Chicagoland Real Estate Market Update February 21-27

Here is our weekly look at the Chicagoland Real Estate market for the week of February 21-27. This information is provided by the Chicago Association of Realtors and MLSNI for the 77 communities in Chicago and nearly 300 surrounding suburbs. When I can I try to provide additional information on specific areas. I’ll look at absorption rate, median sales price, average sales price and market time. If you’d ever like a specific report on your area just let me know and I’ll throw one together.

The first chart compares the # of Listings taken vs. the # of closed for this week over the past 3 years. We see the number of listings taken is down from last year but so is the number of closed properties. So we see some good and bad. Normally I wouldn’t say listings taken being down is a bad thing but we have to get rid of the current inventory. It’s much too high and that affects market time and absorption rates.

Probably nothing to explain here but I will. Inventory is up more than 30,000 residential units compared to two years ago. That is a lot of units for buyers to look at. Compared to last week that inventory didn’t go up as much as it could have so let’s keep that trend going. Less listings and more sales equals good news for all. Inventory starts to slide down and I believe that will help market time and absorption rates and we’ll start heading towards a more normal market.