Chicago Housing Market
Chicago Housing Market Still Recovering!
Chicago, Illinois, “the windy city,” is the third largest city in the United States and covers 227.63 square miles. Within this metropolitan area there are many neighborhoods and smaller incorporated cities that make up the area’s Primary Statistical Metropolitan Area (PMSA) and the Chicago Housing Market.
Like most other large metropolitan areas in the US, the Chicago Housing Market is undergoing an overall improvement in real estate sales that began in 2012. While Zillow reports a % increase in the median value of homes in the greater Chicago area, the increase is tempered by variations the median value of homes in neighborhoods and by zip codes. Zillow projects that the market will fall -.7% within the year.
Still, Chicago’s real estate inventory is low and so are interest rates. This situation creates an active market that can be described as hot in some neighborhoods, notably those to the west of the central city. For instance, according to Zillow, the price/square foot for a home in greater Chicago is $196. At the same time, the price/square foot for a home in Chicago Metro is $136. Clearly, downtown Chicago is still declining. Market time for a home can range anywhere from 2 months to 3 years.
Most real estate experts in Chicago believe that sales will continue to improve. Realtor Millie Rosenbloom of Baird Warner noted in an interview that Chicago’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) reported a 2.7 month inventory of homes for sale and an average days on market time of 68 days. She believes that these statistics suggest that the market is deep enough to continue to the end of 2014.
Low home inventory typically signals a seller’s market because with less homes to sell, demand for those residences is higher. Even with a slightly slower real estate market, the Chicago area market will continue to thrive.
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