Chicago Home Sales in July Increase 29 Percent in RE/MAX Study

by Chicago Agent

August 17, 2012

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According to the latest numbers from RE/MAX, Chicago home sales posted big year-over-year increases in July.

By Peter Ricci

According to new reports from RE/MAX, homes sales in the seven-county Chicago real estate market increased 29 percent in July year-over-year.

In addition, and perhaps even more optimistically, for homes sold in July 2012, the average number of days on the market dropped from 166 days in July 2011 to 141 days this year, the lowest for the Chicago market since December 2007.

Chicago Home Sales Up – Less Housing Inventory

There was quite a bit of additional information in RE/MAX’s report, including:

As has been the case nationally, the active housing inventory for Chicago fell from last year, decreasing 21 percent in July year-over-year.
Median sale price also fell year-over-year by 6 percent to $173,125, though as we’ve been reporting, home prices in Chicago have certainly turned for the better in recent months. Also, as RE/MAX noted, distressed property sales, which are sold at steep discounts, made up 36.1 percent of sales in July, up from 33.5 percent last year.
On a county-by-county basis, Will County had the best sales performance, with home sales increasing 35 percent; it was closely followed, though, by Cook County (30 percent), McHenry (30 percent), DuPage (27 percent) and the City of Chicago (25 percent).

Attached v. Detached

RE/MAX also collected individual statistics on how attached Chicago home sales compared to detached Chicago home sales.

For detached homes, sales were up 27 percent in the Chicagoland area, with the average market time for properties sold dropping from 157 days to 136 days. Year-over-year sales for attached homes were even better, rising 32 percent.
The median sales price for detached homes was down 4 percent yearly and 6 percent monthly to $195,000, while attached homes fell 11 percent to $133,000.

Of course, these numbers are only for RE/MAX transactions, so they do not reflect the entire Chicago housing market. Next week, we’ll be getting the latest data from the Illinois Association of Realtors for the state and the City of Chicago, so we’ll see how those numbers compare to RE/MAX’s.