We’re more than three quarters into the year, and it’s time for a home stretch recap of real estate market conditions in Edgebrook and Sauganash. To put the current market conditions somewhat into perspective, I decided to compare the aggregate of the first three quarters of 2007 with those of the two previous years, and I’d like to point out that the current buyers market we’re experiencing, had its humble beginnings some time in the spring of 2006. This analysis accounts for the sale of single family homes only.
Edgebrook:
Amidst reports of tumbling home sales around the country, and even in various neighborhoods of Chicago, the Edgebrook residential real estate market has proven to be quite resilient in 2007, thus far. With 56 homes closed during the first three quarters of this year, sales were ahead of the same time-frame last year (52), and just slightly behind 2005 (58). Incidentally, 2005 could possibly be viewed as the year in which the sellers market finally reached its peak. What put a slight dent into this pretty picture though, was the fact that homes stayed on the market for an average of 137 days before they were sold. Compare this with the first three quarters of 2006 when it took 84 days on average to sell a home in Edgebrook, and worse, only 70 days on average, in 2005. That’s almost twice as long compared to just a couple of years ago.
Longer market times led to a 4% decline of the average sale price vs. last year, bringing it back to the level of the 2005 average sale price. The median sale price though, recorded a new high of $545,000 which represents a 2.25% increase over the last year period, and a 3.7% increase over the first three quarters in 2005.
One of the metrics not shown in these graphs is the ratio of average sale price to final listing price, which stood at 95.1% in the first three quarters of 2007, vs. 96.2% in 2006 and 96.8% in 2005, respectively. Hence, longer market times in 2007 encouraged successful Edgebrook home sellers to adjust their asking prices slightly downward, thereby eliminating the need to accept offers that were substantially below asking. In my view, this is a classic market correction.
Sauganash:
During the first three quarters of 2007, residential real estate market conditions in Sauganash were almost a mirror image of the ones in Edgebrook, in terms of sales rate and market time. A semi-major point of difference between these two markets is the fact that the Sauganash real estate market consists of more condominiums and even more townhouses, as well as more multi-unit buildings than the Edgebrook real estate market. As mentioned above, these two property types (“Attached Type”, in MLS lingo) and multi-unit buildings (2-4 flats) have not been considered in this analysis.
That being said, it took a whopping 149 days on average to sell a single family home in Sauganash during the first 9 months of 2007. During the same time-frame in 2006 this task was limited to 82 days on average, while in 2005, successful Sauganash home sellers walked away with an accepted contract after only 60 days on average. Not unlike in Edgebrook, the relatively long wait to find bona-fide buyers didn’t have any negative influence on the sales rate in Sauganash: 53 homes were closed in the first 9 months of this year, vs. 43 homes last year, and 55 in 2005.
As if completely oblivious to declining home values in most other parts of the country, Chicago’s Sauganash home values have been on the rise. With the exception of a slight hiccup last year, when the average sale price fell to $542,998 from $550,138 the year before in 2005 (a minuscule 1.3% decline), the average sale price in Sauganash has gone nowhere but up: During the first nine months of 2007, it stood at $553,757. Meanwhile, the median sale price of homes in Sauganash has been on a continuous climb. Thus far in 2007 it has been pegged at $520,000, a 2% increase over last year, and a 6.2% increase over 2005. Impressive, given the real estate climate we’re in at the moment. And once again, lending credibility to the old real estate adage of “Location, Location, Location”.
All data are compiled and aggregated from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois.
