It only took the Chicago area 15 years to climb out of the carnage from the housing bubble bursting but it finally happened according to data from S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic released this morning. The August Case Shiller home price indices included the first new record high in Chicago area single family home prices since I’ve been reporting this data. Condo prices came really close to beating their bubble high but they still fell short by 0.2%. Maybe next month?

Sadly, Chicago was the last of the major metro areas tracked by S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic to beat their bubble peak. Both indices are plotted below along with a red trend line for single family home prices based upon pre-bubble data. In order to hit this glorious milestone single family home prices had to climb 64.9% from the bottom of the bust while condo prices have risen 65.1%. However, single family home prices are still lagging that trend line by 20.6%.

The one month change from July was 1.0% for single family home prices and 0.4% for condo prices.

Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI, sees signs in the data that home price appreciation is slowing down across the nation:

In August 2021, the National Composite Index rose 19.84% from year-ago levels, marginally ahead of July’s 19.75% increase. This slowing acceleration was also evident in our 10- and 20-City Composites, which rose 18.6% and 19.7% respectively, modestly less than their rates of gain in July. Price gains were once again broadly distributed, as all 20 cities rose, although in most cases at a slower rate than had been the case a month ago.

Case Shiller Chicago Area Year Over Year Home Price Growth

Before I noticed that area home prices had surpassed the bubble peak I had an alternate headline for this blog post: Chicago Area Home Prices Fall Further Behind Rest Of Nation. You see…the year over year increase in the nation’s home prices was roughly the same in August that it was in July – 19.8%. However, the Chicago area’s home price growth slowed down to 12.7% from 13.1% in July. And once again the Chicago area came in last place out of 20 metro areas. 2nd to last place was Minneapolis with a 14.0% increase.

Condo prices also slowed down with a 3.9% annual increase compared to a 4.5% increase the previous month.

I’ve got the year over year price increases plotted below. The good news is that we’ve now gone 106 consecutive months with year over year price increases. As you can see in the graph that’s actually the norm – except for when the housing bubble burst.

#ChicagoHomePrices #CaseShiller #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.