Quicker Sales, Rising Prices Remained Dominant Trends for Metro Chicago Real Estate Market in April

CHICAGO - May 21, 2014 - PRLog -- Faster home sales at higher prices continued to be the dominant trend in the metropolitan Chicago real estate market during April, according to an analysis of market activity by RE/MAX.  At the same time, sales of distressed residential properties, through either foreclosure or short sale, declined sharply, suggesting that the housing market has worked through the bulk of these properties.

The median price of all homes sold during April in the seven-county metro Chicago area was $190,000, which was 9 percent higher than in April of last year.  The metro area encompasses Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.  The sharpest price increases were in Kane and Kendall counties, where the median rose 15 percent.  The median price was up 14 percent in Lake County and 12 percent in Chicago.

The average number of days that homes sold in April spent on the market dipped from 128 days last year to 101 days this year, which is the shortest average market time for any spring month since 2006.

A 20 percent decline in the sales of distressed properties was a major factor in producing a 9 percent drop in total unit sales as compared to April of last year.  Distressed properties accounted for 78 percent of the 859-unit decline in sales activity, which fell to 2,709 units compared to 3,382 units a year earlier.  The RE/MAX analysis is based on sales data about attached and detached homes gathered by MRED LLC, the regional multiple listing service.

Rising home prices were evident in the three most populated of the metro counties, Cook, DuPage and Lake.  The median home sales price rose 14 percent in Lake to $212,000, 10 percent in Cook to $190,000 and 9 percent in DuPage to $233,750.  In McHenry County, the median price for April rose 11 percent to $165,000.

Kane County’s median sales price of $175,000 generated its 15 percent increase.   The similar gain in Kendall County resulted from a median price of $180,000.  Will County had a 3 percent dip in its median price, in part because of a shift in sales activity toward attached homes (condo apartments and townhouses), which in suburban areas tend to sell at lower prices than do single-family detached homes.  The number of attached homes sold in Will during April was 12 percent higher than a year earlier, while sales of detached homes rose by 5 percent.

Attached Homes

Sales prices for condos and townhouses continued to rise in April, with the median sales price coming in at $170,000, 21 percent higher than in the same month last year.  Unit sales slipped 4 percent to 3,307 homes.

All seven counties reported an increase in the median sales price. The increases ranged from 54 percent in McHenry to 3 percent in Will.  All counties also experienced a decline in average market time, and that average was less than 100 days in six of the counties, indicating an extremely active market.

Detached Homes

The median sales price of a detached home in the metro Chicago real estate market climbed 8 percent in April to $206,000 from $190,000 in April of last year. Six of seven counties registered an increase in the median price ranging from 13 percent in Kendall to 6 percent in Lake.  Will County posted a 2 percent decline.

The average market time for a detached home was 108 days in April, down from 128 days a year earlier.  Six of the seven metro counties had an average market time of 119 days or less.  Unit sales were down 13 percent to 5,003 homes.

RE/MAX has been the leader in the northern Illinois real estate market since 1989.  The RE/MAX Northern Illinois network, with headquarters in Elgin, Ill., consists of 2,000 sales associates and 100 individually owned and operated RE/MAX offices that provide a full range of residential and commercial brokerage services.  Its www.illinoisproperty.com provides comprehensive information about residential and commercial property for sale in the region.  The northern Illinois network is part of RE/MAX, LLC, a global real estate organization with 90,000+ sales associates in 90+ nations.