Interesting article in the Trib you may want to look at...Sorry its so long
America's biggest housing bargains?
With the nation's lowest median house price, the Danville area's residents feel the pain of selling out
By William Sluis
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 6, 2006
HOOPESTON, Ill. -- A four-bedroom, two-story house with fireplace on a tree-shaded street for $54,900?
A three-bedroom brick ranch, with attached garage, for $79,900?
They sound like real estate listings from the early 1970s, but these houses are for sale today in Vermilion County, 100 miles due south of Chicago.
Property values are declining in many smaller midwestern towns that are facing industrial decline, and nowhere is that more evident than here.
Home prices in the Hoopeston/Danville area have tumbled 12 percent in the last year, representing the sharpest decline of any metropolitan market in the country. The median price for a house is now $52,500, the lowest in the nation, according to first quarter statistics from the National Association of Realtors.
By comparison, the median price for the overall Chicago metropolitan region is $263,600.
In Hoopeston, a community known for its annual Sweet Corn Festival and beauty pageant, the downward spiral is the equivalent to winning the ugly duckling award. But there is a bright side for some: With the biggest real estate bargains anywhere, Chicagoans are flocking to look.
RuthAnn Amarteifio, who formerly lived in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, moved to Hoopeston 2 1/2 years ago and runs the Books & More store on Market Street in the downtown area.
"We have friends from the Chicago area who bought a two-story house on a corner lot for about $40,000. That is what they had intended to spend for a down payment in the big city," she said.
Suburbanites, in particular, come to Hoopeston, population 6,000, and nearby towns in the county, hoping to find a low-cost place to retire, said realty agent Terry Prillaman.
"About half of my business comes from people in the collar suburbs, who look at these prices and low property taxes. They can't stay away," said Prillaman, of Illiana Real Estate in Rossville, which is about 10 miles north of Danville.
Long commute
Buyers have included retired Chicago police officers and retirees from the former Ameritech. A favorite spot to acquire a home is around the local country club, where a home can be found for about $150,000.
Because Hoopeston is only about 85 miles from Chicago's south suburbs, a few hardy souls have attempted to commute to jobs in the metropolitan area, he said. But most Chicago home buyers look for a second home, at least until they retire.
The Hoopeston/Danville area's steep slippage in the first quarter was followed by that of South Bend, Ind., where prices fell 10 percent, and Akron, down 6.3 percent, the NAR said. The falloff in some markets nationwide was the first in 15 years.
Overall, home prices increased nationally by a modest 4.2 percent for the quarter, compared with the year-prior period. It was the smallest gain since September 2001. But prices in the Midwest were off 1.2 percent, according to the latest data available from the NAR.
Hoopeston's problem, according to home seller Tony Freeland, is that for many decades the city was a powerful industrial center, with factories on all sides.
But with work being shifted overseas or elsewhere, "that's not a good position for the community to be in," said Freeland, who is retired from a grain company.
He and his wife, who worked in a Hoopeston bank, are trying to sell a sprawling three-story Tudor with a veranda, five bedrooms, rich stonework, walnut paneling, a swimming pool and a red tile roof.
The house of about 5,000 square feet was built in 1917 by Freeland's grandfather, an industrialist who headed a company that made a new type of baking powder. The company was later sold, its Hoopeston factory shuttered, and now is part of Monsanto Co.
"If this house were on Chicago's North Shore it would be worth $1 million or more," said Freeland.
In Hoopeston, the house is listed for $224,000. The Freelands say they have been talking to a Chicago woman who is thinking about turning it into a bed-and-breakfast.
The loss of industrial jobs is constantly on the minds of people who are trying to sell real estate in the area. When workers from the former factories find a new position, perhaps in a warehouse or distribution center, it often pays less than half their former wages.
In recent years Hoopeston, known for many years as the Sweet Corn Capital--a motto that still appears on its water towers--has lost much of its identity. Corn and green bean packing plants that dated to 1875, including Stokely's, shut their doors. While the local high school still calls its teams the Corn Jerkers, the canneries are history.
Also sitting largely idle are a huge factory that made industrial food-handling machinery and a facility that produced battery chargers.
In nearby Danville the biggest industrial shutdown involved General Motors Corp., which ended production at a huge casting plant in the mid-1990's. Over time that put nearly 1,000 homes on the market, as workers moved or were transferred elsewhere.
Also gone from Danville are Hyster Corp., a maker of forklift trucks, and a General Electric plant.
The many factory closures and rusting smokestacks, and the loss of industrial jobs, has crimped median incomes for the area's residents, which already were far below the national average.
"What is shocking is that the areas with the weakest house prices never were red-hot, so the house values are falling from fairly low levels," said Paul Kasriel, chief economist for Northern Trust Co. in Chicago.
"It can be viewed as an ominous sign," he said.
He said a loss of industrial jobs takes several years to sink in, as those thrown out of work try to hang on to their houses and lifestyles.
At some point, however, the decline in their incomes forces them to sell. But if they cannot find buyers, that could mean foreclosure.
The nation's highest foreclosure rate is in Indiana, which, like parts of Illinois, has seen factories shuttered and jobs lost, Kasriel said.
Comparisons between the economies of Hoopeston and Chicago are eye-popping. Even with some houses on the market for $50,000, many potential buyers cannot afford to buy, said Prillaman, the realty agent, who is also mayor of nearby Rossville.
"The husband and wife will tell me that they both work, for a combined income of about $35,000, and that they have some credit-card debts," he said. "It is sad. I have to tell them they simply don't qualify."
Not all sellers are discouraged.
Strong prospects
Hurchel and Dolores Hoke have placed on the market a 40-year-old brick ranch house that faces Illinois Highway 1, the main road into Hoopeston. They are asking $92,000.
"We have several strong prospects, and we think it will sell quickly," said Dolores Hoke, adding that the couple intends to move to South Carolina to be near a daughter.
As for the ultra-low prices in the community, she says, "the ones you see are often small rental houses that aren't in great condition. They are of a low quality, small and old."
Retired retailer Dwight Hoffman, who sold his Western Auto store in downtown Hoopeston 11 years ago, said most residents don't dwell unduly on the value of their homes, because they still have gains from past years.
"We live in a three-bedroom brick-and-siding ranch house on the main highway that we bought for $23,000," he said.
"Today, it is worth about $90,000," he said.
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wsluis@tribune.com
we grew up in central IL and I never found a city I would want to live in. 
