Real Estate Transfer Tax Adds to Chicago Housing Woes

"?Chicago home sellers getting lower prices if they can unload their properties at all in the stone cold housing market have a new headache: the 40 percent increase in the real estate transfer tax tied to the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] bail-out.? It's bad enough that this city will soon be paying the highest sales tax in the country (if a recently approved hike in the county sales tax goes into effect). Now those lucky enough to sell their property are being coerced into bailing out the city's ever-more-costly socialist transit system. It's almost as if the local feudal lords are deliberately plotting to degrade Chicago to third world status."