Just a real quick post since I was playing around with a new tool called Agent Metrics that allows us to easily pull up quick and informative statistical information from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois and wanted to share some thoughts about the current Chicago real estate market.
According to information taken concerning October of 2007, the median sales price for a detached home on the MLS was $255,000 and the average sales price was $339,756.In comparison to October of 2006 the median sales price was $261,300 and the average sales price was $325,424.
So.. we have a slight decrease in the median price and an increase in the average sales price. Quite an interesting combination which basically tells us right off hand that the Luxury Chicago real estate market may be pulling up the average sales prices. I'll have to look into this a little closer for the exact explanation.
Inventory for Detached Chicago area Homes available for sale on the MLS:
As you can see, Inventory (Supply) for detached Chicago homes available for sale is starting to add up.
Detached Chicago homes that sold in the month of October on the MLS:
Demand has certainly dropped which generally always means that the Days on Market goes up:
Now, I wish I could take those cool charts and paste them right in here for some interesting viewing and I'll work on accomplishing this but for the time being you are just going to have to use your imagination. It certainly does not take a statistician or an economist to see what is going on.
Inventory is going up, Demand has gone down and the Chicago real estate market is certainly showing no signs of the good old days even though the average sales price for a detached home in the Chicago area (on the MLS anyways) has gone up in average price. It's a very strong indication that the luxury Chicago real estate market is pulling up that average sales price which does not automatically mean that your Chicago home has gone up in value.
According to the neat little bar graph that was supplied for this new tool, here is what we have for Months Supply of Inventory according to these numbers:
Basically, if nobody listed their detached Chicago home or took it off of the market, it would take 13.3 months with the current demand to sell it all. Quite a significant increase from October of 2005.
Is Any of This Important if You want to Sell your Chicago home?
Basically, it is an overall view of detached Chicago homes from the MLS. What might be going on in one suburb could be completely different then another. Just like Market conditions in Las Vegas are certainly different then Chicago. While it's somewhat important to have an understanding of the general Chicago real estate conditions, it's much more important to have a Chicago real estate agent that can break down these numbers for a particular area. Knowing the statistics for your specific area can give you a pretty good idea on how to appropriately price your Chicago home for sale.
Pricing your Chicago home wrong to begin with could be the difference of a long and frustrating process and worse yet, your home not selling at all.
We'll provide a sample break down of the Barrington real estate conditions in a future post or if you would like, we can create a market conditions report specific to your area and all you have to do is contact us. Make sure in the comments you specify your address so we know what area to do.
I know, I said this would be a short post and I intended it to be but I think it's important to throw in some thoughts to help explain what all of these numbers mean.
Let's add some disclosures while we are at it: Information has been taken from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois (MLSNI) and while we deem the information reliable, it is not guaranteed.
Date: 2007-11-12 12:50:09