List Price: $883,050
Sale Price: $950,000
The Property: In March 2010, Daniel Mahru, the former business partner of the now-jailed influence peddler Tony Rezko, lost his Glencoe house to foreclosure. A year later, on March 21, 2011, Heritage Luxury Builders, a North Shore homebuilding company, bought the property from PNC Mortgage. It paid 7.5 percent more than the bank was asking—but only 55 percent of what Mahru and his wife, Ruth, had paid for the home when it was newly built in 1999.
The 4,900-square-foot Georgian-style house is in a prime Glencoe location, with the village’s downtown, park district center, bike path, and lakefront park all close at hand. The house has four bedrooms, two fireplaces, and a three-car garage.
Mahru filed for bankruptcy in December 2008, nine months after National City Bank (which is now part of PNC) started foreclosure proceedings on the Glencoe home. At the time, Crain’s Chicago Business quoted him as saying he was “forced into this position because of Mr. Rezko.”
Mahru was CEO of Rezmar Corp.—the development company he co-owned with Rezko—from 1989 to 2005, when Rezko bought him out. Mahru told Crain’s that Rezko had failed to follow through on the financial terms of the buyout agreement. Crain’s reported that Mahru was also facing collection efforts on several failed Rezmar projects.
While Mahru was not charged with any crimes, his former ties to Rezko seem to have kept him radioactive: In January, the mayoral candidate Gery Chico returned a campaign donation from Mahru.
Mahru now has a company called Radian Development; he did not respond to a request for comment. Because construction is going on at the Glencoe site now, I wasn’t able to get a good photo, but the online listing shows the façade well.
Rezko also lost his home in foreclosure; last September I reported that an executive for Citadel Investment Group bought the place for $3.701 million.
Price Points: Mahru’s house went on the market in December. Heritage Luxury’s Steve Aisen says that his company was one of several potential buyers who wanted the home at its foreclosure price. “So we went in at $950,000 to get it,” he says. The home’s appeal came in part from the fact that it was built prior to Glencoe reducing the allowable size of new-construction homes. “It’s roughly 8 or 10 percent bigger than you could build on that lot now,” Aisen says. The house will get new flooring, interior doors, cabinetry, appliances, hardware, driveway, and landscaping, he says, at a cost of “several hundred thousand dollars.” He expects the house to go on the market at around $2.2 million in April and for the work to be completed in May or June.
Listing Agent: Connie Ritchie of ReMax Suburban; 847-230-7021