Regional Spotlight—Home prices in the seven-county metropolitan Chicago real estate market continued demonstrating upward momentum even as January’s challenging weather and a further tightening in the supply of homes for sale helped slow the pace of sales, according to an analysis by RE/MAX. Compared to the results for January 2013, the median sales price of all attached and detached homes rose 18 percent last month to $165,000, while the number of homes changing hands dipped 8 percent to 5,709 units.
The average number of days those homes sold in January spent on the market before going under contract was 107, or 35 days less than a year earlier. Meanwhile, the inventory of homes listed for sale continued to tighten, falling to 28,774 at the end of January. That is down 1 percent from the prior month and 16 percent from January 2013. The RE/MAX analysis is based on home-sale data gathered by MRED LLC, the regional multiple listing service.
Sales of distressed properties, a category that includes foreclosures and short sales, accounted for 42 percent of January sales this year compared to 49 percent last year. Distressed sales tend to peak as a percentage of total sales during the winter months. Foreclosed properties alone accounted for 31 percent of all January home sales. The median sales price for a foreclosure was $87,000, 15 percent more than a year ago.
Among the seven metro counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will, six saw the median home sales price rise in January.
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