724 Chase
Avenue

The house is worth more than it looks —
but only after it is emptied.

Sold exactly as it stands today, with belongings still inside, the evidence supports about $174,000. Clear the property out, clean it, and photograph it properly, and the same house supports $183,000 to $186,000. That step costs roughly $3,500 to $6,000 and it is the single highest-return decision in this entire analysis.

Every number here was pulled from a primary source.

Nothing in this presentation is taken on trust from a listing portal. Lot sizes were measured from the county parcel map. Flood status came from FEMA directly. Market trends came from the underlying sales database rather than a marketing page.

724 Chase Avenue

Public record

Parcel number

30-07-03-427-008-0000

Living area

948 sq ft

Year built

1901

Lot area — measured

7,283 sq ft

Lot dimensions

55.1 ft x 131.4 ft

Flood zone

ZONE AE

Confirmed by the owner

Bedrooms and baths

4 bed, 1 bath

Basement

Full, unfinished

Layout

Living room and kitchen on the same level, bedrooms upstairs, small attic above

Garage

Detached garage at the rear

Driveway

Gravel

Rear yard

Grass

Mortgage

Paid off

Four bedrooms beats every comparable

Every closed sale in the core set is a two or three bedroom. A four bedroom reaches a wider pool of buyers searching by bedroom count, even at 948 sq ft.

Living area, year built and parcel data are as published in public record and measured by county GIS. Bedroom count, basement, garage, driveway, fencing and mortgage status are as confirmed by the owner. A prior analysis circulated on this property listed the lot at approximately 7,648 sq ft; the county parcel layer measures it at 7,283 sq ft.

Nobody nearby is selling this much land.

The house that closed at $195,000 sits on 4,602 sq ft. The house asking $205,000 right now sits on 1,950 sq ft. 724 Chase Avenue has 7,283.

The most useful sale in Joliet happened across the street.

725 Chase Avenue closed on 2026-04-03 at $188,500. Same street, same block, same floodplain, and a lot within 53 sq ft of identical. It is 112 sq ft smaller than 724 Chase Avenue.

	724 Chase	725 Chase
Living area	948 sq ft	836 sq ft
Lot area	7,283 sq ft	7,230 sq ft
Year built	1901	1900
Flood zone	ZONE AE	ZONE AE
Condition	Original	Roof 2020, floors 2023
Result	To be determined	$188,500

What separates them

Not size, not land, not location, not flood risk. Only condition — and the belongings still inside. That is the entire gap, and it is the one thing that can be changed before listing.

Everything that sold nearby, side by side.

Six closed sales and two active listings. Sale prices and dates come from MLS-distributed records; lot area, parcel number, flood zone and distance were each verified independently against county and federal sources.

27 sales, not six.

The six comparables on the previous pages are the closest matches. They are not the whole market. Widening to every sale of a similar-sized house within two miles over the past twelve months shows a market that splits cleanly in two, and it is the reason a single asking price cannot be argued from six sales alone.

Source: Redfin closed-sale export for the City of Joliet, filtered to within 2.0 miles of 724 Chase Avenue by latitude and longitude and to 600–1,400 sq ft of living area. Lot area, parcel number and flood zone for every property independently verified against Will County GIS and the FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer.

The same street sold for $70,000 and $188,500 in the same year.

654 Meeker Avenue sits 0.16 miles from 724 Chase Avenue, has 924 sq ft against the subject's 948, sits in the same Zone AE floodplain, and closed at $70,000. 725 Chase Avenue, directly across the street, closed at $188,500. Condition is the whole difference.

Every sale behind the recommendation.

Six core comparables plus 21 additional sales of similar-sized houses within two miles. Colour on the price-per-square-foot column matches the map and the distribution chart throughout this deck.

Closed dates on the wider set are suppressed in the source export under MLS display rules; each is confirmed to have closed within the trailing twelve months. Prices, living area, parcel and flood data are published in full.

Small houses here trade between $172 and $226 a foot.

Among the houses closest in size to 724 Chase Avenue, the ones in sound condition all closed above $200 per square foot: 725 Chase Ave at $225, 420 N Hebbard St at $226, 824 Hague St at $222. The recommendation of $184,900 works out to $195 per foot — deliberately below that band, because this house will not show like they did.

Bigger did not mean more money — condition did.

The two largest houses in this study sold for the two lowest prices. 418 Irving Street has 1,096 sq ft and closed at $146,500. 608 Fox Street has 748 sq ft and closed at $195,000. The difference between them was never square footage.

724 Chase Avenue is inside a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area.

The entire parcel falls in Zone AE — the one percent annual chance floodplain. Any buyer using a mortgage will be required to carry flood insurance. Four of the six houses used as comparables are not in that zone at all, which means they were never carrying that cost.

Only two closed sales share the subject's flood status

• 725 Chase Ave — closed $188,500 at $225 per sq ft, 0.02 mi away
• 704 Francis St — closed $172,500 at $172 per sq ft, 0.14 mi away

Outside the floodplain, and therefore adjusted

• 418 Irving St — $146,500
• 608 Fox St — $195,000
• 420 N Hebbard St — $200,000
• 824 Hague St — $205,000

Each of these carries an $8,000 deduction in the grid to account for the flood-insurance burden the subject carries and they do not.

Each sale, corrected line by line to this property.

A list of raw sale prices is not a valuation. This grid takes every closed sale and adjusts it for the ways it differs from 724 Chase Avenue. A positive figure means the comparable was inferior and its price is raised; a negative figure means it was superior and its price is lowered.

Age is adjusted at $1,000 per decade of difference in year built. Condition and the "other" column are the only judgement-based lines; each is explained on the comparable's own page. Weights reflect how closely each sale matches the subject on street, floodplain, size and condition.

How $188,500 across the street becomes $169,506 here.

Why we are not asking more than the house across the street.

725 Chase Avenue sold for $188,500 in April. It is a single-storey brick ranch with a roof from 2020 and flooring from 2023. Anyone reading this will put the two houses side by side, and the asking price has to survive that comparison on the first look.

An earlier draft of this analysis carried a higher figure. It credited a clean-out with recovering part of the condition gap, which a clean-out cannot do. Emptying a house changes how it photographs and how it shows. It does not replace a roof or a floor, and the number has been corrected to reflect that.

Six answers, weighted into one.

The adjusted values run from $141,036 to $185,362. Weighting each sale by how closely it matches 724 Chase Avenue produces an as-is basis of $174,000 — the value of this house sold exactly as it stands today.

The three sales that matter most.

Closest on street, closest on size, and the one that proves an as-is sale can beat its asking price.

2725 Chase Ave

$188,500

Closed

2026-04-03

Size / lot

836 sq ft on 7,230

Per sq ft

$225

Built / beds

1900 · 3bd 1ba

Flood / distance

AE · 0.02 mi

Adjusted to subject

$169,506

Directly across the street. Single-storey brick ranch, fully fenced yard. Kitchen flooring renovated 2023, roof 2020.

7824 Hague St

$205,000

Closed

2026-05-20

Size / lot

924 sq ft on 5,587

Per sq ft

$222

Built / beds

1950 · 2bd 1ba

Flood / distance

X · 0.75 mi

Adjusted to subject

$178,192

Closest living-area match in the set (924 sq ft vs 948). Solar panels. 2024 taxes $3,591.80 on a $50,883 assessment. Sold on a lot 23% smaller than the subject's.

6420 N Hebbard St

$200,000

Closed

2026-06-02

Size / lot

884 sq ft on 6,165

Per sq ft

$226

Built / beds

1929 · 2bd 1ba

Flood / distance

X · 0.90 mi

Adjusted to subject

$185,036

THE AS-IS BENCHMARK. Explicitly marketed and sold as-is with newer mechanicals and a full unfinished basement — and still closed $20,000 OVER its $180,000 list price.

Street photographs are the marketing images published with each listing when it sold, except 418 Irving Street, which is Google Street View. Aerial imagery: Esri World Imagery. Parcel outlines from the Will County GIS layer.

The three that set the outer edges.

The highest price per square foot, the second floodplain sale, and the renovation project that marks the floor.

5608 Fox St

$195,000

Closed

2026-06-29

Size / lot

748 sq ft on 4,602

Per sq ft

$261

Built / beds

1910 · 2bd 1ba

Flood / distance

X · 1.50 mi

Adjusted to subject

$185,362

Highest price per sq ft in the set on the smallest lot in the set. Central air, crawl space, gravel parking. 2024 taxes $2,786. Sits 1.5 miles away in a different submarket.

4704 Francis St

$172,500

Closed

2026-05-21

Size / lot

1,001 sq ft on 6,619

Per sq ft

$172

Built / beds

1900 · 2bd 1ba

Flood / distance

AE · 0.14 mi

Adjusted to subject

$168,853

Second of only two closed sales inside the same Zone AE floodplain as the subject. Closed 1.4% under list.

3418 Irving St

$146,500

Closed

2026-07-09

Size / lot

1,096 sq ft on 6,715

Per sq ft

$134

Built / beds

1890 · 3bd 1ba

Flood / distance

X · 0.54 mi

Adjusted to subject

$141,036

Marketed to investors and DIY buyers as needing updates, improvements and TLC. Full basement plus garage. Closed 13.8% below the $170,000 list.

Street photographs are the marketing images published with each listing when it sold, except 418 Irving Street, which is Google Street View. Aerial imagery: Esri World Imagery. Parcel outlines from the Will County GIS layer.

Distance matters more than most reports admit.

The highest price per square foot in the study, 608 Fox Street at $261, sits 1.5 miles away in a different part of Joliet. The most useful sale sits 0.02 miles away — directly across the street.

What a buyer can walk into instead.

Two properties are competing for the same buyer right now, both asking about $205,000. Neither is a better piece of land than 724 Chase Avenue, and one of them is on a lot a quarter the size.

A330 Harwood St

$205,000

Status

For sale now

Size

1,000 sq ft

Lot — measured

1,950 sq ft

Beds / baths

3bd 1ba

Flood

X

Distance

1.11 mi

Closest active match on size and configuration — but on a 1,950 sq ft lot, barely a quarter of the subject's land. Sits beside A.O. Marshall Elementary at 319 Harwood.

B422 Francis St

$204,900

Status

For sale now

Size

not published

Lot — measured

9,379 sq ft

Beds / baths

4bd 2ba

Flood

X

Distance

0.41 mi

More bedrooms and baths on a larger irregular lot. Secondary reference only — a different buyer profile.

What the competition tells us about price

Sellers in this ZIP are asking around $205,000 for houses of roughly 1,000 sq ft. With the recommended list at $184,900, 724 Chase Avenue undercuts both while offering 3.7 times the land of the closest match.

Inventory is thin

Only 17 single-family properties were in inventory across the whole ZIP in the most recent measured period, against 20 sales. Thin supply is the reason a well-presented house does not sit.

Price per square foot in this ZIP is up 27.5% in a year.

This is the strongest argument in the analysis for not underpricing. The value buyers place on each square foot in 60432 has climbed from roughly $140 in spring 2025 to $179 in the most recent measured period.

Median sale price is a noisier series than price per square foot in a ZIP this small — a handful of larger houses closing in one window moves it sharply, which is what produced the spring 2026 spike. Price per square foot is the more reliable read.

The market moved while this house sat.

Price per square foot in this ZIP is 6% higher over the last three months than the twelve-month average. Each window below is a separate 90-day period, so the three, six and twelve month figures do not double count the same sales.

Source: Redfin Data Center ZIP market tracker. Windows end 31 May 2026, 28 February 2026, 30 November 2025 and 31 August 2025.

Sellers here are getting essentially all of their asking price.

Three paths. The middle one is the best trade.

Doing nothing costs nothing and leaves roughly $3,000 to $8,500 on the table. Full renovation returns more gross value but ties up $18,000 to $24,000 of the family's money first, and the margin is thinner than it looks.

The full refresh earns less per dollar than the clean-out.

It is tempting to assume more work means more money. On this house, run the arithmetic to the end and the clean-out is the better trade — it returns more, faster, with none of the risk.

If the family would rather not fund even the clean-out, the as-is path is legitimate and this analysis prices it honestly at $174,000. The recommendation is not that the work must happen — only that the family should decide it with the numbers in front of them.

Every price buys a different speed.

Asking price and time to sell are the same decision. The bar on each rung is the share of the last 27 comparable sales that closed at or above that number, which is the honest measure of how much of the market can even reach it.

It is September. The window is closing.

Joliet has a real selling season, and the data shows it plainly. Property that goes to market in the cold months takes about 15 days longer to sell and closes slightly further under asking. A clean-out started now lists in early October and catches the tail of the good season.

There is no mortgage. Every dollar is equity.

724 Chase Avenue is owned free and clear. There is no payoff to clear at closing, which means the sale price minus selling costs is what the family keeps. It also means there is no carrying cost forcing a fast decision, and no lender to satisfy on condition.

Selling and closing cost percentages are planning figures for Will County, Illinois and are shown to compare scenarios. Actual figures depend on the contract, the title company and any negotiated concessions. This is not tax advice.

List at $184,900 once the property is empty.

Who lives here, and what a buyer is buying into.

Schools serving this address

School	Grades	Location	Detail
A.O. Marshall Elementary	K–5	319 Harwood St, Joliet	Joliet PSD 86 · ~235 students · Gifted & Talented program
Gompers Junior High	6–8	1501 Copperfield Ave, Joliet	Joliet PSD 86 · ~830 students
Joliet Central High School	9–12	201 E Jefferson St, Joliet	Joliet Township HSD 204 · 3,383 students · opened 1901 · on the National Register since 1982

A note on the value of that median

The ZIP median property value of $193,700 covers all housing here, including condominiums and multi-family. A detached single-family house on 7,283 sq ft of land is not the median property in this ZIP — it is above it.

Demographics: U.S. Census American Community Survey 2011–2024 five-year estimates. School assignment: Joliet Public Schools District 86 and Joliet Township High School District 204.

A 125-year-old house in a city built on stone and steel.

What was happening when this house was built

724 Chase Avenue was built in 1901. That same year, the Joliet Steel Works was folded into the newly formed United States Steel Corporation, and the plant employed more than two thousand people. Joliet Central High School — the school this address still feeds into — opened its doors the same year.

Quarrying came first. Dolomite limestone along the Des Plaines River made Joliet the "City of Stone" before it was a steel town, and by the 1890s roughly twenty-five quarries were working between Joliet and Lemont. Joliet limestone went into the Chicago Water Tower and the Old State Capitol.

Where this house sits relative to the historic district

The Joliet East Side Historic District, listed on the National Register since 1980, lies southeast of downtown and is bounded roughly by Washington Street, Union Street, Hickory Creek, Fourth Avenue and Eastern Avenue. Chase Avenue is outside those boundaries. That matters practically: there are no historic district review requirements attached to renovating or altering this property.

Environmental due diligence

Item	Finding	What it means here
Flood zone	ZONE AE	Whole parcel inside the one percent annual chance floodplain. Flood insurance required with a mortgage. Obtain an elevation certificate before listing.
Radon	EPA Zone 2	Will County is predicted at 2–4 pCi/L. Homeowner-submitted tests across the county have averaged higher, so test rather than assume. Kits are available through the county health department.
Structure age	1901	Expect buyer questions on wiring, plumbing and the service panel. Having answers ready shortens negotiation.
Historic overlay	None	Outside the East Side district. No preservation review on changes.

No single firm controls this market.

Across the 6 verified closed sales in the core set, every one was listed through a different office, and the highest price per square foot in the study came from a buyer brought by an outside office. Exposure to every cooperating office matters more here than any one brand.

A plan built around this house's actual problem.

The obstacle here is not price and it is not location. It is that a buyer cannot picture living in the property as it currently presents. Everything below is aimed at that single problem.

From decision to closing in about twelve weeks.

Where every figure came from.

Prepared September 17, 2026 for the Hendreson family · 724 Chase Avenue, Joliet, Illinois 60432 · Parcel 30-07-03-427-008-0000