Ken Griffin's move to Florida means losing millions on homes he never even lived in

• Ken Griffin's Chicago penthouse — listed for $10 million less than he paid for it — has a buyer.
• A representative for Griffin said that his real-estate investments in Florida make up for the loss.
• Like Griffin, other wealthy people have left Chicago, due in part to hefty taxes and crime rates.

Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel, has found a buyer for his penthouse in Chicago.

The six-bedroom apartment at the luxury condo building No. 9 Walton in the wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood near Lake Michigan is in contract for an undisclosed amount but was last priced at $11 million, according to its Zillow listing.

The 7,500-square-foot property went on the market in July for $11 million — $10 million less than the $21 million Cook County records show Griffin shelled out for it in 2017.

Listing photos show the penthouse, which comes with a private rooftop pool, is unfinished. He has also never lived there.

The move comes as Griffin moves both Citadel and his own personal residence to South Florida.

A Citadel spokesperson told Bloomberg that the loss was a minor setback in the context of his other real-estate purchases.

"While the value of Ken's properties in his former hometown may have declined, thankfully it is only a small loss compared to the appreciation he's enjoyed on his property investments in Florida," Zia Ahmed, the spokesperson, said.

Griffin spent about $169 million on properties in Miami Beach's exclusive Star Island neighborhood between 2020 and 2023. In 2022, he spent over $100 million on two bayfront houses in Coconut Grove, an affluent Miami area. He has also amassed 27 acres in Palm Beach over a decade for about $450 million.

He and the listing agents for the Chicago penthouse did not respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider.

Brokers said Chicago's luxury-real-estate market has flagged

The relatively lower sale price is somewhat unsurprising, Chicago-area real-estate agents said.

Michael LaFido, a broker, said superprime properties, which he described as $10 million or more, were a rarity in Chicagoland. In 2023, he added, only four properties sold for that amount.

Meanwhile, in Miami, 55 properties over $10 million were sold in the second quarter of 2024 alone, said the real-estate-consulting company Knight Frank's global report on superprime properties.

Rafael Murillo, a Compass agent in Chicago, said properties that cost eight figures were not a regular occurrence.

"We're just a much more affordable luxury market compared to Miami or New York," he said.

Murillo cited another luxury property that sold at a loss this year: a 6,100-square-foot condo in the city's St. Regis tower that was purchased for $8.2 million in 2021 and sold for $7 million in April.

Marquee listings in the suburbs have also seen price cuts. The basketball star Michael Jordan's mansion in Highland Park finally sold in September after going on the market in 2012, per its Zillow listing. Jordan listed the property for $29 million in 2012. It was most recently priced at $14.9 million.

Other wealthy homeowners are selling their Chicago properties

Griffin is one of several wealthy Chicago homeowners offloading their luxury properties at a loss this year, Bloomberg reported in March.

It said the city's hefty taxes, high crime rates, and introduction of a "mansion tax" on properties sold for over $1 million had driven many of Chicago's richest residents to sell and relocate to other cities, including Miami and New York.

In 2017, Griffin purchased the Chicago penthouse, along with three other units in the same building, for a total of almost $59 million — the biggest real-estate purchase in the city's history, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Griffin put another unfinished penthouse in the building on the market for $9 million on Wednesday; it was listed on Zillow as contingent, or in contract, on Friday. He paid $12.7 million for it. If it sells for its full asking price, it will be a more modest loss, relatively speaking: $3.7 million.

The other two units in the record-breaking buy are also up for sale.

A lot of wealthy residents first fled Chicago to its suburbs during the COVID-19 pandemic, then left Illinois altogether, LaFido told BI.

He said that many homebuyers who can afford a property over $10 million aren't in Chicago anymore — leaving sellers like Griffin to take the financial hit.

"If you're going to build something $5 million or more in Chicago," LaFido said, "you're going to take a loss."