List Price: $1,199,000
Sale Price: $1,300,000
The Property: The buyer of this 15-room house in Burr Ridge got a real bargain, even though the house, left unfinished by the builder who lost it to foreclosure, lacks a few essentials. For instance, it still needs shower doors and a door between the garage and the house, and the builder removed the kitchen appliances and some light fixtures prior to giving title to the bank. And while standing empty, the place was hit by vandals, who threw rocks through some glass doors.

Even so, the buyer got a good deal. Jason Shapiro, a lawyer and and the real-estate agent who sold this property for the bank that took it over, estimates the house’s value, once it’s finished, at around $1.8 million. It may require about $300,000 to complete the place, he says, which would bring the new owner’s total cost to $1.6 million. Shapiro says his research indicates the builder, who could not be reached for comment, had hoped to get about $2.5 million for the finished house. Shapiro says that the outstanding mortgage debt on the house was $2,050,000.

As it stands, the 10,000-square-foot brick and stone house has a gracious spiral staircase, lots of impressive cabinetry and other millwork, and several big rooms, including a 627-square-foot master bedroom and, in the walkout basement, a 1,050-square-foot family room. Shapiro, who specializes in selling bank-owned houses, says he has about 105 such properties listed now; his Web site is not up-to-date, but Deal Estate readers can e-mail him at the address below for more information.

Price Points: Shapiro listed the house for its receiver in October, with a price of $1,899,900, but “got no reasonable offers,” he says. In February, he cut the price to $1,499,000, but shortly afterward the bank told him to do whatever it took to unload the property in a week. That’s when he slashed the price to $1,199,000 (If he couldn’t sell it, Shapiro says, the bank would have put the house in a pool of assets to sell to investors.) Multiple buyers grabbed at that deep discount, he says, and the winning bidder, not yet identified in public records, offered $1.3 million. The sale closed March 21st.

Listing Agent: Jason Shapiro of Rising Realty, (773) 395-9999 and jasons@risingrealty.com