We hear a lot of hype about a market slowdown, so we asked Rubloff Residential Properties to analyze data from the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois (which tracks new homes and resales). In 2006, 23,170 condos were sold citywide, down 6 percent from 2005. In the single-family home market, 10,056 single-family homes were sold in Chicago in 2006, a drop of 20 percent from 2005.
Rubloff’s Jim Kinney said the market for detached homes was a more accurate gauge of current trends. Sales of single-family homes often close within months, so a slump in demand is apparent almost immediately. But buyers of new condos often wait as much as two years – while the building is being constructed – before closing on their units, so the data on condo sales doesn’t necessarily fully reflect declining demand, Kinney noted.
Speaking anecdotally, Kinney said that December and January were busier sales months for Rubloff than the company expected. He suspected that buyers who held off purchasing homes last year and waited for the “bubble to burst and prices to drop” are starting to see that the market hasn’t slumped dramatically and will likely start househunting while interest rates remain reasonable. “We are feeling like it will be a fairly good spring market,” he said.