Want to skip straight to the data? Scroll Down or Click on Town Name!

Evanston | Glencoe | Glenview | Kenilworth | Northfield | Northbrook | Wilmette | Winnetka

Each day the media reports more news about inflation, interest rates and a housing downturn. What is really happening in the Chicago North Shore real estate market? We are carefully tracking data for our North Shore towns so that we can immediately know how the local market may be shifting. This month we focus on inventory levels with some recent historic perspective.

Over the past 2 1/2 years or so, there has been a steady increase in interest rates which has exacerbated the inventory issue. Homeowners with low rates (about 60% of mortgage holders have rates below 4%) do not want to give them up unless they absolutely have to! Add to that - feelings of uncertainty with the election and economy, as well as changes to the real estate industry that went into effect on August 17 of this year - and many owners are staying put!

This keeps inventory low with all towns, except Glenview, reporting a lower number of homes for sale over August 2023. Note - that on a yearly basis, however, the number of Glenview homes for sale is still down - it's just that August saw a little bump in inventory over last year!

With low supply and adequate demand (yes, some buyers are sitting it out - but plenty are still in the game), prices continue to appreciate. Appreciation has slowed a bit, but it is still there for all towns except Kenilworth (but its small sample size undoubtedly skewed those results).

There is a lot of cash in the marketplace, making it even harder for young homebuyers to compete. Condos and townhomes have even higher levels of cash buyers since many downsizers (with loads of equity from recent home sales) and investors are likely purchasers.

Winnetka had the highest level of cash buyers with 52% of single family homes closing with cash, and 70% of attached homes closing with cash. Note: that these stats only include homes that closed with NO mortgage. A significant number of buyers will waive the mortgage contingency when offering on a home (and effectively make an offer similar to cash), but close with a mortgage. We are unable to capture these homebuyers in our stats.

We are still experiencing historically low levels of inventory in most areas. Many areas have stabilized and inventory has not continued to decrease (and in some instances has slightly improved), but not enough to make a meaningful impact for buyers.

In some cases, like Glenview and Winnetka, inventory is just 10% of where it was in 2008 at the time of the housing crash!

As of this writing, the Fed just announced it first rate cut in nearly 4 years and it was a significant one at 50 basis points! This will, hopefully, improve affordability for buyers and likely spur additional demand in the marketplace. Whether some sellers feel inspired to sell (those who don't need a mortgage may feel so inclined in order to capitalize on better buyer affordability), remains to be seen!

Note: "cash deals" refers to the percentage of single family home closings from 9/18/23-9/18/24 that closed as a cash deal in MRED. This does not include the number of contracts written as "cash, mortgage allowed", which effectively waives the mortgage contingency.