We're Not Alone

Looking at how 2010 ended in the Chicago real estate market is not that bad, but it isn't great either. Our December median home sales price was $167,850, down 7.8 percent from the same month a year ago. You'll see the Zillow.com data in the picture, that many markets across the country lost a higher percentage than us in the 4th quarter of 2010.

Sales in December were actually up 15 percent from November, which is a little a-typical for the end of the year. However, the 5,204 sales in December were 9.5 percent below the tax-credit driven sales from the same month a year ago.

Many industry experts are talking about inventory, and ours is the lowest in at least three years, at 45,257 units in December. That's 7.1 percent below December of last year, and equates to 8.7 months of supply. That's almost unchanged from last December's 8.5 months of supply. In a balanced housing market, we typically see 4-6 months of supply.

Surprisingly, our December unemployment for Chicago decreased to 8.6 from 8.9 the two previous months. Compared to the 10.6 unemployment rate from the same month last year, we're in better shape. The bad news is that our foreclosure activity picked up again, and we really don't know how long it will take the banks to catch up on previously delayed foreclosure proceedings.

We don't have high hopes for 2011, but we think we'll see modest movement in a positive direction.