There is a running debate over on Cribchatter about whether or not Chicago home prices are past the peak of the housing bubble. The proprietor of that site, who goes by the name Sabrina, claims that prices in Chicago’s most desirable neighborhoods are past the peak. Every so often I’ll analyze a condo building to see if I there is any evidence of this and to date I just haven’t found it. Granted, I haven’t analyzed the buildings that I’ve been told to look at but my first priority is to analyze data that immediately benefits clients. Today I’m sharing with you the results of my deep dive on The Heritage, a premier condo building at 130 N Garland in Chicago’s Loop, and once again I’m not seeing any evidence of Sabrina’s claim.
It’s far easier to get a sense of the general direction of Chicago home prices from large condo buildings like The Heritage than from looking at detached single family homes because these large condo buildings give you lots of data on somewhat similar homes whereas every single detached single family home is pretty much unique in terms of location, size, and level of finishes. And you can normalize for the size of the units by looking at the price per square foot of the units. You can also back out parking to eliminate the effects of differing numbers of parking spaces. I did a similar analysis for The Pinnacle at 21 E Huron earlier this year: Downtown Chicago Condo Prices: Pinnacle Sales History Shows The Rebound.
In the case of The Heritage you have to separate the east facing units from the west facing units because the views are dramatically different. I did just that in the graph below, with the price/SF of the east facing units plotted over time in blue and the west facing units plotted in pink. You can also click on the graph for a larger view.
While there is a decent amount of variation in prices at any given point in time, that is to be expected and you can still see a clear pattern. Prices dipped through late 2011 and have risen since. To me it doesn’t look like prices have quite recovered fully.
#realestate #chicagorealestate #ChicagoHomePrices
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