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You wouldn’t think the housing market for million-dollar-plus luxury homes would be a problem, but Meg Whitted – of The Mrs. Whitted Collective for Baird & Warner – said resale has been a struggle for years.
Until now.
On Jan. 21, the largest house sale on record in Kane County history, at 834 Sunset Road, Geneva, closed at $4.85 million.
“That’s a really huge deal,” Whitted said. “There were five sales over $3 million in the last 12 months and I brokered three of them.”
There was the one in the Prairie Lakes subdivision in St. Charles that closed for $3.6 million and the one on Meadows Road in Geneva that sold for $2.8 million.
“People who can afford $4-5-6-7-8 million are on the North Shore, typically,” Whitted said. “Or Oak Brook. Or Naperville.”
In the past, people who owned multi-million-dollar homes waited years to get their value back in a sale.
“People who built here 20 years ago have exceptional properties who will never get their money back. They sit and wait,” Whitted said. “It would just take forever. ... You were lucky to get an offer. ... It was a buyer’s market, 10-15 years ago. A very strong buyer’s market.”
But now that new construction costs are “crazy crazy high,” these luxury and ultra luxury homes are now more attractive in the market, Whitted said.
“We’re finally able to sell them for what they’re worth,” she said.
For the Sunset Road house, Whitted said she brokered the transaction herself because she had a buyer and knew about that home.
Some of the other big sales in 2024 were:
- 4N840 Dover Hill Road, St. Charles, $3.075 million in August
- 36W918 Crane Road, St. Charles, $3.2 million in October
- 41W255 Campton Hills Road, Campton Hills, $3.025 million in August
- 39W464 Longmeadow Lane, St. Charles, $3.6 million
“They don’t want to be in Hinsdale or the North Shore. The ultra luxury market for our area is really very exciting,” Whitted said. “We finally got to this place in St. Charles and Geneva where a lot of these sales are happening.”