Evanston Illinois and Chicago real estate listings, home buying, selling and relocation information

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--Beth & Andy

Market Analysis: May, 2008

Things are looking up (generally) from the April 2007 market�at least for single family homes where contracts exceeded those of last April significantly, by 45%, and the jump in contracts from March to April of this year was identical�meaning that this year�s March was similar to last year�s April and I have to assume that that is a good sign. Overall, we�re seeing a slow but steady increase in the number of contracts written on single family homes; however, based on what�s been contracted so far in May, I�m not confident we�ll get quite to the numbers we saw in May & June of last year. The other side of the equation, new listings, offers numbers that are increasing from month to month as sellers enter the optimism fray--but rates of entry should settle down some in June or July.

Condos didn�t fare so well compared to April 2007, with contracts written down 20%. However, from a relative temporal perspective, April far exceeded March, with a huge 60% leap in the number of contract written (from 41 to 65). Hallelujah! Of course, additions to inventory remains high but stable, with somewhere around 150 new listings being added every month, but that too will hopefully stabilize in the next couple of months�at least if history is any indicator. May is looking to hold its own, but it�s not clear to me that the condo market is much improved from last year and that�s a little worrisome.

Absorption rates are still hovering around 15 months for condos and 5-10 months for single family homes, and overall, that's a good sign. Remember the days of 24 months of inventory for condos? And just hope you don't have a home to sell in the $800k-$900k range or a condo in the mid ($400k-$500k) or upper ends. Let's just be glad that that dynamic statistic has changed for the better and that the trend continues!

One noticeable difference in the past couple months is the increase in the number of cancel/re-lists on both condos and single family homes. While there is always some modest rate of cancel/re-lists, I believe the recent spike is largely due to an artifact of the merger between our two MLSes that does not carry over cumulative market time on new listing sheets. This means that cancels/re-lists come on the market with a market time of zero days. So if you�re interested in knowing the ACTUAL market time of a property, you�ll need your agent to do a little more research into the property listing history. Why this field wouldn�t map into the merged database completely escapes me, and I have to say, this new �broker-owned� MLS is a bit of a disappointment, in my opinion.

I cannot, unfortunately, suggest that our overall inventory pool is going to be decreasing any time soon�especially as long as the mortgage market remains in crisis. With home equity lines still virtually impossible to secure and the fact that Cook County is considered a �declining� market, there�s a whole segment of buyer (and not necessarily risky buyers, IMHO) that has been knocked out of the home shopping market. For the time being, at least. But as the Quakers like to say �to every season, turn, turn, turn� and sho nuff, let�s hope this is the bottom of the brimstone pit and that things will only look up from here. Even the WSJ agrees with me on that one.