Numbers may have been down in Chicagoland’s housing market in November, but it all is part of a larger plan.

Home sales in the nine-county Chicagoland area were down 8.8 percent year-over-year in November, while median sales price was up 7.1 percent, according to the latest analysis from the Illinois Association of Realtors.

Though that’s consistent with the past few months of housing data (if anything, falling home sales in the winter suggest a most-welcome return to normalcy) Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, the director of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory of the University of Illinois, said there was another factor at play in November – the lousy weather.

“Illinois’ fourth coldest November on record had a negative effect on housing sales,” Hewings said. “While prices continue to improve, the sales forecast for the next three months indicates declines on a monthly and annual basis. Foreclosure sales continue to decline as a share of total sales; good news on the one hand but extending the time for return to pre-bubble levels.”

Consistency in Chicago’s City/Suburban Housing Markets

Unsurprisingly, those stats were fairly consistent in both the city and suburbs of the area:

• In the city of Chicago, home sales were down 11.5 percent year-over-year in November, though median price was up a marked 15 percent.
• Meanwhile, though the Mainstreet Organization of Realtors did not release home sales numbers for November, the association did note that pending sales were up 8 percent year-over-year.
• Also, the median sales price for single-family detached homes was up 4.8 percent in suburban Chicago, and from January to November, sales price was up 8.6 percent year to date.

As usual, stay tuned for our reports on the top-selling suburbs and city neighborhoods, in addition to our look at some of the more compelling trends in Chicagoland real estate.