Hinsdale mansion sold for $2.15M, may be torn down - Is this some elaborate property tax scam?

I agree with other posters who are saying there's probably something wrong with it, and I'm providing some evidence for that. My guess is that ~$2M is close to the land value for an acre in that area.

If you look at the hotpads listing, there are two concerns: some of the photos have been photoshopped (e.g., the gray living room one), and there are a lot of photos of living spaces missing (e.g., no bathrooms or bedrooms, no master suite pics, no basement pics). When we were house-hunting, there were a lot of real estate photos that made things look better than they were (e.g., good lighting, taking photos from specific angles to hide damage, including some massive cracks or water damage)

Simply listing it as a tear-down is not enough to lower your property taxes; it would have to be reassessed at land value. The assessor would probably use the sale price, which has been more or less consistent over the last few years (+/- 100k on a $2M house)

A lot of people like historical character, so if it were salvageable, they would probably list it as needing a complete gut or rehab opportunity, which would increase the value of the October sale (which would have been to the seller's benefit).

/r/chicago Thread Parent Link - chicagotribune.com