When Do New Listings Come on the Market in Chicago’s North Shore

When Do New Listings Come on the Market in Chicago’s North Shore?

July 16, 2021

During this past week, two different buyers shopping in the Wilmette housing market have asked how many new listings they should expect to come on the market before the fall. These buyers were concerned it might be slim pickings until next spring. While my gut had a ready answer, I wanted to pull the data to understand the true picture as we often get this question.

The attached chart represents new Wilmette real estate listings, by month, from July 2018 through June 2021. As you can see, Wilmette buyers have historically seen a strong release of new listings through August and, in most years, even an uptick of listings in the month of September.  While 2020 had some unusual patterns due to the pandemic, the late summer/early fall numbers stayed strong.  We expect similar strength in new listings for August and September of 2021.

You may wonder what drives the timing of new listings in the late summer/early fall. Certainly, most sellers “know” the spring market has the most buyers and they target a spring list, but not everyone can pull that off.  Some sellers need to do work and that work gets delayed. Others prefer to spend a final summer in their home before downsizing. Still others, waiting on new construction, find their builder or rehabber is behind schedule. These are just a few of the reasons homes still go on the market in the late summer/early fall..

As a buyer seeking to find a fabulous Wilmette home in 2021, there should still be new inventory coming on this August and September, with an added bonus of less competition (since many buyers will have already committed to a housing situation for the next school year).

With historic limited inventory, you likely want to see every new home as soon as possible. If you’d like to get every new listing from every brokerage, both MLS and PLN (Coming Soon – private listing network homes) as soon as they hit the MLS, as well as the listings we learn about through our various networks, please reach out so we can set you up on a real-time search and put our networks to work for you!