Oct 18, 2009

Sale of the Week

Jim McMahon Sells His Northbrook Home

List Price: N/A
Sale Price: $2.85 million
The Property: Jim McMahon, the quarterback who led the Chicago Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX, has quietly sold his Northbrook home of more than 20 years to a neighbor. McMahon and his wife, Nancy, raised their four kids in the house; the youngest, Zach, was a senior at Glenbrook North High School last year.

The nearly 10,000-square-foot brick and limestone house is on a heavily wooded lot in an area of estate-size homes. The McMahons built the house in 1986 on 2.4 acres of land they had bought in June 1986 for $475,000. I don’t know what it cost to build the house, but in October 1994, for Chicago’s “Homes of the Stars,” I estimated that the place was then worth about $1.2 million.

Jim McMahon played for the Bears from 1982 to 1988, including that memorable 1985 season when the Bears were 15-1 going into the playoffs. He later played for four other teams before joining the Green Bay Packers in 1995. Backing up starting quarterback Brett Favre, he took home his second Super Bowl ring in 1996, the year he retired. 

This fall, McMahon, who memorably appeared in the video of the “Super Bowl Shuffle,” played a magician in a short scene in the movie Couples Retreat.

The McMahons did not list their home for sale, but sold it directly to their across-the-street neighbors, Richard and Kathryn Eisen, in late August, according to information from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. I could not reach McMahon for comment; the family’s Northbrook phone number has been disconnected, and I found no record of them buying another property in the Chicago area.

Price Points: The Eisens now have their house on the market, priced at $2.949 million. According to the Eisens’ agent, Elliot Jaffe, the Eisens plan to put the McMahon house on the market sometime soon, at a price to be determined. “Ideally they will sell theirs first and move into [the McMahon house],” says Jaffe, who could not provide further specifics about the Eisens’ plans. On the comparative merits of the two homes, Jaffe says that the McMahon house has more than twice the square footage and land than the Eisen house. “But it’s 21 years old and needs an interior facelift,” he says, “[while the Eisen house] has been completely redone.”

Listing Agent: The McMahons did not use an agent. The Eisens have both their house and the McMahons’ former house listed with Elliot Jaffe of Jaffe Realty: 847-997-2700 or elliot@jafferealty.com.

Posted at 03:46 PM in Sale of the Week | Permalink

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