North Shore Views

Avoca Home Sales in Winnetka – 2011

There is one small part of Winnetka that does not attend District 36 schools and that is the unincorporated area that includes Woodley Road, Woodley Woods and part of Indian Hill. Most of this area is served by Avoca District 37 (and another small part of Indian Hill is served by Wilmette District 39, just to further confuse you). These are neighborhoods with expensive homes, as you can see by the average prices below, but not all of Avoca is this pricey. In fact, Avoca’s service area also includes parts of Glenview, Northfield and Wilmette, which tend to have more modest housing stock than the Winnetka part of the district.

Avoca Home Sales in Winnetka – 2011 vs. 2010

Source: MRED llc- Single family home data – Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Tags: Avoca District 37, North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends

Romona Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

The most affordable of Wilmette’s neighborhoods, the Romona School neighborhood had the biggest sales increase (+8%) in 2011. It also suffered the biggest decline in home prices, with a median selling price of $350,000 and an average selling price of $420,824 for 2011. Market time jumped in the last year, to 93 days or three months. Four of the homes sold were short sales and one was a foreclosure.

Source: MRED llc – Data for single family homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Related articles:

• Harper Neighborhood Home Sales

• McKenzie Neighborhood Home Sales

• East Wilmette (Central School) Neighborhood Home Sales

Tags: North Shore real estate trends, Romona School, Wilmette neighborhoods

Harper Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

Sales activity in the Harper neighborhood was down in 2011 vs. 2010. There were fewer listings on the market and 22% fewer sales. Those that came on the market, and were well-priced and well-presented, sold quickly, which brought the average market time to 72 days (2.4 months), the shortest market time of any of Wilmette’s neighborhoods.

Harper Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

Want to know what your Wilmette neighbor’s house sold for? You can see that here. Want to know what your home is worth in today’s market? Give us a call at 847-881-6657 and we’d be glad to provide you with a complimentary, no obligation, home value analysis. Or you can get a free, quick, over-the-net evaluation.

Tags: Harper Elementary School, North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends

McKenzie Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

This is second in a series of posts about neighborhood level data for Wilmette. McKenzie neighborhood home sales in 2011 were roughly even with 2010 and 19% higher than 2009. As with Central School, prices declined in 2011, while market time increased by 27% to an average of 89 days or three months.

McKenzie Neighborhood Home Sales – 2011

Source: MRED LLC – Single family homes data. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Want to know what your neighbor’s house sold for? You can see that here. Want to know what your home is worth in today’s market? Give us a call at 847-881-6657 and we’d be glad to provide you with a complimentary, no obligation, home value analysis. Or you can get a free, quick, over-the-net evaluation.

Tags: McKenzie School, North Shore real estate trends, Wilmette neighborhoods

New Trier Market Trends

Here’s a look at the three year real estate trends for New Trier Township. The data is single family homes in Winnetka, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Glencoe and Northfield. It does not include the small part of Glenview that is in New Trier.

While fewer homes sold in December 2011 than December 2010 or 2009, total year home sales of 680 were 5% ahead of 2010 and 32% ahead of 2009.

When it comes to sales price, December’s average price was at its lowest level in two years, down 21% vs. 2010 and down 21% vs. 2009. Year to date the average sales price for New Trier was down 3% while the median price was down 1% from 2010.

Inventories of homes for sale have been declining over the last couple of years, ending 2011 at 350. This was 21% fewer homes than were on the market at the end of  2010 and 27% fewer than at the end of 2009. This equates to an 8 month supply of homes in December, which is an improvement over both 2009 and 2010. (Months supply means how many months it would take to sell all the homes currently on the market, at the current rate of sale). In early 2009 the months supply of inventory reached as high as 32 months. The current 8 months supply is very close to a balanced market (6-7 months), which means neither a seller’s nor a buyer’s market.

The implications of these trends: people are buying houses again, driven by affordability and low interest rates. As a result, inventories of active listings are down, and in some price ranges there isn’t much for buyers to choose from at all. This will change as more homes come on the market in the spring, so if you are planning to sell, now is an ideal time to list your home, before you have much competition. But don’t expect prices to rebound to 2007 levels. It’s going to be a long slow climb out of the trench.

Want to know what your home is worth in today’s market? Give us a call at 847-881-6657 and we’d be glad to provide you with a complimentary, no obligation, home value analysis. Or you can get a free, quick, over-the-net evaluation.

Tags: New Trier Township, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends

North Shore Market Update: 2011 vs. 2010

The other day I posted the market data for 4th quarter 2011. Today I’m taking a look at North Shore stats for the entire year. Home sales were up a modest 1% for the year, while the median price for a single family home on the North Shore dropped 2%. What’s happened is that, over the course of the year, sales have picked up while prices have continued a gradual decline. Looking back at the 1st half of the year, sales were down 11% and prices were up 4% over 1st half 2010, so sales activity has gained some real momentum in the second half of the year.

Glencoe has had a particularly strong year, with volume up 31%. Glenview and Kenilworth also posted gains. Highland Park finished the year behind 4%, but that is actually a good number compared to where it was at the end of June, which was down 27%. Wilmette finished the year down 2%, but that is at least partly due to lack of inventory for sale in the key $600K-$800K price range.

Lake Forest and Kenilworth were the only towns with positive price trends, but keep in mind that Kenilworth is a very small community and the numbers can easily be skewed by one or two large sales.

North Shore Market Update
2011 vs. 2010

Source: MRED LLC – Data for single family detached homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email us with the address of the property and we’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: Home prices, North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends

North Shore Chicago Market Update: 4th Quarter 2011

Given the low level of market activity during the holiday season, I decided to forgo doing an update for December. Instead I opted for a 4th quarter update, which is a better indicator of what’s really going on.

Overall, North Shore home sales increased 3% over last year, driven by stronger sales in Glenview, Lake Forest and Highland Park. Unfortunately, pricing trends were not as positive, as the median price for the North Shore fell 9% from last year, to $500,000. The greatest drop was felt in Northfield (-32%) and Wilmette (-21%). Market time averaged 5.8 months for homes sold in the quarter, down 8% from 2010.

The two bright spots were Glencoe and Highland Park, the only two communities with increases in both sales and median price. In fact, this is probably the best performance we’ve seen for Highland Park in a while. It is the North Shore community that has suffered the most from the market downturn.

North Shore Market Update
4th Quarter 2011 vs. Year Ago

Source: MRED LLC- Data for single family detached homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Tags: Home prices, North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends

North Shore Market Update: November 2011

We continually hear the economists say that we’re in a “bump-along” recovery, meaning that the economy is bumping up and down along a rocky bottom and has not quite turned the corner yet. And that’s just what the numbers are showing us when it comes to North Shore home sales. Last month sales were up and prices were down vs. last year. This month it’s reversed with sales down 14% and prices up 7% vs year ago. The only trend that seems to be consistently improving is market time, which is down to about five and a half months.

North Shore Market Update
November 2011 vs. Year Ago

Source: MRED LLC – Data for single family detached homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email us with the address of the property and we’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends

North Shore Market Update: October 2011

North Shore home sales for October 2011 were 29% ahead of last year, putting year to date sales 2% ahead of last year. All markets showed gains in October except Wilmette and Northfield. Glenview had the strongest performance, with an 85% increase over 2010.

Market time has steadily decreased in recent months and averaged 157 days on market for homes sold in October. Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Glenview and Highland Park were all 150 days or less. Lake Forest is the one market where days on market has consistently stayed around 200 days or more.

While trends for sales activity and market time have improved, median pricing has declined for the last three months. Only Glencoe, Highland Park and Kenilworth (tiny base) showed improvement over October 2010.

North Shore Market Update
October 2011 vs. Year Ago

Source: MRED LLC- Data for single family deatched homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email me with the address of the property and I’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: only if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is not available).

Tags: North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends

North Shore Real Estate Report: January-September 2011

Sales of single family homes on the North Shore were flat for the first nine months vs. year ago. Actually three fewer houses sold this year which rounds to flat. That doesn’t sound very promising but, considering that sales were down 11% through the end of June, this is more positive than it appears. Remember that in first half of 2010 we had the effect of the home buyer tax credit, which we did not have in 2011.  Sales for the July -September quarter were up 19%, bringing us to even for the first three quarters.

The communities driving most of the sales growth this year are Glencoe (+40%), Winnetka (+10%) and Kenilworth (+28%). Glencoe’s strong growth this year followed last’s year’s anemic performance, where it only grew 3% through September of 2010.

The median home price for the North Shore declined 2% for the first three quarters, which isn’t too bad when you compare it to other markets that are still falling more dramatically.

Market time continues to decline across the board indicating that sellers have gotten more realistic in their pricing and buyers are getting off the fence.

North Shore Real Estate Report: January – September 2011

Source: MRED – Data for single family homes. Deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Wondering what your neighbor’s house sold for? Just email me with the address of the property and I’d be happy to send you that information (caveat: I can only access the information if the transaction has closed. Until then the information is confidential).

Tags: North Shore market data, North Shore real estate trends, North Shore sales trends