Join Joe Zekas for a BlockWalk down a street he didn’t build on. Joe explains:
Back in the early ’80s I bought two lots in the 1800 block of Maud for $10,000 apiece, and optioned a dozen more at price ranging from $12,000 to $20,000. The guy I bought my two lots from had acquired them for back taxes for about $300 each. That tells you a great deal about the state of the area at the time.
I was living a block away and was convinced the area would soon blossom. I commissioned Bill Bauhs, a talented architect, to design a three-bedroom, 2.5-bath, 1,600 square-foot single-family home that I offered to sell on my lots at prices ranging from $139,000 to $159,000.
I had no takers. Buyers and especially brokers were blinded to the potential of the area by the black people who were living on the street and who tended to hang out on their front porches. These were solid, middle-class citizens who worked at the Chicago Boiler plant that then stood at the end of Maud. Race fear, as infuriating as it was to me, was a powerful negative motivator for real estate brokers at the time.
Watch more BlockWalks on YouTube.