asking price

By Peter von Buol

Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey’s (12th) Lincoln Park home has been sold as of July 1 for $990,000, according to the web-site of Baird and warner, sales-agent for the property. Prior to the sale, the property at 1521 w. Altgeld had been listed as being available for $979,000. Fritchey’s home actually was sold for $11,000 more than its asking price.  According to the web-site of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, as of July 1, the property continues to be listed as being in active foreclosure proceedings against Fritchey filed by Wells Fargo Bank in the court’s chancery division. The last case activity listed on the web site has been a Certificate of Publication filed on May 5.

Clearly, there must have been

something unusual to encourage

someone to pay a premium over

prevailing rates.

-Geoffrey J.D. Hewings,

Department of Economics, University of Illinois

In February, Inside Publications had reported Fritchey was soon to lose his home in a foreclosure and that he had owed Cook County more than $24,000 in unpaid real-estate taxes, those bills have since been paid.

On the real-estate sales company web-site, Fritchey’s home was described as having “a perfect floor-plan featuring an exquisite DeGuilio kitchen with dark wood and glass cabinetry that opens into a family room with soaring ceilings and enormous windows flooding the home with light. Formal living/dining room, 3 beds up plus 1 down, 3.5 baths,finished lower level, tons of storage space, yard and deck - plus a breezeway connecting the 2.5 car garage to the house.”

While the Illinois Association of Realtors describes the state’s current real estate sales-environment as favoring buyers over sellers, in a written statement released on June 21, the organization described home sales throughout the state as “trending positive month-to-month since February 2011 and median prices have moved up for the last three consecutive months, all good signs for a market moving to recover amid lackluster job creation and a restrictive  lending environment.” Inside Publications has contacted Fritchey to ask why he thought his property might have sold for higher than the asking price but he had not responded by deadline.