North Cook News

In December 2010, Tina Davis and Robert Milligan III paid $635,000 – about $731,000 in today's dollars – for a nearly 2,800-square-foot home at 150 Winnetka Ave. in Kenilworth. The home's 2011 property taxes were $13,359, an effective rate then of about 2.1 percent.

Davis and Milligan sold the home on May 9 for $925,000. Their tax bill in 2017: $25,411, or about 2.7 percent of its sale value. 

That's about the median effective rate in Kenilworth this year, according to a Blockshopper.com analysis of real estate sales data in the North Shore from Jan 1. to June 30, 2018.

It is also more than two times the national average.

Put another way: a $925,000 home in Indiana, where the effective rate is 0.89 percent, would have a property tax bill of about $8,233 or more than $17,000 less per year.

Blockshopper's data, covering 11 North Shore communities, indicates that homeowners in Kenilworth,

Glencoe, and Northbrook  pay the highest property taxes in North Shore – between 2.25 and 3 percent.

The communities of Winnetka, Northfield, Morton Grove, Evanston and Lincolnwood have effective property tax rates of between 2 and 2.25 percent.

Illinois homeowners pay the second-highest property taxes in the country with an effective median rate of 2.22 percent, just behind those in New Jersey (2.28 percent).

Equity-less home ownership

Ninfa Vitale and James Brzycki sold their five-bedroom, three-bath home at 575 Stonegate Terrace in Glencoe on Jan. 26 for $861,500. The transaction appeared to be a $36,500 gain over what they paid for it – $825,000 – in March of 2011.

But that apparent profit is largely a mirage. Taking into account the effects of inflation, the home cost Vitale and Brzycki $933,000 in today's dollars. Then consider that they paid about $120,000 in taxes while they owned the house, with the final tax bill at $16,621, meaning the couple's effective tax rate was 1.9 percent. All told, they lost about $191,500 on the deal.

In other parts of North Shore, some properties have provided their owners with decent returns on investments. Overall, Cook County home values have risen about 5 percent over last year at this time, according to Zillow.com, and the median home value is $222,400.

Sales activity appears to be mixed for the high-end North Shore homes. In Lincolnwood, where the median home value is $344,000, sales were down 6 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2017. But in Wilmette, where the median home value is $700,000, sales numbers were up 14 percent over the same time period.

Those communities were in the lower range for effective tax rates in North Shore.

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North Shore communities paying the highest effective property tax rates

The following table ranks North Shore communities with more than five home sales by their median effective property tax rate, calculated using sales and property tax data from 2018.

City	Jan - June 2018 Sales	Jan - June 2018 Median Price	Median tax	Effective Tax Rate
Kenilworth	29	$1,020,000.00	$26,827.60	2.63%
Glencoe	85	$841,000.00	$19,639.03	2.34%
Northbrook	278	$437,500.00	$10,001.28	2.29%
Winnetka	128	$967,500.00	$21,533.50	2.23%
Northfield	46	$447,000.00	$9,781.10	2.19%
Morton Grove	205	$295,000.00	$6,406.45	2.17%
Evanston	505	$325,000.00	$7,033.74	2.16%
Lincolnwood	82	$344,000.00	$7,325.50	2.13%
Glenview	419	$429,000.00	$7,985.80	1.86%
Skokie	450	$314,250.00	$5,790.80	1.84%
Wilmette	261	$700,000.00	$12,132.93	1.73%

Source: Blockshopper.com; Cook County Assessment Office

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North Shore median home prices

The following table ranks North Shore communities by the change in their median sale price from 2017 to 2018.

City	Jan - June 2017 Sales	Jan - June 2017 Median Price	Jan - June 2018 Sales	Jan - June 2018 Median Price	Change
Wilmette	274	$613,750	261	$700,000	14.05%
Glencoe	81	$749,000	85	$841,000	12.28%
Skokie	467	$292,000	450	$314,250	7.62%
Winnetka	140	$900,000	128	$967,500	7.50%
Glenview	446	$412,750	419	$429,000	3.94%
Morton Grove	198	$290,000	205	$295,000	1.72%
Northfield	49	$460,000	46	$447,000	-2.83%
Northbrook	356	$451,000	278	$437,500	-2.99%
Evanston	524	$336,750	505	$325,000	-3.49%
Lincolnwood	82	$365,000	82	$344,000	-5.75%
Kenilworth	38	$1,110,000	29	$1,020,000	-8.11%

Source: Blockshopper.com; Cook County Recorder