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Chicago single-family market led July rebound in metro-area home sales, report says
Sales and prices both posted modest gains after tepid numbers in May and June
Chicago-area home sales rebounded in July after lagging in May and June, led by a more than 12 percent year-over-year spike for single-family homes inside the city.
The seven-county metro region counted 11,370 home sales last month, a 1.2 percent uptick over last July, according to a report from Re/Max. That followed year-over-year declines of 1.2 percent in May and 5.8 percent in June.
The median sales price across all seven counties hit $255,000 last month, a 2 percent jump year over year and the highest median for any July since 2008. Chicago’s median sales price rose 1.7 percent since last July, with a 2 percent climb in detached home prices alone.
Average market time in the region shrank to 61 days, the lowest Re/Max has ever measured since it began collecting data in 2005. Homes have been steadily selling faster on average every month since January 2016, a sign that demand is snowballing in both the city and suburbs.
Chicago saw 1,033 single-family home sales last month, a 12.3 percent spike year over year. But condos and townhomes transacted just 1,739 times in the city, virtually unchanged from 2017.
Both home sales and median prices climbed in every county tracked in the report, except for two: DuPage County saw a 3.5 percent drop in sales despite a 3.6 percent uptick in median prices, and Lake County saw declines in both sales and prices, by 3.4 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.
West suburban Kendall County, which includes towns like Oswego and Yorkville, saw the sharpest year-over-year jump in sales out of any area included in the report. The 203 single-family homes transacted there led a 9.3 percent spike in total sales over last year, despite condo and townhome sales falling off by about 12 percent.
The most growth in sales throughout the metro area was concentrated on homes priced between $100,000 and $350,000, while sales between $350,000 and $1 million barely changed.
The data suggest that a growing hunger for affordable single-family homes is pushing buyers into the suburbs, according to Re/Max’s Jeff LaGrange, who said in a release affordability is “a bigger issue for buyers this year than it has been for some time.”
A Re/Max report last month showed gains across the region in sales above $1 million this year, while prices remained flat. Inside the city, sagging luxury home prices have bedeviled some brokers.