List Price: $779,000
Sale Price: $755,000
The Property: This luxurious 13-room home in the Burr Hill Club neighborhood of St. Charles sold in 2006 for $1.499 million. But in July, the foreclosing lender told John Wright, the Weichert Realtors agent representing the house, to cut the asking price from $819,000 to $779,000. “I freaked out,” Wright says. “You’ve got 6,500 square feet of space plus 3,000 in the walkout basement, [and] views of ponds and wetlands and woods out back. At that price, it’s a phenomenal deal. This is low-hanging fruit.”

Wright, a foreclosure specialist, initially wrote in the house’s listing information that the place was “priced so cheap, even I can’t believe it.” Later, he reworded it to read: “Half Price Sale!! This stunning all-brick mansion is priced at about ½ of its 2006 sale price.” That did the trick. Four offers materialized quickly: the place was under contract by mid-September and the deal closed October 27th. Wright would not disclose the names of the buyers, and they are not yet identified in Kane County records.

Built in 2004, when it sold for $1.050 million, the house has five bedrooms, five-plus baths, and a 1.3-acre lot. There is a two-story great room with tall windows framing the woodland and wetland view, a third-floor library or office, and a large walkout basement with a fireplace. In 2006, it sold for $1.499 million, a 42-percent profit over the earlier sale price. Wright says the 2006 buyers appear to have lived in the house for only about six months. They listed the place for sale in June 2007 for a price I couldn’t determine.

Wright anticipated a slow sale. “For homes over $500,000 in St. Charles, there’s 41 months of [unsold] inventory,” he says. But this house went fast, and not just because of the discounted price. “It was in the best condition I’ve seen a [foreclosed] house in,” he says. “They’re usually damaged—somebody got angry and pulled out the fixtures and appliances—or it’s a mold special. But this one looked hardly lived in.”

Price Points: The Woodstock Institute reported last week that suburban foreclosures are proliferating much faster than in Chicago. In St. Charles, the institute reported, there were 132 new foreclosures in the first three quarters of 2010, a 6.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009, and the overall rate of foreclosure in Kane County rose by 28.9 percent. Batavia, Geneva, and South Elgin, St. Charles’s neighbors on the Fox River, all saw foreclosures increase by more than 20 percent, with Batavia’s rate skyrocketing by 55.9 percent.

Listing Agent: John Wright of Weichert Realtors-Kingsland Properties; 630-202-7241 or jwright@weichertkingsland.com