List Price: $919,000
Sale Price: $916,000
The Property: At a time when Chicago appears to have the nation’s biggest logjam of unsold homes—enough to supply 19 months worth of sales, according to a recent Wall Street Journal survey of 28 major metro areas—a savvy investor has done his part to advance the one-house-at-a-time solution.

Patrick J. O’Hara bought this foreclosed nine-room home in Roscoe Village for $435,000 in February, put it through a quick but extensive rehab, and resold it in October. Built in 1997 to replace a modest older home, the house has nine rooms. There are four bedrooms (three upstairs and one in the basement) and three-plus baths. Another buyer had paid $700,000 for the place in 2004. “He started working on it twice but never finished,” says Sharon O’Hara (she’s not related to Patrick O’Hara, but served as his agent for the October sale). A lender started foreclosure against that owner in 2007, and by early 2009, Chase Bank owned the home and sold it to Patrick O’Hara.

“It was basically just a frame,” says Sharon O’Hara, “with no floors and some damage to the home and some stuff torn out—just a shell of a house.” She would not specify what Patrick O’Hara spent on the rehab, nor would she identify the specific items that went into the renovations. In August, Patrick O’Hara, who did not respond to a request for comment, had a contract to sell the house to Elisabeth Ephraim and Beau Davis. The sale closed October 5th.

Price Points: According to information from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds property records, O’Hara paid only $20,000 more for the house than the original builder got in 1997. Because I couldn’t determine how much he spent rehabbing the house, it’s not possible to say how much profit O’Hara made; but given that he sold the house for just $3,000 off his first and only asking price, it seems likely he came out OK.

Listing Agent: Sharon O’Hara of @Properties, 773-305-0450; sharonohara@atproperties.com