Chicago Housing Trends

Chicago Housing Market Trends & Statistics 2020

Some of the most recent housing trends in the metro Chicago area and compare it with the past couple of years. Chicago is the 6th most walkable city in the nation. Chicago metro area has a population of approximately 8,865,000, a 0.03% increase from 2019. It is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third-most-populous city in the United States.

Chicago has been one of the hottest real estate markets in the country for many years. In the past ten years, the annual Chicago real estate appreciation rate has amounted to 4.40%, according to NeighborhoodScout.com. The median home price in Chicago rose 9.2% year-over-year to $338,500 in April. The rolling 12-month median, which considers the whole year of sales up until April 30th, was $299,900, up 4.3 percent. The City of Chicago saw 2,039 homes sell in April – a steep 21.4% drop since last April.

Impact of COVID-19 on The Chicago Housing Market

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was evident in April and May, driving Chicago home sales and inventory lower even though median prices remained pretty much stable. Data from the Chicago Association of Realtors showed fewer buyers were willing to purchase a home from late March through mid-April. Roughly 330 residential properties went into contract in each of the three weeks before April 18 compared to 674 homes that went into contract for the week ending March 7, before the falloff.

New listings also declined by almost 50 percent. 588 homes hit the market in each of the three weeks before April 18. That compared to 1,313 new listings that went on the market in the first week of March. COVID-19 and a stay-at-home order continued to have a significant effect on the Chicago housing market in May, disrupting spring home sales and driving down available inventory for buyers. Home sales in May declined at a steeper rate than in April. However, the median price of homes sold was higher than the corresponding period in 2019.

Data from Illinois REALTORS® shows that in the nine-county Chicago Metro Area, home sales (single-family and condominiums) in May totaled 7,710, down 37.3 percent from May 2019 sales of 12,291 homes. The median price in May was $260,000 in the Chicago Metro Area, an increase of 0.2 percent from $259,500 in May 2019.

According to the Chicago Association of REALTORS, 1,679 properties were sold in the City of Chicago in May 2020. This was a 43.1% decrease from May 2019. The median sales price in the City of Chicago for May 2020 was $312,500, down 0.8% from this time last year. The City of Chicago saw listings average 83 days on the market until contract, a 13.7% increase from May 2019. The City of Chicago’s housing inventory was down 22.1%, from 10,022 homes in May 2019 to 7,811 homes in May 2020. The month’s supply of inventory declined 15.2%, from 4.6 in May 2019 to 3.9 in May 2020.