Michael Jordan paid nearly $200,000 in property taxes in 2012 on his Highland Park home.
And now, he’s having trouble getting the property off his hands.
Interested buyers had the opportunity to own the six-time NBA champion’s 56,000 square foot Highland Park home at auction on Monday – if they had $250,000 to throw down just to enter bidding.
Jordan listed the fully furnished estate in March 2012 for $29 million.
At the time, it was the highest-priced home in Chicago.
The sky-high property taxes on the home make the already-expensive estate a hefty burden to maintain financially.
Though Jordan’s home is an anomaly, the sticker shock that comes each year with his property tax bill is all too familiar for homeowners in Illinois.
The state’s property tax rates have skyrocketed since 2010, according to analysis done by the Tax Policy Center. The survey examined the 23 Illinois counties with populations exceeding 65,000.
The average property tax rates as a percent of home value has soared 18 percent from 2010-2012.
Illinois’ average 2.28 property tax rate is second only to the average rate New Jersey residents pay, which is 2.32 percent annually.
According to the Tax Policy Center, the average Illinoisan had an annual property tax bill of $4,469 in 2012.
Jordan and prospective buyers of his multimillion-dollar home aren’t the only ones with sticker shock when it comes to Illinois’ outrageous property taxes – average homeowners are tapped out, too.
Hilary Gowins is editor for the Illinois Policy Institute.