The childhood Chicago-area home of Pope Leo XIV is being sold at a luxury auction following a surge of interest sparked by his election last week.
The three-bedroom house in Dolton, Illinois — about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of downtown Chicago — will open bidding at $250,000, according to Paramount Realty USA, the firm managing the sale.
The home was initially listed in January for $219,000 as a typical residential property. But the listing was pulled from the market on May 8, just hours after Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, 69, was named pope and the sellers discovered the connection.
“Before he was named pope, the house was a house,” said Misha Haghani, chief executive officer of Paramount Realty. “When the pope was elected, it became something else, it became much more than just a house.”
Born in Chicago, Pope Leo XIV spent at least some of his childhood in Dolton, a working-class suburb. He has close ties to the city’s Catholic community, having attended Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he received a master of divinity degree in 1982.
The property was purchased for $66,000 last year by a real estate investor who renovated the property and listed it earlier this year.
The house sat on the market for months even after a reduction in the original asking price to $199,000. But on May 8, the day of Pope Leo’s election, the seller received eight offers within hours before taking it off the market, according to listing agent Steve Budzik of ICandy Realty.
Haghani said luxury auctions offer a way to price and sell unique or one-of-a-kind properties that fall outside the parameters of traditional real estate. Paramount previously auctioned the childhood home of President Donald Trump in Queens, New York.
The auction runs through June 18, though the seller can accept a bid at any time. The listing describes the home as a “truly one of a kind opportunity” that offers buyers a piece of papal history linked to the first American pope.
Neither Budzik nor Haghani would speculate on a final sale price.
“You’re not really selling real estate anymore,” Budzik said. “If there’s one of anything, it’s so rare, the price is going to be what the buyer wants to pay, and someone could come along where money is no object.”
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