Chicago home market on upswing (Time: real estate, housing, price)

[Windy City John]

Just in from Illinois Realtor Association

Illinois median sale price off 1.5 percent at $195,000 in October; Chicago median price up 3.1 percent from last year. The median home sale prices rose or remained even in the majority of Illinois counties in October. According to IAR's latest report, the Chicago PMSA median home sale price in October was $250,000, up 3.1 percent from $242,500 in October 2006. Statewide, the median sale price was $195,000 for the month, down 1.5 percent from $198,000 a year ago. The statewide average home sale price in October was $259,031, up 4.5 percent from $247,788 a year ago. The average home sale price for the Chicago PMSA was $328,057, up 9.0 percent from $301,007 in October 2006

[mdz]

How's the number of sales doing YOY? What's the current inventory?

It's nice the median is stable, but "market on the upswing" seems a bit too good to be true yet.

[Windy City John]

Here's more good news!

Real Estate Outlook
by Kenneth R. Harney/ Realty Times

"Maybe it's the beginning of a trend: For the second straight week,
there's been more economic good news for housing and real estate than bad.

Pending home sales -- houses under contract but not yet closed -- rose
by two tenths of a percent in the latest report from the National
Association of Realtors. That's not a lot-but it's the first
directional change in months on this important, forward-looking indicator.

The latest home sale projections for the year are also more positive
than the impression you get from reading the papers. Existing home
sales are now forecast at 5.7 million for 2007 -- making it the fifth
highest sales year on record.

Yes, everybody knows that sales are down significantly in many areas
from the record-setting boom years of 2004 and 2005, but those numbers
were unsustainable and way off the charts."