With no increase in inventory, prices continued to rise in October and home sales again fell, according to new data from Illinois REALTORS®.

Statewide, home sales dropped 8.5% year over year, to 10,705 homes sold (including both attached and detached). Meanwhile, 21,287 total homes were for sale, a whopping 25.5% decrease from 2022. In turn, prices rose 7.1% to a median of $265,000.

Looking only at the Chicago metro area, the trends were similar. Sales were down 8.3% with 7,118 homes sold, while the median price increased 5.8% to $317,500.

In the city proper, however, the median prices stayed the same year over year: $320,000. But sales still decreased by 7.5% with 1,610 total sales in October 2023.

“The number of sales continues to decline throughout Illinois, while prices continue to increase,” Dr. Daniel McMillen, a professor of real estate and associate dean for faculty affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Business Administration, said of the data. “Our forecasts indicate that these trends will continue over the next three months throughout the state.”

In her own analysis, though, Chicago Association of REALTORS® President Drussy Hernandez highlighted the general drop in days on the market.

Across both the state of Illinois and the Chicago metro, days on the market decreased by four year over year, falling to 25 and 23 days, respectively. (In the city of Chicago, the decline was less steep, with shoppers waiting longer overall; there, days on the market fell two days to 32 days.)

“In October, median sales price remained steady and market time nominally decreased,” Hernandez said. “This shows that, at the core of our market, there is a steady stream of people who need to buy and sellers who are motivated to sell.”