‘Winning lottery ticket’: Pope’s childhood home no longer for sale
It’s like “a winning lottery ticket.”
That’s the circumstance for a man who owns a Chicago home, a fixer-upper that he had on the market for $200,000.
But it’s no longer on the market, and certainly not at that price, after he found the small brick structure was the childhood home of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.
The New York Post explained the details.
“[The real-estate agent] called me and said, ‘Hey, the pope used to live in your house.’ I’m like, ‘Stop joking,'” explained Pawel Radzik, who flips properties and was ready to unload the home for $200,000.
“I’m going to keep it for now. I’m excited. … I’m lucky to have it,” he said.
Realtor Steve Budzik told The Post, “It’s like a winning lottery ticket.”
The home actually is in Dolton, Illinois, and reports say it was home to some drug dealers a few years ago, after the Prevost family sold it.
Radzik then bought it last year and fixed up and listed it for sale more than three months ago.
Now, he confirmed to the Post, he’s raising the price before it goes back on the market.
Curiously, on Thursday alone, he got four offers on the structure.
The Post described the home as a “modest-looking 1,200-square-foot abode — which the pope’s family bought in 1949, paying a $42 monthly mortgage.”
Real estate listings prominently displayed an “off market” notation about the property.