Second Quarter Brings News of Stabilizing Chicago Housing Prices, Sales
August 20th, 2010 categories: Chicago Real Estate News
Chicago home sellers looking for good news received some from the Illinois Association of REALTORS®. According to the association, Chicago condominium and single-family home prices stabilized while sales rose in the second quarter of the year.
The news on home prices is especially encouraging. Chicago home sellers have been waiting for median home values in the city to stop falling. The second-quarter numbers show that they may have.
According to the association, the city of Chicago’s median home price in the second quarter stood at $230,000. That’s the same median value that the city saw in the second quarter of 2009. That may not seem like news worth celebrating. After all, home values overall haven’t risen in the city of Chicago. But they didn’t fall, either. In today’s dismal economy, it counts as good news when home values don’t fall.
The news was good, too, when it came to the sale of Chicago condominiums and single-family homes. According to the association’s numbers, the sales of condominiums and single-family homes rose 32.8 percent in the second quarter when compared to the same period one year earlier. The city saw 6,567 home sales in the second quarter this year, compared to 4,945 in the second quarter of 2009.
This, too, is obvious good news. Chicago is a strong housing market. But it did suffer during the Great Recession, as did the residential markets of most major cities. My hope is that the second-quarter numbers are a sign of a positive housing trend in the city.
And why not? Despite the economic slump, Chicago is still a great city in which to buy a home. There’s plenty to do here, for buyers of all ages, whether they’re empty nesters or young married couples or single buyers.
What will the next set of housing statistics from the REALTORS® association bring? That’s impossible to predict. Here’s hoping, though, that the second-quarter numbers are more than just a blip.
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