On Tuesday I posted my usual monthly Chicago real estate market update which showed just how hard June home sales were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic – down 27.4% from last year. But take a close look at the second graph in that update which shows contract activity, a leading indicator of home sales. It’s way higher than normal for a June and it looks more like a March or April based on previous years. If we don’t believe that people permanently cancelled their plans to move because of a little ole potentially lethal virus then it’s quite possible that demand this year simply got shifted out by 2 – 3 months. Let’s look at a few other metrics that might shed some additional light on this subject.

For instance, check out Illinois showing activity so far this year compared to last year. You can see how it died off as people started sheltering in place but then has gradually come back since. Lately we have been running ahead of this same time last year. The July 4 weekend sorta messed up the comparison because showings dropped of for the holiday but before that weekend there was no sign of last year’s seasonal dropoff. I’m betting it won’t happen for a while longer this year. The graph really does look like it’s shifted to the right.

Although showing activity got decimated during stay-at-home orders it’s come back strong and is now exceeding last year’s levels.

I also looked at new listing activity but won’t bother to show you the graph because it’s not that interesting. We all know that there has been a real shortage of new listings through this pandemic but I’m not seeing any evidence of them coming back like showing activity or contracts. In fact, June new listings were essentially flat to last year. But single family homes and condos/ townhomes are two separate markets. Most recently we’re seeing a significant increase in new listings for condos over last year but those are being entirely offset by a decline in single family home listings.

As I’ve been saying…it’s a very strange market lately and, for the time being, it’s favoring home sellers.

#RealEstate #ChicagoRealEstate #Coronavirus

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.