As a follow up to last week’s post on the Chicago’s hottest condo neighborhoods I’m posting today on the 4 hottest single family home neighborhoods. I’m using the same basic methodology that I used last week except the transaction volume for single family homes is much lower than the transaction volume for condos. Therefore, it was much harder to identify neighborhoods with clear trends. Many neighborhoods were excluded simply because I could not discern a clear trend in light of the limited transaction volume, though I don’t think those neighborhoods are particularly strong anyway.
Nevertheless, 4 neighborhoods did emerge as remarkably strong and I’m showing them below in reverse order. But first I do want to put a few caveats out there:
- Please note that average home prices going up by x% is not the same thing as home prices rising by x%. The average is affected by the mix of what is sold so it can’t be relied upon to give any insight into what prices are doing.
- The graphs below have expanded scales so they are deceptive. You can’t visually compare one graph to another because the Y axes all start at different levels. I hate this but how the software creates these graphs is beyond my control.
#4 – Logan Square Average Home Prices Up 18.7% In The Last Year
As in most parts of the city the average price of homes that were selling in Logan Square fell quite a bit over the last few years, reaching a low in April 2012. In the 2 years since then average selling prices have risen by more than 37%.
#3 Irving Park Up 20.2% In The Last Year
Irving Park bottomed out in July 2011. Since then average home prices are up 35%. Although the total recovery is greater than Logan Square it appears to be progressing somewhat slower.
#2 Albany Park Up 21.7% In The Last Year
Albany Park bottomed in February 2012 and has since recovered a total of 35%, a bit faster than Irving Park.
#1 West Town Up 25.2% In The Last Year
As I’ve posted over the last year West Town, and Ukrainian and East Village in particular, are absolutely on fire with small, old homes being torn down to make way for brand new construction priced around $1 MM. The result is clear in the data. Although December 2012 was not the bottom for West Town it did mark a real turning point. In the 14 months since then average selling prices have rocketed up by over 27.4%. And living in East Village, I can confirm that this definitely reflects a higher mix of more expensive homes being sold, though home prices in the area have also gone up quite a bit.
And here is a side by side comparison of the 4 neighborhoods along several key dimensions courtesy of FindTheBest:
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