It could be worse

On the plus side, you have 2800 sf on the 88th fl and less than $4k a month in commons + taxes

How much a premium is being near a Cheesecake Factory worth?

Ha..

I think Chicago's real issue is loss of anchor industries some of which is due to disregard for public safety as in Citadel.

But real estate prices and carrying cost are far cheaper as you point out.

One of Ken Griffin's recent sales at 9 Walton was at a 53% discount to what he paid. He unloaded 2 units there to.... wait for it... J.B.Pritzker. For those who don't know, let Bloomberg fill in some background:

"In 2020, Griffin donated about $50 million to torpedo a referendum backed by Pritzker on a new graduated income tax for high earners. In 2021, Griffin said it was “a disgrace” Pritzker “will not insert himself into the challenge of addressing crime in our city”.
"Pritzker fired back, saying Griffin moved his financial empire headquarters from Chicago out of “embarrassment” after unsuccessfully spending $50 million trying to defeat him in the 2022 gubernatorial race.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-27/ken-griffin-sold-discounted-chicago-condos-to-nemesis-pritzker

However, when you drive out to the suburbs around Schaumburg, there's quite a bit of industry there.

Chicago holds its own on corporate HQs and business operations in spite of its failed governance at both City and state levels. The taxes on companies are high but Chicago is kept in check by Indiana and Wisconsin being nearby and being much better governed - in contrast to NJ and CT which have taxes and business climates almost as hostile as NY.

And even if Chicago were to get a lot worse, it's still a huge difference to have 2800 fq ft in a high amenity building on the 88th fl for $1.2m and $4k a month.

Btw - here's a list of public CO's HQ'd in Chicago) not suburbs) : Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), CME Group Inc. (CME), CNA Financial Corporation (CNA), Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. (DFIN), Kraft Heinz Company (KHC), Motorola Solutions, Inc. (MSI), Ryan Specialty Holdings, Inc. (RYAN), United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL), Alight, Inc. (ALIT), Byline Bancorp, Inc. (BY), Conagra Brands, Inc. (CAG), Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL), LKQ Corporation (LKQ), Littelfuse, Inc. (LFUS), Morningstar, Inc. (MORN), Northern Trust Corporation (NTRS), Old Republic International Corporation (ORI), Ulta Beauty, Inc. (ULTA), US Foods Holding Corp. (USFD)

What keeps all these companies there? Is it the workforce or in spite of a state and city government that doesn't seem to give a crap about the people, provides favorable conditions for corporations?

Good flight and highway connections, cheap real estate, long history of industrialization, relatively easy to build, relatively low labor cost.

But other places are catching up rapidly - Des Moines, Columbus, Indianapolis.

Chicago has amazing architecture, restaurants, theater, people and history. Agree with comments about awful NYC and Chicago governance

Omg - It is "new@RE," the poster that someone on here always accused me of being. Once again, I am not s/he, but it seems that we may have midwestern history in common. I cannot speak to Chicago, but I can give a shout out to Columbus, Detroit (not on same grounds) and Indianapolis. I feel quite fortunate to have spent some serious formative years in the midwest, because while coming "home" to the midwest from NY was not my first choice, I have to admit that life here is pretty amazing on a day-to-day basis, and I can always hop on a plane to NY for a concentrated dose of those areas where I suspect NY will always be in a league of its own in the U.S.

>and I can always hop on a plane to NY for a concentrated dose of those areas where I suspect NY will always be in a league of its own in the U.S.

Have you ever been in traffic to O'Hare?

I live 10 minutes from CMH; no traffic and direct flights to LGA all day long. Door to door is faster and less stressful than some car trips I have taken just to get between points within NYC.

P.S. - Proximity to the airport is what makes Columbus feasible for Mr.MCR. Direct flight availability to wherever he needs to be other than DC and NY are suboptimal, but in general the location works well as a base.

WSJ joining the poo-pooing of Chicago RE:

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/its-not-just-ken-griffin-rich-chicago-residents-are-losing-their-shirts-on-real-estate-71fc4fe0?st=Zy2TbZ&reflink=article_copyURL_share

But honestly, I think NYC RE is roughly in the same exact spot.

I agree…condo sales in the downtown core of many major cities are really slumping…I can speak for San Francisco and Toronto whereas I sold some condos in both cities about 2-3 years ago and did fine…if I tried to sell these same properties today I would have definitely sold for less. Los Angeles doesn’t seem as bad. All these cities downtowns have major issues such as crime, poor public transportation, traffic clogged roads, sky high taxes, etc, etc…and are mostly run by woke/progressive politicians that seem incapable or unwilling to address these issues other than “let’s tap the rich more”. For the price of my small one bedroom condo in Manhatten, I can buy a single family home with a yard and nice sized kitchen in any number of small cities on either cost that is very close proximity to a major city if I ever want to do “big city things “. The turning point for me was getting assaulted by a driver when I yelled at him that I had the right of way. I had the green light and was trying to walk across the intersection, he had a red light and he just plowed through the intersection. The were two police SUV’s right there and the police did nothing. Of course this happens every day in NYC, and can happen anywhere, but I asked myself, if I am going to be attacked or the victim of a crime, why I am paying nearly a million dollars in real estate for the privilege? My prediction is the real estate values in many of these big cities will never completely recover.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/it-s-not-just-ken-griffin-rich-chicago-residents-are-losing-their-shirts-on-real-estate/ar-AA1vqa02

Turbo,

Sorry you had the incident with the driver. I am out and about a lot in the city including taking the subway. Most of the bad behavior I have encountered is from the homeless/vagrants. Police wouldn't do anything unless you get visibly get hurt. Otherwise it is a misdemeanor and DA doesn't press charges.

What would be your top few choices on below:
>>> For the price of my small one bedroom condo in Manhatten, I can buy a single family home with a yard and nice sized kitchen in any number of small cities on either cost that is very close proximity to a major city if I ever want to do “big city things “.

Actually, what I called Misdemeanor above it is just "harassment" and Police wouldn't do anything.
https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/misdemeanor-assault-new-york.htm

What would be your top few choices on below:
>>> For the price of my small one bedroom condo in Manhatten, I can buy a single family home with a yard and nice sized kitchen in any number of small cities on either cost that is very close proximity to a major city if I ever want to do “big city things “.

On my radar, these are just a few of the “smaller” cities that are very close to a bigger city (accessible by public transportation) but less expensive than the bigger city, in most of these smaller cities you can buy a single family home for the price of a big city condo:

Oakland
Jersey city
Long Beach, San Pedro and a few others in LA county

I also like Santa Monica and Venice but those are not cheap. None of the above are perfect, for most of these the public schools are not good and there are issues with crime but we don’t have kids and having lived in many of these places, crime is no worse in Oakland vs San Francisco, Long Beach vs LA or Jersey city vs NYC.

PS, thankfully the police did catch the assaulted, I imagine because there are so many surveillance cameras around and he actually jumped out of his car in the middle of rush hour to attack me so I’m sure it wasn’t hard to identify the car and license plate. You’re right, he will just get charged with a misdemeanor, no jail time. Still I’m pretty shocked that the police did absolutely nothing while I was visibly being struck by his fists. I could have been seriously injured

>> The turning point for me was getting assaulted by a driver when I yelled at him that I had the right of way. I had the green light and was trying to walk across the intersection, he had a red light and he just plowed through the intersection.

I’m sorry you were assaulted, and that you might have almost been run over. I know you’re not at fault, but a couple of suggestions that will serve you well in NYC or any other city big or small:

1) Don’t yell at strangers. You have no idea what they are dealing with, nor how unstable they are.

2) The light is just a suggestion, the oncoming car (or lack thereof) is reality.

I find #2 of much greater importance outside NYC, as drivers are much less attuned to the possibility of pedestrians as they rush to cross or make a turn before the light turns red.

Columbus: There was a mass shooting (police think it was gang related) just 1/2 mile from our Columbus condo;
DC: "Pizza Gate" where the guy shot up Comet Pizza in DC occurred at our local pizza place that we walk to from our DC house.
SF: The Union Square neighborhood shooting of the 49-er in broad daylight over his refusal to turn over a watch occurred within sight of our SF condo building; had someone on one of the higher floors been looking out their window at the time, they could have witnessed it.
NY: So far, nothing in our little Beekman Place neighborhood (knock on wood). Only news to come out of our neighborhood in the past decade is a few sad suicides of crazy rich people whose deaths prove that money does not buy happiness, as well as the natural death of Gloria Vanderbilt.

@mcr The biggest criminals in your hood in New York, co-op boards ; )

Ha! Funny because it is true. Criminals both in terms of what they do as coop board members and what they do as white collar crime in their day jobs. We have a finance guy (principal at an undistinguished asset management firm) who suddenly decided (after being in the building for some 20+ years) that he wants to volunteer his precious time to help out his fellow shareholders.
Funny coincidence: He found this community spirit after the board repeatedly notified him that he needed to get rid of his illegal gas fireplace. Remember the illegal gas fireplace that I discussed on here about a year ago? Building-wide inspection revealed two more! One of them went without a fight; the owner of the remaining one has been remarkably uncooperative and is the finance professional who just now decided that he needed to join the board. Mercifully the majority of the board appears to see through his sudden interest in volunteering his valuable time.

Unless cities find a way to bring down the cost of living (the lion's share of which is homeownership, rent and taxes), this is going to keep happening:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/opinion/democrats-republicans-electoral-college.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g04.6Jpv.W9b1mVmqjwC8&smid=url-share

MTH, Ha. What you are talking about are symptoms of underlying causes. Just think hard about reasons for why DOE NYC spends a lot per student without commensurate results - I can tell you it is largely nothing to do with poor quality of or high pay for teachers. You will get many of the answers for why the city is expensive. Taxes are just symptoms of ideology of who the voters elected. Rents have built in to them - regulatory burden and related difficulties to build, facade maintenance, and real estate taxes.

Sepately, housing is expensive nationwide. NYC is actually looking better vs 10 years back on a relative basis as the rest of the country has appreciated 20-50% and NYC is largely unch.

Re "Taxes are just symptoms of ideology of who the voters elected:" As hard as it may be, I am just going to walk away.

We should be able to have these conversations on streeteasy without personal attacks. Also, I'm always interested in hearing opinions that may differ from mine. I never take it personally, the world would be a very bland place if we all marched to the same drummer. I've traveled quite a bit, and I'm sure many of you here have. And one conclusion I've drawn, even if it is quite the cliche, is most people want the same things for themselves and their families. We just may have different opinions on how to get there.

@KeithBurkhardt. It's true. I have learned a lot from talking to people who support candidates I do not support. I don't always walk away thinking I should vote for their candidate but I can at least see why they vote the way they do and can sympathize with their motivations and perspectives.

@300_mercer - yes, there's definitely something extractive about a lot of city governments. The DOE is a mess. They should make it easier to fire incompetent or negligent teachers and create a stronger suite of vocational options for students who just aren't interested in what's left of the traditional educational program.

@keith - Do you support attacks on groups? That is what tempts me to react. Dog whistles. Lucky you if you can't hear them, but I hear them loudly and clearly because I was raised by wolves.

I personally try to live my life as peaceful and tolerantly as possible. And I have to say I may be a little bit naive when it comes to some of the attacks etc. that have gone on here. I pay very little attention to those particular threads that stray far from the subject of real estate.