Now that Chicago Dispatcher is posting Chicago taxi medallion sales prices in a defined area of their web site, it may no longer be useful to post any of them here. (Chicago Dispatcher’s print edition was the source for all recent reports I posted, but posting of the information on the web wasn’t consistent.) They continue to calculate an “average” monthly price; unfortunately it seems to be a mean or mode, not a median. At last report (pdf), this figure was $183,000, indicating little change in recent months.
Tag: chicago taxi medallions
Have medallion prices peaked?
When last reviewed here, prices for Chicago taxi medallions had risen to an average of $185,000. Prices have since peaked at $202,000, but now are below that previous level. The March Chicago Dispatcher printed edition includes an ad offering to pay medallion owners $750/month, which implies almost 5% ROI if prices stabilize.
Month Price Source
February ’10 $183,000 Chicago Dispatcher
January ’10 $184,000 Chicago Dispatcher
December ’09 $202,000 Chicago Dispatcher
October ‘09 $185,000 City of Chicago
May ‘09 $170,000 Chicago Dispatcher
April ‘09 $164,500 Chicago Dispatcher
March ‘09 $165,000 Chicago Dispatcher
February ‘09 $158,000 Chicago Dispatcher
Feb ‘07 $ 77,000 Chicago Tribune
2004 >$40,000 Chicago Tribune
1991 $28,000 Chicago Sun Times
Eventually the City of Chicago may post more recent information here (scroll down to “Taxicab Medallion Transfer Price List” for the pdf report.)
Speculating in cab medallions
Prices below are medians (2009), and “average” for earlier years.
Month Price Source
October ’09 $185,000 City of Chicago
May ‘09 $170,000 Chicago Dispatcher
April ‘09 $164,500 Chicago Dispatcher
March ‘09 $165,000 Chicago Dispatcher
February ‘09 $158,000 Chicago Dispatcher
Feb ‘07 $ 77,000 Chicago Tribune
2004 >$40,000 Chicago Tribune
1991 $28,000 Chicago Sun Times
The October list includes two sales at $190,000.
As medallion prices rise despite a sagging economy, this seems to me to indicate that fares are already too high and should be reduced, which would allow medallion prices to fall and, in theory, drivers would be unaffected while passengers benefit.
But Chicago Dispatcher publisher George Lutfallah sees it differently. Due to difficult conditions in the taxi industry, individual medallion owners are selling their medallions to big owners– the taxi equivalent of land speculators. Lutfallah sees this as a bad thing, “a taxi driver who owns his or her own cab is more likely to take better care of both the vehicle and the customer.” He therefore recommends a fare increase. (source: print edition of Chicago Dispatcher October ’09)