Chicagoland may have fallen on the lower end of the spectrum in WalletHub’s new ranking of 2016’s best cities for real estate agents – the Windy City placed 130 out of 150 – but there remain many positives in the area’s market that will aid agent business in 2016.

WalletHub’s study considered a number of factors, including: sales per agent; annual median wage for agents; unemployment rate; home turnover rate; days on market; and building permit activity. Then, it combined those factors into two metrics – “Job Opportunity & Competition” and “Real Estate Market Heat” – and ranked metro areas in each category, with the areas’ ultimate placing coming from a weighting of those rankings; for the jobs metric, Chicago came in at No. 111, while for the market heat metric, it placed at No. 126.

What’s in a Ranking?

Of course, any ranking of the nation’s housing markets is inherently subjective, and there are many positive trends right now in Chicagoland’s housing market, including:

• Home sales in the Chicagoland area were up 6.6 percent from 2014 to 2015, while median sales price jumped 8.5 percent.
• Spending on residential construction projects was up 10 percent in 2015, while multifamily building rose 17 percent.
• Chicagoland’s foreclosure inventory fell 31 percent last year, and closed out the year at just 1.6 percent of all mortgaged properties.
• Finally, Ukrainian Village was rated the nation’s hottest local housing market in 2016.

So despite WalletHub’s rankings, there is much to be optimistic about in Chicagoland’s housing market.

For a broader perspective on WalletHut’s study, here is how some of the nation’s largest metro areas ranked: