Chicago ultra-luxury homes for sale down only 4.1% in 3rd quarter

The number of listed Chicago homes for sale priced $3M or higher in the 3rd quarter was down 4.1% from 3rd quarter 2011.^* There were 140 Chicago ultra-luxury homes for sale compared with 146 a year earlier. There were no distressed sales (short sales and foreclosures).

The Chicago ultra-luxury inventory hasn’t dropped nearly as much as the overall luxury market. Recently, I wrote about how Chicago luxury homes for sale reached a 4 year low in the 3rd quarter.

The number of Chicago ultra-luxury homes sold in the 3rd quarter was down 18.8% from a year earlier. There were 13 such sales.

Chicago ultra-luxury home pending sales were down 30.8%. The average days on market for pending sales was up 9.1% at 239 days.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CHICAGO ULTRA-LUXURY HOME BUYERS

It’s still a buyer’s market since inventory levels haven’t changed much and don’t look like they will soon. The inventory of homes priced $5M and higher is actually up 37.5% from a year ago, so there are opportunities to negotiate aggressively in that price range.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CHICAGO ULTRA-LUXURY HOME SELLERS

I don’t recommend selling unless you really need to. With increased competition in the $5M+ market you’ll have to be even more competitive. As always, if your home is priced right when it goes on market, it will sell in a reasonable amount of time. However, ultra-luxury homes do take significantly longer to sell on average than lower priced homes since there is such a small market for them. As mentioned above the average days on market for ultra-luxury homes in the 3rd quarter was 239 days. For all Chicago homes for sale it was only an average of 124 days.

CHICAGO ULTRA-LUXURY HOMES FOR SALE

Click below to see Chicago ultra-luxury homes for sale by price range.

^*Information is based on data from Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED).