By Don DeBat

6-Nov-23 – The residential real estate market continued its roller coaster ride in the third quarter of 2023, with median resale prices rising sharply in several neighborhoods, according to the North Side Market Report prepared by Mary Jo Nathan of Baird & Warner’s North Center office at 4037 North Damen Avenue.

While the market struggled with extremely low inventory, the report disclosed that median home prices appreciated at double-digit levels in four key neighborhoods:

• Edgewater. Median single-family home prices skyrocketed 45.3 percent to $1.24 million.

• Lincoln Square. Median detached home prices spiked 26.5 percent to $980,000.

• North Center. Median single-family home prices rose 13.1 percent to $1.405 million.

• Lincoln Park and Old Town. Median detached home prices advanced 12 percent to a hefty $2.1 million.

The North Side Market Report tracks home sales in nine community areas: Edgewater, Lake View, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, Near North Side, North Center, Rogers Park, Uptown, and West Ridge.

Median single-family home prices rose 7.4 percent in Uptown to $1.3 million and inched up 4.2 percent in West Ridge to $495,000.

However, median prices plummeted a whopping 53.2 percent in the Gold Coast and on the Near North Side. Median prices fell 12.2 percent in Rogers Park and slipped 6.8 percent in Lake View.

Sales of single-family homes across the North Side totaled 211 units for the quarter, down 18.5 percent from the same period last year. However, detached home sales rose in three neighborhoods: Rogers Park, up 12.5 percent; West Ridge, up 28 percent; and Uptown, up 83.3 percent.

The North Side median home sales price gained 5.8 percent to $1.375 million. That’s the highest median price for the North Side since the report was initiated in 2007.

According to the report, third-quarter 2023 combined sales of detached and attached homes totaled 2,289 units.

“That was a drop of 11.2 percent from the same quarter last year, but much less of a year-over-year decline than the 33 percent drop recorded during the first six months of 2023,” said Nathan (right).

On the bright side, Nathan said sales slowed considerably less in the quarter than they did during the first half of this year.

“While median sales prices trended upwards, they did so at a restrained pace,” she noted.

The third-quarter median sales price for attached and detached homes on the North Side was $385,000, up just 0.8 percent over the same quarter last year. The average time needed to go under contact by a home sold during the quarter was 52 days, one day less than the average a year earlier.

“The inventory shortage continues to worsen,” Nathan disclosed. “North Side inventory was 24.1 percent lower at the end of the third quarter than it was a year earlier, and it was down 60.7 percent from the same point in 2020.”

Homeowners who obtained a rock-bottom 3 percent mortgage in 2021, before rates skyrocketed to the 7 percent-plus bracket this year, now find themselves locked into “golden handcuffs,” according to Nathan. “Their existing low-rate mortgage is dissuading them from moving to a new and more suitable home,” she said.

Nathan noted that the inventory shortage is especially strong in the attached market – condominiums, co-op apartments, and townhouses – where the number of properties for sale as of October 1 of this year was only 1,798 units. That’s a decline of 25.9 percent from a year earlier and down 62 percent from the same point in 2020.

Third-quarter sales of condos, co-ops, and townhouses totaled 2,078 units, a decline of 10.4 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. The median sales price of an attached property during the quarter was $357,000, a gain of 2 percent.

Near North attached sales for the quarter totaled 669 units, down just 3.7 percent from last year and not far below third-quarter sales numbers in 2018 and 2019.

In North Center, attached-home sales volume rose 10.4 percent to 85 units, and the median sales price climbed 9.5 percent to $520,000.

North Side Median Prices – 3Q 2023