Much of Chicago’s housing stock is still recovering from the market collapse, but not every area in the city is suffering from anemic housing value growth. In fact, five neighborhoods in the city have seen home prices reach their highest levels since 2000, according to a new study by the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.
The city’s real estate market is in a unique position: Housing prices are skyrocketing in some areas, but less than 10 percent of the city’s housing stock has regained its pre-recession peak value. It’s clear that not every area of the city is seeing the same rate of housing price expansion or depression.
The West Town, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Uptown and Lakeview areas all have seen prices in December 2016 rise above any other time since 2000, according to DePaul’s study. At the same time, places like Auburn Gresham and South Chicago have seen property values only increase by about 9 percent since that time, and their median values have dropped by 45 percent since their peak market-collapse value, the university reports.
Most of the areas seeing record value increases since 2000 are centrally located neighborhoods that are still experiencing gentrification, like West Town and Logan Square. The neighborhoods with the highest jump in year-over-year prices are also the same ones with the highest gains since 2000 and have also seen accelerated gentrification in recent years. The red-hot Logan Square/Avondale area has seen the second-highest price growth (13 percent) and Humboldt Park the most (20 percent) since 2015, according to the report. (Downtown, which is seeing a surge in new home construction, was not included in the study because of its lack of single-family houses.)
West Town/Near West Side have seen prices rise the most since 2000, with home values rising by nearly 160 percent in that time. Its 2016 median sales price of $610,500 is the second highest of any Chicago neighborhood.
Despite being some of the hottest markets in Chicago, the places that have posted the highest gains in home value since 2000 did not have the highest sales volumes last year. That honor was reserved for areas of the city that have seen modest long-term and year-over-year growth: Beverly/Morgan Park had the highest number of sales last year at 1,707 but has only seen one-third of the value recovery places like West Town (456 sale) and Logan Square (570 sales) have seen.
Check out the list of neighborhoods with the greatest home value gains since 2000:
| Neighborhood | Median Sales Price 2016 | Change since 2000 | Change from peak Bubble-era price | Year-over-year change | Sales 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Town/Near West Side | $610,000 | 158.80% | 9.60% | 9.20% | 456 |
| Logan Square/Avondale | $440,000 | 155.60% | 10.80% | 13.20% | 570 |
| Lincoln Square/North Center | $558,000 | 122.00% | 6.30% | 3.90% | 617 |
| Bridgeport/Brighton Park | $208,250 | 88.90% | -29.80% | 9.10% | 522 |
| Irving Park/Albany Park | $387,000 | 83.90% | 6.90% | 5.00% | 883 |
| Uptown/Rogers Park | $500,000 | 83.50% | -6.50% | 1.40% | 241 |
| Lakeview/Lincoln Park | $990,000 | 79.10% | 3.10% | 1.60% | 549 |
| Portage Park/Jefferson Park | $260,000 | 68.50% | -17.10% | 8.60% | 1,276 |
| Gage Park/West Lawn | $179,000 | 64.20% | -25.20% | 7.70% | 1,329 |
| Humboldt Park/Garfield Park | $90,750 | 62.20% | -44.70% | 20.70% | 402 |
Up 3 % for lakeview neighborhood
Up 3 % for Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago