Soaring property taxes add to obstacles facing many Black homeowners

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas released another grim property tax analysis last month.

This year’s report revealed a shift in tax burden from declining downtown office buildings to homeowners across the county. But the pain of the county’s steepest property tax hikes will be felt in mostly Black communities on Chicago’s West and South sides, according to the report.

In West Garfield Park, for instance, the median residential property tax bill will more than double. In North Lawndale, the median residential property tax bill will almost double, the analysis showed. Meanwhile, in the Loop, the median commercial property tax bill would decline by more than 28%.

West Side community leaders were quick to express their concerns that the county’s highest property tax hikes were being shouldered by homeowners who were least able to afford them. "You have the poorest people, in the poorest neighborhoods, with the largest increase," said the Rev. Marshall Hatch in an interview with WBEZ. Hatch is the longtime pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, which is located in West Garfield Park.

The concerns are immediate. Property tax bills are due Monday.

Community leaders said the sharp increase also puts those homeowners in jeopardy of falling behind on their property taxes, which could ultimately result in the loss of their homes. It’s a longstanding issue. For years, the county’s annual sale of delinquent property taxes have featured many properties on the West and South sides.

The treasurer’s report explains the reason for the dramatic increase in West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and some other Black communities is because the property values they lost during the Great Recession have finally returned.

My analysis of data from the Cook County assessor’s office shows just how fast the prices of residential properties sold have ramped up in those communities.

In West Garfield Park, the median sales price of single-family homes sold dipped from $174,000 in 2007 to just $40,000 in 2009. The median sales price remained near that mark for nearly a decade. By 2022, that figure ballooned to $183,000. And in 2024, the median sales price was $165,000, according to my analysis.

Meanwhile, the median assessed value for residential properties in the community rose by 132% from tax year 2023 to tax year 2024, according to the treasurer’s report.

Despite the skyrocketing property taxes, some might see the increase in property values as a relief for homeowners and a positive sign for the future. But it’s worth noting that during the decade of depressed property values, while waiting on the recovery that others witnessed much sooner, West Garfield Park and many other Black communities suffered mightily.

Those declining home values robbed Black homeowners of a lifeline to rescue them from job loss and foreclosures brought on by the economic crisis. Many were unable to hold on to their homes long enough to witness the rising values witnessed in recent years.

And the individuals who purchased those properties at a discount were largely from outside of the community. In the case of West Garfield Park, a look at Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data from 2018 — when the median sales price for single-family homes there was just $33,000 — shows Black borrowers made up less than 50% of the originations for home purchase loans in the community.

There’s a good chance that many of the Black folks who saw their properties fall tens of thousands of dollars underwater during the recession won’t ever recover what they lost. Meanwhile, investors and others from outside Black communities are reaping the benefits of a long overdue recovery.

I’ve often heard officials explain that the market drives property values and assessments, and the disparities we see are merely unfortunate outcomes and not the result of deliberate bias.

But what is it that drives the market?

Is it the same thing that allows south suburban homeowners to pay the same in property taxes as north suburban homeowners whose homes are three times higher in value? Is it the same thing that causes appraised values of homes to dip when it’s clear those homes belong to African Americans?

Last year, the Color of Wealth Report found the median net worth of Black households in the Chicago area was zero dollars.

The racial wealth gap is not a mystery, and it’s not a coincidence.

Homeownership is the primary path for Americans to gain wealth. But the consumers, regulators and other operators who drive the market continue to squeeze the benefits out of Black homeownership through their opportunism, inaction and indifference.

Alden Loury is data projects editor for WBEZ and writes a column for the Sun-Times.