North Shore Views » North Shore sales trends

New Trier Market Trends

Anne West — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:40:45 +0000

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.

North Shore Market Update: 2011 vs. 2010

Anne West — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:37:29 +0000

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).

North Shore Chicago Market Update: 4th Quarter 2011

Anne West — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:21:36 +0000

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.

North Shore Market Update: November 2011

Anne West — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:20:54 +0000

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

North Shore Market Update: October 2011

Anne West — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:50:22 +0000

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).

North Shore Real Estate Report: January-September 2011

Anne West — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:27:27 +0000

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).

New Trier Home Sales By Price Point

Anne West — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:58:31 +0000

I always harp that real estate is local and you shouldn’t get too worked up about what’s going on nationally or even state-wide when trying to get a handle on the real estate market. But even if you are looking at the data for your local area, you probably need to go deeper and look at it by price band if you want to understand how your own home is affected. Here’s why:

In the last three months (June-August) there have been 270 sales of single family homes in New Trier Township (Wilmette, Winnetka, Kenilworth, Northfield and Glencoe). There are currently 512 active listings. You can divide the sales by the listings to get a good proxy for your odds of selling in the next three months. For all of New Trier the odds of selling in the next 90 days are 52%. But if you look at it by price band, you get quite a different picture. In some cases it’s much rosier but in some cases it’s pretty grim.

The best place to be if you’re a seller in New Trier is in the $700-799K range because your odds of selling in three months are 90%. On the other hand, if you are in the upper brackets (over $2,000,000) you can expect your house to sit for a while if you try to sell. There just aren’t many buyers in that price point these days. The most active price point in New Trier is $1,000,000 to 1,999,999. It had the most sales (85 in the last 90 days), but it’s also the price range with the most inventory, so the odds of selling are 53%.

New Trier Home Sales vs. Active Listings and
Your Odds of Selling in 90 Days

Source: MRED single family homes in New Trier June-August 2011

How can you use this data to your advantage? If you are a seller, you may be able to use this information to set your pricing strategy. For example, let’s say your home is priced at $1,050,000 where your odds of selling are about 53%. If you bring your price down to $999,000 or below, you are now in a band where the odds of selling are 82%.

If you’re a buyer looking in the $700-799,000 range, if you see a house you really like, you’ll want to act quickly to make an offer or it may be gone. Case in point, my client looked at a house in Winnetka priced at $775,000. He liked it but wasn’t quite ready to put in an offer. The house was under contract within four days with multiple offers.

North Shore Market Update: August 2011

Anne West — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:38:06 +0000

Home sales for Chicago’s North Shore were up again in August with a growth of 8% over last year. Median price, however, dropped below $600,000 for the first time.

On a market by market basis, results were mixed. Evanston, which had been showing solid growth in recent months, was down 21% in units and 35% in median price, falling to $397,000. Wilmette, Glenview and Glencoe all showed an increase in units sold, but a decrease in median price. Winnetka was down in units and price. Highland Park showed increases in both units sold and median price for the first time in months.

I’ll give my standard disclaimer here, which is that one month’s data does not always provide a good picture of what’s going on in a market. The numbers can bounce around a lot on a month to month basis. Next month I will post statistics for the 3rd quarter, which will give you a much better idea of the overall health of the market.

North Shore Market Update
August 2011 vs. Year Ago

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

North Shore Market Update: July 2011

Anne West — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:40:09 +0000

Home sales on Chicago’s North Shore were up 27% in July over last year. That’s good news, especially since, through June, sales were down 11%. There was a tax credit in place through June of last year, so it’s not at all surprising that this year would not compare favorably. Just nice to see that things are bouncing back. All nine North Shore communities we track showed positive trends in July, with the strongest performance from Kenilworth (up 100% off of a tiny base) and Lake Forest, which was up 59%. Highland Park, whose trends have been abysmal for some time, even showed a nice increase (+52%) over last year.

The pricing picture was not so rosy. Overall the median price for the North Shore was down 8% from last July. The only communities in positive territory were Lake Forest, Evanston and Kenilworth. A word of caution about looking at one month’s prices too closely: with a limited number of sales in one month, just one or two sales can skew the results. Of all the communities, only Evanston has had consistently improving price trends this year.

Market times for homes that sold have been trending down for some time. The only town whose market time increased in July was Evanston, but it has among the shortest market times, at 112 days or just under four months. Days on market can sometimes mislead, as languishing listings are often taken off the market and then re-listed, which starts the cycle over. But in general, as prices have come more in line with buyers’ expectations, houses are selling faster. We are seeing multiple offer situations quite frequently and when homes are priced correctly, they sell quickly.

North Shore Market Update
July 2011 vs. Year Ago

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

Wondering what your home is worth in today’s market? You can get a quick, over-the-net home evaluation here.

North Shore Market Update: 1st Half 2011

Anne West — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 01:54:37 +0000

North Shore Chicago home sales for the first half of 2011 were down 11% over last year. Seems pretty negative, but there’s a good explanation, which is that there was a home buyer tax credit in effect during the first half of 2010, and this gave the market a pretty substantial boost last year. Better news is that prices are up 4% this year and time on market is down 6%.

As for individual towns, only Winnetka, Kenilworth and Glencoe posted sales gains, and Glencoe’s was a whopping 53% (from 47 homes sold in 2010 to 72 in 2011). What drove that increase? Lots more sales at every price point: 5 more homes sold under $500,000, 8 more between $500,000 and $999,000, 9 more between $1,000,000 and $1,999,999 and 3 more over $2,000,000. Highland Park continues to have the weakest trends, declining 27% in the first half.

Price trends were mostly in positive territory, except for Winnetka (-8%) and Highland Park (-7%).

Wilmette market time was the shortest at 143 days (under 5 months), followed by Evanston with 153 days. Northfield and Lake Forest had the longest market time, at 316 days and 281 days, respectively.

North Shore Market Update
1st Half 2011 vs. Year Ago

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