The American real estate market is a Baked Alaska
The American real estate market is a Baked Alaska. You know the delicious and classic dessert cake- hot meringue on the outside and cold ice cream inside. Chicago is the meringue and the rest of the USA is the ice cream.
The Meringue. Price Growth of Chicago homes is 3x Rest of USA.
The median price of homes sold in Chicago during the month of August was $378,000, an increase of 5.9% from a year earlier, according to the Illinois Realtors. The median sale price in the nine-county metro area was $375,000, an increase of 5.6%.
The Meringue. Price Growth of Chicago Homes is 3x Rest of USAThe median price of homes sold in Chicago during the month of August was $378,000, an increase of 5.9% from a year earlier, according to the Illinois Realtors. The median sale price in the nine-county metro area was $375,000, an increase of 5.6%.
Nationwide, the median price of homes sold in August was $422,600, up 2% – only 1/3 of Chicago’s growth.
This follows a pattern for all of 2025, as the rest of the country cools, Chicago keeps baking. Recall in May 2025, prices here rose four times as much as the rest of the country.
The Case-Shiller Index for July confirms the same. In July, Chicago-area home values were up by 6.23% from a year ago. Nationwide, prices only grew by 1.68%.
The Ice Cream. Home Prices Nationwide Cool.Case-Shiller data shows a definite cooling nationwide For January, the index reported nationwide home prices were up 4.1% from a year earlier. In each subsequent month, the figure has declined, until the latest data showing a 1.68% increase nationwide in July. That means by July, home prices were growing at less than half the pace they were in January.
The index for Chicago shows growth dipping slightly from 7.5% in January to 6.23% in July
Of the 20 major U.S. metros covered by the index, 15 had lower price growth in July than in June.
Chicago stays toasty, as home price growth has been consistently above 6% in each of the first eight months of 2025.
Maybe Chicago is The Ice Cream! Home Sales Way Down.Fewer homes sold in August in both the city and the larger metro area than in any August since 2011, a time when the housing market was still climbing out of the 2008 crash.
In the city, 1,920 homes sold in August, down 9.5% from the same time in 2024 and the first time fewer than 2,000 homes sold in August since 2011, when 1,839 homes sold. Typical sales volume in August is 2,500 homes sold.
In the metro area, 8,395 homes sold in August, down 4.3% from August 2024 and the lowest monthly sales volume since August 2011’s 7,347. Typical sales volume in August is more than 10,000 homes sold.
This is an attribute where Chicago trails the nation. The number of homes sold nationwide was up 1.8% in August from a year ago.
WHEN DO WE GET TO EAT IT? |