Home prices are growing by more than twice the national rate.
The difference between figures for Chicago and the nation was larger in March than in the three previous months. In each of those, the city was close to twice the nation — for example, in December, the nation's prices were up 6%, while prices in the Chicago area were up 11.1% — but this is the first time it was more than two times the nation's rate of price growth.
Confirmation of the doubling trend comes from another source, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, a report issued today for February (not for March, which the Illinois Realtors data covers). Home prices in the Chicago metro were up 6.95% in February, according to the index. That was nearly twice the nation's increase of 3.87% that month. Next month's index, covering March, could cross the double line.
Even so, price growth is cooling a little.
The 6.1% increase Illinois Realtors reports for March shows home price growth cooling a bit that month. In the city, the March figure was the lowest since July, when home prices were up 5.9% from a year earlier, and in the metro area, it was the lowest since August, when the median price of homes sold during the month was up 4.4% from the same time a year earlier.
Compared to the intervening months, when prices were up in the 9% and 10% range, March's 6.1% looks far more sustainable, although still intimidating to first-time buyers and others who fear home affordability is racing away from them.
The Illinois Realtors data uses the U.S. Census Bureau definition of the Chicago metro area, which comprises Cook, Lake, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties.
Home sales are down, but not as much as they are nationwide.
Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported home sales nationwide were down 5.9% in March from a year before, which The Wall Street Journal said was the biggest drop since 2022.
In the Chicago area, the drop wasn't so steep. Home sales totaled 6,568 in March, off 4% from the year before, according to Illinois Realtors. That's less dramatic than what occurred last year: Four months in 2024 registered bigger drop-offs in home sales compared to the corresponding months a year earlier.
Sales in Chicago proper are faring better. Within the city limits, 1,812 homes sold in March, an increase of 0.4%, or essentially flat with March 2024.
That's not to cast a completely rosy view of the home sales. Volume is still well below normal, constrained by low inventory, fast-rising prices and interest rates that have stayed relatively high since mid-2022, when the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates in an effort to curb inflation.
The number of homes sold in the Chicago metro area in March was the smallest for the month since 2011, early in the recovery from the 2007-2008 housing bust. In the city limits, aside from March 2024 when it was about even, the March 2025 sales figure was the lowest for the month since 2012.
Sellers are adjusting their expectations as the year progresses.
In late February, the median asking price for Chicago-area homes hit a record high of $377,563, according to the tracker at Redfin's data center. More to the point: Sellers were asking about 7.4% more than they were at the same time a year ago, the highest spread since September, when sellers were asking 9.6% more than a year earlier.
The optimism has tempered a bit, perhaps because of recent fears that President Donald Trump's tariff program will bring on a recession. In late April, Chicago-area sellers were asking 2.67% more than they were at the same time in 2024.
