Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), Chicagoland’s multiple listing service (MLS), announced today that, as in the past few months, the number of sold units remains high (11,970) and the inventory (56,083) and Months’ Supply of Inventory (3.1) numbers are still relatively low based on July, 2013, Chicagoland PMSA statistics.

Some encouraging signs from 2013 are:
• Since February we have seen the number of traditional sales almost triple.
• The percentage of traditional sales now equals 70% of all sales.
• The percentage of distressed sales has plummeted to less than 30% from an early year number of 49 percent.

This is all good news especially with some of the fears of a potentially significant rise in interest rates that have been projected but have not materialized.

There are some other notable trends in the numbers. Regarding short sales:
• Short sales are simply not experiencing the same effects from the housing recovery as the rest of the market.
• Contract-to-closing time for short sales continues to increase, with the July average at 136 days. That is a near 50% increase when compared to the 92 day average back in May 2011.
• When you pair that with the Average Market Time (from listing date to contract date) for short sales of 192 days the average short sale is now taking 328 days from listing to closing. Yikes!

Foreclosed or lender-owned properties (REOs) continue to sell more quickly than short sales or even traditional sales, coming in with an average market time of 82 days. Also,
• REOs that sold in less than one month are selling for 105.5 percent of list price.
• In other words, a full price offer may not be sufficient to secure a deal on newly listed REOs.

“While the continued high number of sales and low inventory are driving the market, what we’re seeing in the short sale and REO markets is also noteworthy,” said MRED CEO Russ Bergeron. “Short sales continue to sit on the market getting stale, as an ever-smaller percentage of buyers seem to want to deal with that hassle. In the meantime, REOs are going like hotcakes, creating the potential for bidding wars. (These are) good examples as to why not all lender-mediated properties are alike.”