Here’s what the Illinois Association of Realtors is going to tell you in about 2 weeks: April sales were really strong compared to last year, with median prices up and distressed sales down as a percent of the total sales. Of course, I don’t pay much attention to median prices because it is NOT an indication of housing prices but rather an indication of the mix of houses sold. And for April, with more non-distressed properties sold, it’s no wonder that median prices rose.
Home sales were up a whopping 19.5% over last year, which had to happen sooner or later because contract activity has been so strong lately. And contract activity remains very strong, up 27% over last year, even after knocking off 20% for contracts likely to fall apart before they can close. For 5 of the 6 last months contract activity has been 22 – 46% above the previous year as shown in the graph below.
Of course, contract activity is not as strong as it was in 2010 when the government decided to pay people to buy homes, but it’s significantly higher than it was in 2009 and 2011.
In April the mix of distressed sales declined to just under 37%, well below last year’s 46% and also below 2009’s level, but it was still above the 2010 levels which were depressed by artificially stimulated home sales.
We maintain a collection of these and other statistics on our Chicago real estate market statistics page.