The Chicago-area housing market shook off some of its early-spring chills last month, but it continued its steady tilt in favor of buyers.
Just over 12,100 homes were sold in the in the nine-county metro area last month, about 3.6 percent fewer than were sold in May 2018, according to the Illinois Association of Realtors. It was the sixth consecutive month with a year-over-year decline in sales, mirroring a wider slowdown in the U.S. housing market.
But the regional market recovered over the first four months of 2019, when home sales consistently fell between 4 and 10 percent year over year. The May sales were enough to give some comfort to brokers who were holding their breath for the crucial spring buying season, according to Tommy Choi, a broker with Keller Williams and president of the Chicago Association of Realtors.
Choi called the market “competitive, but stable,” with low interest rates and relatively affordable prices providing “reason for both buyers and sellers to be encouraged,” according to a press release.
The region’s median home sale price continued to creep up last month, hitting $259,000, a 2 percent increase year over year, according to the report.
The schism between prices and sales numbers was even sharper inside the city, where the median price climbed 3.3 percent year over year to reach $305,000. But fewer than 2,900 homes were sold, a 5 percent decline year over year
Statewide, home sales declined by about 1.3 percent while the median price nudged up by 2 percent to reach $219,000.
The numbers show that Illinois homebuyers are “responding a little more conservatively” than during past years, despite consumer demand growing “more broadly positive nationally,” according Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, director of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois.
Chicago-area brokers got more foreboding news Thursday, when county officials announced that Downtown and North Side homeowners will see their property taxes go up by more than 11 percent this year.