Once again the Illinois Association of Realtors is putting the spin machine in high gear as homes sales continue to plunge in Illinois and the Chicago area. Very close to my estimate of a week and a half ago, Chicago homes sales in November were officially down 38.5% from last year.
Nevertheless the IAR put the following headline on their release this morning:
Illinois Median Home Price Remains Stable Three Straight Months
Sales Down from a Year Ago
As I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions, the median home price data is totally wortheless anyway since it averages in apples and oranges. What’s even funnier (or sadder) is that in the body of the release they lead with total sales for the year, which are still up slightly. If you are not reading carefully you can easily miss the fact that sales really sucked in November.
However, they missed the real positive story in November, which I pointed out in my earlier post – contract activity was much improved in November vs. recent months. It’s still not exceeding last year’s levels but at least it’s on a par with last year. Hope springs eternal.