A piece of papal history is now for sale with the price starting at $250,000.
The Dolton, Illinois, home in which Pope Leo XIV lived as a child has returned to the market days after it was withdrawn while the owner considered his options, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Home rehabber Pawel Radzik decided to go the auction route after the former Robert Prevost became the first American-born pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
He had earlier listed it for sale through the more traditional route after buying the suburban Chicago house for $66,000 last year.
Radzik said that about 80 percent of the house is new construction and had originally listed the home for $219,000 before dropping the price to $199,900 in February.
The June 18 auction now gives Radzik the right to reject any offer under $250,000, even if that is the top price offered.
“We’re looking for the value of the house,” Radzik said. “We’re trying to find out the value of the house.”
Radzik said the auction will generate attention.
Will this home’s value dramatically increase?
“The more attention, the better for me,” Radzik said.
Realtor Steve Budzik said setting a price did not seem possible given its history, which led him and Radzik to bring in Paramount Realty, a real estate auction company, according to The New York Times.
“It’s no longer a traditional sale. You’re not selling real estate; you’re selling much more than that,” Budzik said.
The auction allows buyers from anywhere in the world to bid, including those who might want the house to be a museum or landmark.
“This is the best chance for selling it for top dollar and also getting the most amount of exposure,” he said.
Misha Haghani, the chief executive and founder of Paramount, projected the house would sell for seven figures.
“We can call this the pope premium,” he said.
“Within one week this is going to be the most famous home on the planet. What the highest and best bid will be, or who it will be from, is anyone’s guess,” he said.
The pope’s boyhood home had been pulled off the market immediately after his election as pope, according to People.
“May 8 we found out the news,” Budzik said. “Within the day we had seven to eight offers on the property.”
Budzik noted one prospective buyer missed out.
“My client had accepted an offer on the property at the end of April, and on May 5, the buyer backed out,” he explained.
Budzik said, it has been “an honor to be the listing broker for Pope Leo’s childhood home. A once in a lifetime opportunity for both myself and my client.”
According to WMAO-TV, Budzik said when the owner first took the house off the market, he wanted “to kind of let the dust settle.”
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