Most Homes Sold In Lake Forest, Lake Bluff In Decades

LAKE FOREST, IL — More homes sold last year in Lake Forest and Lake Bluff than at any point in the past 35 years, according to local real estate data.

In December 2020, the median closing price of homes in Lake Forest rose to $844,000, its highest level in two years. And in Lake Bluff, the $660,000 median closing price of homes sold last month exceeded the median listing price for the first time in over a year.

Lake Forest sold faster last month than at any time since June 2018, according to Realtor.com data, spending an average of 85 days on the market. In November, the time spent on the market in Lake Bluff fell to its lowest level in over a year before rebounding the following month.

According to the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, more units were sold in Lake Forest in 2020 than at any point since 1986, while more home sales were recorded in Lake Bluff than in any previous year on record.

A total of 479 residential properties were sold in Lake Forest last year, an increase of 75 percent compared to 2019. The 177 Lake Bluff home sold in 2020 marked the most since at least 1980.

Area realtors say buyers have been moving from Chicago — especially high-rises — to the north suburbs in search of more room and an increased sense of safety, according to North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors CEO Jeff Lasky.

"They want to have space between themselves and their neighbors. They want to have space to build their home theater. They want to have space to have their home office. Stuff like that, which was not an issue, a year ago," Lasky said.

As buyers and sellers shunned in-person visits, the pandemic accelerated ongoing trends toward online shopping for real estate, with livestreamed virtual tours and fully electronic document signing now commonplace.

"The necessity of doing the shopping by driving people around to 10, 12, 15 different places is long gone," Lasky said. "But you can even conduct the financing process, conduct the signing of closing documents, everything else, and take ownership of the home — without having to go somewhere to do it."

Lasky said a combination of high demand driven by low interest rates and a low supply of available homes has made for a highly competitive market across the North Shore.

"If you're going to go out there and sell your home and it's priced correctly, you're going to get a number of offers," he said. "You're going to get a lot of action quickly."

Most Expensive Homes Sold In 2020

The year's priciest Lake Forest home sale was the historic Schweppe Mansion on Mayflower Road, which has been vacant for nearly half of its century-old existence.

The 24,500-square-foot lakefront mansion on 5.4 acres of what was once a far larger estate was built in 1917 as a wedding present for Laura Shedd and Charles Schweppe. The grand mansion was said to have entertained visiting European royalty prior to World Ward II.

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After a previous owner invested in years of restorations, the home was put up for sale with an $18 million price tag in 2007. A bank later took ownership of the home, also known as Mayflower Place, by 2019 had reduced the asking price to $8.5 million.

An offer was accepted in July 2020 and property sold for $5 million in August to a trust that conceals the identity of its beneficiary. The closing price exceeded last year's most expensive home sale by more than a million dollars.

In Lake Bluff, the most expensive sale of 2020 was the Lester Armour House on Arbor Drive.

Built in 1931 for the heir to a meatpacking fortune, and originally part of a 73-acre estate, the home was purchased for $4.7 million in 1997 by pop singer Richard Marx and actress Cynthia Rhodes. The couple listed the property for sale in 2014 after announcing their plans to divorce.

The property was listed for $18 million in November 2014. Six price cuts and more than five years later, the home sold for $4.2 million in March to a trust that conceals the identity of its beneficiary.

The estate's closing price was $1.4 million above 2019's most expensive residential home sale in the village.