Home sales up in Chicago suburbs in April

Chicago-Area Home Sales Presented Mixed Picture in April, RE/MAX Reports; Home Values Rise, Unit Sales Dip Slightly

April sales data showed the seven-county, Chicago-area housing market maintaining a strong sales pace, RE/MAX reports. April sales topped 10,000 units for the second consecutive year, and home values continued to climb.

According to RE/MAX, home sales for the month were 0.5 percent lower than during the same month last year, totaling 10,078 units. The median sales price climbed 6.3 percent to $245,000.

“In our view, the small sales decline is due largely to two factors, the relatively low inventory of homes for sale this spring and the related fact that we have worked through a large portion of the supply of foreclosed properties that was such a big part of this market just a few years ago,” said Jack Kreider, executive vice president and regional director of RE/MAX Northern Illinois.

Garbage cans line the streets in Chicagos suburbs. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania

Foreclosures represented just 8 percent of all April home sales this year but accounted for 20 percent of April sales as recently as 2015.

“If you exclude foreclosures from April home sales for this year and last, sales this year were 5 percent higher,” Kreider said.

Another sign of strength in the housing market was the continued decline in the average time that homes sold during the month were on the market before going under contract. The April average was 90 days, down from 99 days a year earlier and from 100 days in March of this year. It was the lowest average market time posted in April since 2005.

Sales data used by RE/MAX is collected by MRED, the regional multiple listing service. It covers detached and attached homes in the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will. Detached homes are typically stand-alone single-family dwellings. Attached homes include condominium and cooperative apartments along with townhouses.

Home sales activity varied within a narrow range across the seven metro counties, rising slightly in Cook, Kane and Kendall, but declining in the other counties and in Chicago. The largest decrease was 5.4 percent in Will.

The median sales price, however, rose across the board, most notably in Will, where it gained 12.3 percent, and in McHenry, where it climbed 10.6 percent. The median also rose 5.4 percent in Cook, which included a 3.3 percent increase in Chicago, and it increased 3.9 percent in DuPage, 8 percent in Kane, 4.4 percent in Kendall and 5.7 percent in Lake.

Detached Sales

April sales of detached homes totaled 6,287 units, 1.1 percent less than April 2016, while the median sales price gained 7.1 percent to $262,000. Average market time was 104 days, eight days less than the prior April.

Sales activity rose 3.6 percent in Cook County, including a 1.4 percent increase in Chicago, but fell in the other counties. Declines ranged from 7.6 percent in Will to 1.1 percent in Lake.

The median sales price for a detached home rose in all seven counties and Chicago, led by gains of 9.7 percent in Lake, 8.8 percent in Cook and 8.2 percent in Will. Other increases were 7.7 percent in McHenry, 7.3 percent in Kane, 4.9 percent in Kendall and 4.7 percent in DuPage. The median price climbed 4.4 percent in Chicago.

Attached Sales

Sales activity in the attached home segment eked out a 0.5 percent increase in April on sales of 3,791 units, while the median sales price rose a modest 2.9 percent to $209,900. Average market time fell to just 67 days, the lowest figure recorded for April since RE/MAX began tracking that data in 2005.

Sales activity was down 1.6 percent in Cook, which still accounted for 70 percent of all attached sales in the metro area. That included a 3 percent decline in Chicago. Elsewhere, several counties saw sharp increases in attached sales, with Kendall up 37.5 percent, McHenry up 33.8 percent and Kane up 19.1 percent. Sales were also up 3.1 percent in Will, but fell 2.4 percent in DuPage and 1 percent in Lake.

The median sales price for attached homes rose in all seven counties and Chicago. Top gains were 17 percent in Kendall and 13.2 percent in McHenry. Other increases were 7.7 percent in DuPage, 5.8 percent in Lake, 5.2 percent in Will, 1.9 percent in Kane and 0.6 percent in Cook, with the Chicago median up 2.7 percent.

The RE/MAX Northern Illinois network, with headquarters in Elgin, Ill., consists of more than 2,250 sales associates and 103 independently owned and operated RE/MAX offices that provide a full range of residential and commercial brokerage services. The northern Illinois network is part of RE/MAX, a global real estate organization with 110,000+ sales associates in 100+ nations.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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