Real estate prices jump for many reasons: location, market, even a new brilliant kitchen. But a humble house in Chicago could have a sticker shock thanks to being the childhood home of the first American Pope. Call it a papal price blow.
Moments after the white smoke emerged from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel to point out the selection of a new Pope, the price in a modest brick house in Dolton, Illinois, 30 minutes south of the center of Chicago, went up. How much has been decided, but the world discovered that Pope Leo XIV lived in the humble house in 141.
Begen offers flooding Steve Budzik, a real estate corridor who had presented a handful of offers in recent months for the house that is originally the list that appears for $ 199,000. The owner took it out of the market as the two evaluate the unexpected potential gain, he said.
It is not clear exactly when Pope Leo XIV, who was then Robert Prevost, lived in the house, but his father possessed it from birth in 1955 until he sold it in 1996, when Leo was working in Peru.
Budzik said he was excited by waves in interest.
“I’m very well,” Budzik said when he answered the phone. “It is a unique opportunity in life to be the corridor to represent the seller owner of the Pope’s Childhood House.”
He said he discovered that the house was connected to Leo when a journalist called him Thursday, and that he thought it was a joke at the beginning. Then, they obtained eight or nine sacrifices for the house in rapid succession, some sacrifices above the sale price.
The seller, he said, told him to take the house out of the market so they can learn more about Leo’s time there, including the room in which he slept and how the interior was before renewing it. They are considering returning the house to the original plant plane, said Budzik. He said he expected to obtain the contribution of Leo’s older brother, who lives nearby.
Budzik said he had sold houses that went from $ 77,000 to $ 1.25 million, but now there was no compison to work with this property.
“I feel honored,” he said. “Wow, this is incredible. This is exciting.”
Just without his famous former resident in the city of the Vatican, the three bedroom house and two bathrooms could obtain an orderly gain for the current owner: the house was bought for only $ 66000 in 2024, according to property records. The average housing price in Dolton, a community of approximately 20,000 people to the south of Chicago, is $ 150,000, according to the Zillow.com data.
Celebrities connections alone cannot guarantee the value of a house. Sometimes, houses with old famous residents see price swings in both directions. The Tudor -style house in Queens, where President Trump spent the first four years of his life, was bought in 2014 by a cash buyer for $ 2.14 million. But then it fell into poor condition, and in March, it was sold for only $ 835,000.
Susan C. Beachy Contributed research.
