In the nine-county metro area, 10,061 homes sold in November, according to the data, released by Illinois Realtors, a statewide industry group. That’s 31.9 percent more homes than sold in November 2019.
In the city, home sales were up 17.6 percent, to 1,965 transactions.
Similarly, the metro area outpaced the city on home prices. The median price of a home sold in the metro area in November was $269,900, up 12.2 percent from a year ago. In the city, the median sale price was $295,000, up 9.3 percent from a year ago.
Year to date at the end of November, home sales in the metro area were up 6.6 percent from 2019. In the first 11 months of the year, 109,328 homes sold, compared to 102,549 in the same period last year.
City sales have not caught up to 2019. At the end of November, 23,699 homes had sold in Chicago, 2.5 percent below the tally in 2019, 24,325.
The city market has the burden of chilled downtown neighborhoods, where a surfeit of unsold homes is helping to hold down prices.
That sales were up 17.6 percent in the city indicates that although it may be lagging the suburbs, Chicago is doing fine. It “demonstrates that the city remains desirable, and properties of all types are moving in the market,” said Nykea Pippion McGriff, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors and vice president of brokerage services at Coldwell Banker Realty, in prepared comments that accompanied the data.
All four figures—sales volume and prices, in the metro and the city—were lower than the comparable figures for September and October, suggesting that the peak of the post-shutdown real estate frenzy may be behind us.
The Chicago metro area’s housing market outperformed the nation’s in November on both sales volume and price increases. Nationwide, home sales were up 25.8 percent in November from a year ago, according to a separate report from the National Association of Realtors, also released this morning. The median price of homes sold across the country was $310,800, up 14.6 percent from November 2019.
