Case-Shiller: Chicago Home Now Rewound Back to 2002

It’s time once again for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI).

For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – February data is released in April).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Chicago area* as of February:

February 2009
Month to Month: Down 3.4%
Year to Year: Down 17.6%
Change from Peak: Down 25.1% in 29 months

The following chart shows the Chicago area HPI scaled such that the September 2006 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Chicago area HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (December 2002).

February’s drop in prices backed off slightly from the record high set in January, though it still exceeded the drops seen in November and December on a percentage basis. As of February home prices in Chicago have now “rewound” just over six years.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare the Chicago area’s performance to other areas across the country:

And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

The total price drop in Chicago continued to nudge closer to the path set ten months ago in San Diego, and four months ago in DC. All three markets seem to be tracking fairly close to the Composite-20 index.

*[Case-Shiller defines Chicago as the entire Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL Metropolitan Division, which includes all of the following counties: Cook IL, DeKalb IL, Du Page IL, Grundy IL, Kane IL, Kendal IL, McHenry IL, and Will IL.]

Biggest Discounts April Update

Time for another update on where buyers are currently getting the biggest discounts off asking price. Our goal in sharing this data is to help potential buyers to know which neighborhoods are softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, to better equip you when making an offer, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the chart below, we have taken all sales data from the last two months in the Chicago area and sorted it by zip code. We calculated the overall difference between the sale price and the list price. Note that this reflects the final list price, after all price drops in the listing. Any zips with fewer than ten sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings, but interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

For a quick look at where a given zip code is located, just type it into the Redfin search box, or drop by the handy USNaviguide.com zip code map.

Here are the top ten zip codes with the largest overall discount:

At 6.1%, the overall discount for the Chicago area came in slightly lower than last month’s 6.4%. #1 and #2 swapped places from last month, with 60426 dropping from a nearly 24% discount to “just” a 17% average discount, and 60636 holding steady around 20% off.

Here are the ten zip codes with the smallest discounts:

Of the 3,491 sales we tracked in the 1.5-month period, 291 homes sold for 20% or more off the asking price, while 478 homes sold for more than asking.

We’ve been tracking the discount trend for six months now, and have seen Chicago’s overall discount bounce between 3.8% off and 6.4% off. It will be interesting to see what the spring and summer bring to these stats.

Redfin By The Numbers, March Edition: Everybody’s Touring Homes

We’re kicking off a new series on Chicago Sweet Digs called Redfin By The Numbers. In this series, we’ll take a look at our brokerage stats to see how what our clients are doing right now reflects what’s happening in the market.

Let’s take a look at Redfin’s March numbers from Chicago.

Our Clients Love Our Fanatical Service

We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in March from our Chicago clients:

• 5 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, up from 3 in February.
• All 5 of those clients, or 100%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, the same rate from February.

In these surveys, Redfin asks customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.

People Are Kicking Tires

In March, our Chicago clients were busy seeing homes and making offers:

• Redfin clients toured 434 homes in March, double the number of homes toured in February.
• Our clients made 16 signed offers on homes, up from 15* in February.
  o Greg Whelan: 12
  o Mark Reitman: 4
• 2 of those offers were on bank-owned foreclosures, the same number from February.

*In the previous post with the February numbers, we reported the number of unsigned offers we received from Redfin clients. Starting with this post, we’re tracking the number of signed offers our clients submitted to listing agents.

We had a great home-buying class in March. About 23 people came to Goose Island Brewpub in Chicago to learn about the home-buying process and meet our agents. There were a lot of questions about the first-time home-buyer tax credit. You can check out the slide deck from that class.

It’s Taking 38 Days To Close On A Home

In March, the time it took our Chicago clients to close on their homes was slightly shorter than in February:

• For our clients who bought re-sales, the average time from initial agreement on terms to the close of the deal was 38 days, down from 41 days in February.
• All of our clients successfully financed their homes; in February 1 deal failed to get financing.
• 2 deals failed the home inspection, down from 3 in February.
• Of our closed deals, the average discount off list price for homes sold was 3.48%, down from 5.98% in February.

Look For Our April Report

We’ll be back next month with a report on what happened in April. What numbers would you like to see in our April report?

Redfin Open House on Sunday: Logan Square Condo

Get all the details on this Logan Square condo and the neighborhood from the seller’s comments.

Open Sunday, April 5 from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.

2734 N Kimball Ave #3 $285,000