KENILWORTH
LIST $2.35 MILLION SALE $2.25 MILLION

Situated on a cul-de-sac in southeast Kenilworth, this seven-bedroom home with an attached greenhouse was sold this summer for nearly $460,000 less than what the sellers paid for it. Taking a loss on a house is not uncommon among folks unloading homes they bought at the height of the market five or six years ago—but these sellers bought their house 12 years ago, before the steep rise in prices.

When the house was built in 1999, Jeffrey Cozzens and his wife, Susan, bought it for $2.707 million, according to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. At the time, Cozzens, a neurosurgeon, was an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. The couple first listed the house for sale in February 2009, asking $3.5 million. A year later, Cozzens became chair of the neurosurgery division at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.

In June 2011, after a series of price cuts, the house went under contract for $2.25 million—or 64 percent of the original asking price. The sale, to a buyer not yet identified in public records, closed in August. Neither Cozzens nor the selling agent, Kathryn Mangel (who was with Coldwell Banker at the time of the sale), responded to requests for comment.

Send tips about home sales to dennis@rodkin.com.

Photograph: Dennis Rodkin