Residential or Industrial near 355 extension? (Chicago, Wheaton: for sale, real estate, attorney)

[acreplus]

We are in the west Chicago suburbs. Our neighborhood is changing from residential to industrial and being annexed to next town over. We will probably put our house on the market in a year or so. Do we sell it as residential or "best use" industrial? I think our best bet is industrial since not many homebuyers will want to live in an area already going industrial. Our lot is huge but our home is modest (in excellent condition and under 20 yrs old). I know the developers won't pay for the house since they tear it down, but they aren't buying vacant property either. We turned down $5 per sq ft 2.5 years ago and now they are back. We gave them a price and have not heard back yet (2 weeks). Does anybody know what a good price to sell near the current 355 extension area per sq ft? If we wait too long will we be forced out and have to take bottom line? If we jump too early at an offer, we feel we might get ripped off. Other neighbors have already sold and some are currently in negotiations. Several neighbors who sold several years ago (the first ones to go) regret the price they got and would have waited for better offers. Should we get a commerical real estate lawyer?

Last time we contacted a local realtor (2.5 yrs ago) they were not helpful. They said we wouldn't get a decent residential price because of the change in area but they could not tell us what our house was worth as industrial either. Who has gone thru this and can help? We know we can't get what we currently have anywhere close and will need to move out of the area.

[HOWELL_STREET]

Since you are concerned in such a highly specialized area, it would probably be wise for you to hire an atorney familiar with land development. A similar scenario to yours had occured in the Wheaton - Glen Ellyn - Lisle, Illinois area when the Arboretum at Lisle tried to confiscate adjacent & very valuable land from a private party who did not want to give it away via a very underated monetary offer. Since it was the property of the private party, they were entitled to their maximum amount of remuneration. It became a battle royal that became public in the local newspapers. The private family eventually hired an attorney. After that, the Arboretum left them alone. But also on the flip side, they were not able to sell their beautiful land for any price. Several years ago, there was a similar issue near Cortland, Illinois. So to reiterate, get yourself a local attorney.

Best Regards,

Carter Glass,
Wheaton, IL
Cortland, IL

[acreplus]

Thanks. We are prepared to move as we do not want to be the only ones left and unable to sell at any price later. I would go now as phase 2 of the development as been completed next to our property and they are looking to gobble up more land for phase 3, but my husband semi-retires next year and our daughter doesn't finish high school till then. We don't want to move now unless an offer comes up that we can't turn down. We have a beautiful parcel. We just want the best price possible without being too greedy or underpaid. I guess we should look for an appraiser who specializes in industrial and residential land as well. I was just wondering if anyone recently sold property in the area such as ours and what price they received and if they thought it was fair.

PS. When the first phase was being completed, we put a for sale sign up to see what kind of offers we would get and we had people inquire for residential and small business. In both cases the offers were higher than the developer at that time. Our parcel is zoned R2. Now that it is nearing the time to make a move, we will probably do the same but seriously consider any offers this time.