S&P Dow Jones released the February CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price indices this morning for the Chicago area and 19 other major metro areas. Of course, this reflects the real estate market pre-Covid 19 but the indices showed decent year over year home price appreciation of 4.2% for the nation as a whole. But not so much for the Chicago area, which remained in last place with a mere 0.7% appreciation. At least that was up from January’s 0.5% appreciation rate.

For perspective, New York was in second to last place with 1.5% appreciation and first place went to Phoenix with 7.5% appreciation. So the Chicago area really sucked but I guess that’s actually good for home buyers.

The graph below really highlights just how far Chicago’s home price appreciation has fallen in the last couple of years and, in particular, condo prices have now registered two consecutive months of year over year declines with February’s 0.2% decline.

Chicago area single family home prices have shown annual gains for 88 consecutive months but condo prices fell once again

Case Shiller Chicago Area Home Price Index By Month

The graph below shows the actual Case Shiller Chicago index numbers going back to 1987 for single family homes and going back to 1995 for condos. I’ve also added a red trendline based upon single family home prices prior to the real estate bubble. In February single family home prices rose by 0.2% after several months of seasonal decline. Condo prices are also climbing out of the seasonal slump with a 0.1% gain.

Unlike most parts of the country the Chicago area is still far from recapturing the bubble peak. Single family home prices are 15.4% below their peak while condo prices are still down 8.9%. However, there has been significant progress from the bottom. Single family home prices have gained 38.7% and condo prices are up 50.8%. Unfortunately, it looks like prices are plateauing and certainly won’t be helped by the invisible enemy terrorizing us. We’re nowhere near returning to our trendline. In fact, we fall short by 29.5%.

For another historical perspective consider that single family home prices where higher than where they are now for the entire period from June 2004 – November 2008 and condo prices were higher from April 2005 – December 2008.

The Chicago real estate market still has a long way to go before catching up to bubble peak prices.

#CaseShiller #ChicagoHomePrices #HomePrices

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.