Chicago-area homes sell at brisk pace

Activity in the Chicago-area housing market during July reflected the impact of a dwindling supply of homes for sale. Compared to July of last year, closed sales fell 3.5 percent to 11,210 houses, condominiums and townhouses, RE/MAX Northern Illinois reports.

Median sales price gained 4.2 percent to $250,000. Average market time for those homes fell to 66 days, RE/MAX Northern Illinois said.

"What's most remarkable is that the July market time of 66 days is the lowest result for any month since 2005 when we began tracking that data," said Jack Kreider, executive vice president and regional director of RE/MAX Northern Illinois.

"The inventory of homes for sale in the metro Chicago market tends to rise through the first half of the year, peak in July and then fall gradually," Kreider said. "At the end of July there were 34,478 homes for sale, which is 9.6 percent fewer than a year earlier and 18.2 percent less than in July 2015. Not surprisingly, that has restrained the total number of sales even though demand for homes remains strong. Sales this July were only 10 percent lower than in July 2015, while the median sales price was 9.7 percent higher and average market time was 13 days less."

Another factor constraining sales is the shrinking number of distressed properties, a category including foreclosures and short sales.

July saw only 847 distressed sales in the metro area, the lowest monthly total since January 2009 when the surge in distressed properties created by the Great Recession was just beginning.

The decline in inventory has been most pronounced in the detached home category, where the number of listings at the end of July was 10.4 percent lower than a year earlier. In contrast, the inventory of attached homes was down only 7.4 percent, and attached sales rose 1.2 percent for the month.

Sales data used by RE/MAX is collected by MRED, the regional multiple listing service. It covers detached and attached homes in the Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will.

Detached homes are typically stand-alone single-family dwellings. Attached homes include condominium and cooperative apartments along with townhouses.

Among the seven metro counties, only Kane achieved a sales increase in July, and that was just 1.7 percent. The median sales price rose in six of the seven counties. McHenry and Lake, the two counties with the largest percentage declines in sales, also had the largest increases in median sales price.

Sales fell 11 percent in McHenry, but the median price rose 10.3 percent, while sales fell 8.2 percent in Lake, and the median price climbed 7.2 percent.

In the city of Chicago, sales fell 3.2 percent and the median sales price gained 3.5 percent.

Single-family homes

Detached-home sales fell 6.1 percent to 7,047 units in the metro area during July when compared with the same month last year. The median price, however, climbed 4.7 percent to $270,000, which is the highest median price recorded in July since 2007.

Average market time for detached homes sold in July was 76 days, the lowest result for any month since 2005.

Sales activity contracted in six of the seven counties and in Chicago, but was up 2.6 percent in Kane. The median sales price was up in all seven counties and in Chicago, led by gains of 14.3 percent in McHenry and 9.4 percent in Lake.

Attached homes

The attached-home segment of the market was most notable for its low market times in July. In the entire metro area, attached sales averaged 50 days, the lowest average for any month since RE/MAX began tracking that data in 2005. In four counties, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will, the average was under 40 days.

The 1.2 percent increase in attached sales was spread widely, with five counties and the city of Chicago all posting increases, led by a 9.6 percent gain in McHenry and a 5.7 percent increase in Will.

The median sales price gained 5.7 percent to $209,000, with the median rising in six counties and falling just 0.3 percent in Kane. The largest gains were 11.3 percent in Kendall and 10.5 percent in McHenry.

Cook County, where about two-thirds of all attached sales take place, had just a 0.5 percent increase in sales and 4.2 percent gain in the median price, which was $250,000. Attached sales in Chicago were up 0.8 percent, with a median price of $325,000, a 1 percent gain.