Detached homes in the Chicago suburbs now cost a median of $360,000: that’s a 9.1%, or $30,000, increase from last year, according to new data from the Mainstreet Organization of REALTORS®.
Meanwhile, in the entire Chicago-Naperville-Elgin region, prices climbed 8.8% over the past year, reaching $349,300.
“We have an affordability problem curbing homeownership. Homes that were once $100,000 are now selling for $180,000, and people are really stretching their boundaries,” Mainstreet President Tim Ryan said in a press release.
Members of the association discussed these price increases at the National Association of REALTORS® legislative conference in Washington, D.C. in early May. “From our Mainstreet Realtors to Illinois Realtors to the national association, we are all collaborating on ways to increase housing affordability and to create and free up more housing inventory,” said Mainstreet CEO John Gormley.
“There’s an obvious answer, which is to provide mortgage interest relief, but there are also things we can do to create better conditions for home ownership affordability such as updating zoning laws and reducing the cost of construction and impact fees,” Gormley added, reflecting on Illinois’ chronic inventory shortage.
In April, the number of new listings in the Chicagoland suburbs was down by nearly 12.7%, year over year. It was down nearly 30% from April 2022. Despite that decline, though, the number of detached homes sold was up 2.5% from last year with 2,516 total sales.
Although quarterly detached sales were down 3.7% year over year, some suburbs saw a Q1 sales bump. In order, those were: Hinsdale (up 60.9%), Markham (36.0%), Ingleside (35.4%), Zion (33.4%), Harvey (28.8%), Calumet Park (27.8%), Montgomery and Riverdale (both 26.6%), Elmhurst (25.6%), Lisle (23.8%), LaGrange (23.4%), Palos Heights (22.5%), Green Oaks-Libertyville (20.6%), Westmont (20.0%), Roselle (19.7%), Elmwood Park (19.6%), Wauconda and Bensenville (both 19.3%), Bloomingdale (18.7%), Keeneyville-St. Charles (18.2%), Downers Grove (17.1%) and Des Plaines (15.3%).
Meanwhile, attached sales were up 17.4% year over year during April, hitting 1,308 sales as sales prices increased 14.7%, hitting a median of $263,250.