By Don DeBat

29-Jan-25 – Chill Arctic winds may be blowing in Chicago in January, but Chicago’s North Side housing market posted a hot and vibrant fourth quarter in 2024.

Despite the ongoing shortage of homes for sale, and year-end mortgage-rate creep, both unit sales and the median sales price delivered double-digit gains.

During the fourth quarter of 2024, North Side home sales totaled 1,728 units – 11.8 percent more than during the same quarter of the prior year. That led directly to an increase of 2.7 percent in unit sales for the full year, which saw a total of 8,539 units change hands.

The median sales price of North Side homes sold in the final quarter of 2024 rose a robust 13 percent to $425,000, while for the full year, the median price climbed 7.7 percent to $419,000, reported Mary Jo Nathan of Baird & Warner’s North Center office at 4037 North Damen Avenue.

Nathan prepares the quarterly Chicago North Side Market Report that tracks sales of homes, condominiums, and townhouses in the neighborhoods of Edgewater, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, Near North/Gold Coast, North Center, Rogers Park, Uptown, and West Ridge.

“Certainly, a dearth of inventory continues to hobble market activity and frustrate home shoppers, but with interest rates falling during the second half of 2024, the North Side market was able to generate improved results,” noted Nathan (left).

“And that was true for Chicago as a whole. Citywide, sales were up 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter to 4,841 units, and the median sales price gained a solid 9.4 percent to $350,000,” she said.

However, over the past six weeks, 30-year fixed mortgage rates have inched back up to the 7 percent bracket, casting a future cloud over the early 2025 market.

On January 23, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey reported that benchmark 30-year fixed-rate loans averaged 6.96 percent nationwide. A year ago, they averaged 6.69 percent. The survey is focused on conventional, conforming, fully amortizing home purchase loans for borrowers who place a 20 percent down payment and have excellent credit.

Condos and townhouses are hot

Attached homes, which consist primarily of townhouses and condominiums, accounted for 90.3 percent of all North Side home sales in 2024, and 90.6 percent in the fourth quarter when 1,565 sales were completed, 13.2 percent more than during the same three months of 2023.

Citywide, sales of attached homes rose 9.8 percent to 2,844 units for the fourth quarter. Attached sales on the North Side rose 2.1 percent for the full year but were down 0.2 percent citywide.

“The median price of a North Side condo or townhouse rose 12.9 percent in the fourth quarter to $395,000, which is the highest quarterly median price ever reported for this market,” Nathan said. The median sales price for all attached homes sold on the North Side in 2024 rose 6.9 percent to $385,000. The average time an attached listing took to find a buyer was 63 days – five days more than in the comparable quarter of 2023.

Attached sales rose in six of the nine North Side neighborhoods during the fourth quarter.

Those gains were led by increases of 29.2 percent in Lincoln Park (right), 20.9 percent in Edgewater, and 18.5 percent in Near North/Gold Coast, which is by far Chicago’s largest market for attached homes.

The largest sales decline was -8.2 percent in West Ridge.

The median sales price for condos and townhouses rose in six of the nine community areas during the fourth quarter, including hefty gains of 38.3 percent in Lincoln Square and 21.9 percent in Edgewater. A 16.1 percent gain was posted in Uptown, 15.4 percent in Near North/Gold Coast, 11.4 percent in North Center, and 7.5 percent in Lakeview.

Detached single-family home sales flat for two years

There were 163 detached homes sold across the North Side in the fourth quarter, unchanged from the same period in both 2023 and 2022. The median sales price of $1.22 million was 1.7 percent higher than the same quarter of 2023. The average market time was 66 days, up from 56 days a year earlier.

For all of 2024, sales of detached home sales totaled 825 units, a 9.4 percent increase from 2023, and the median sales price gained 1.8 percent to $1.275 million.

Five neighborhoods recorded increases in detached home sales during the fourth quarter.

Uptown (left) saw sales rise a whopping 300 percent to 12 units, and Near North/Gold Coast posted a 100 percent increase to six units.

Other gains were in Lincoln Square, up 31.3 percent to 21 units, Rogers Park, up 16.7 percent to seven units, and Edgewater, up 7.1 percent to 15 units.

Sales were unchanged in Lincoln Park at 36 units and fell 18.5 percent in West Ridge, 21.7 percent in Lakeview, and 25.7 percent in North Center.

Median sales prices for detached homes rose in six neighborhoods during the fourth quarter but declined in what are traditionally the three most expensive communities for such properties.

The top median-price gainers were Uptown, up 61.9 percent, Rogers Park, up 22.5 percent, and North Center, up 18 percent. The median was also up 16.5 percent in West Ridge, 8.5 percent in Lincoln Square, and 5.5 percent in Edgewater.

The Near North/Gold Coast saw the sharpest decline, a whopping -40.1 percent, but prices there often fluctuate dramatically because of the low number of mansion and large home sales. Other median price declines for the quarter were -6.2 percent in Lincoln Park and -2.5 percent in Lakeview.