Chicago Loop condos for sale down, sales & pending way up in 4th quarter

The number of listed Chicago Loop condos for sale in the 4th quarter was down 18.5% from 4th quarter 2011.^* There were 605 Chicago Loop condos for sale compared with 742 a year earlier. The percent of distressed sales (short sales and foreclosures) dropped from 21% of the inventory to 15%.

As shown below, the number of Chicago Loop condos for sale in the 4th quarter set a new a 4 year low. Back in November I wrote about how the number of Chicago Loop condos for sale in the 3rd quarter were down over 30%.

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Quarterly Inventory of Chicago Loop Condos For Sale (red), Under Contract (blue) & Sold (green) 4th Qtr. 2009 - 4th Qtr. 2012 — Quarterly Statistics Chicago Loop Condos 4th Qtr. 2009 - 4th Qtr. 2012

The number of Chicago Loop condos sold in the 4th quarter was up a whopping 54.2% from a year earlier! There were 222 sales. Chicago Loop condos pending (under contract) sales were up 45%, so sales should do well in the 1st quarter. The average days on market for pending sales was down 22%.

The median sale price was up 19%. This is partially due to the drop in distressed sales. The rise in median sale price for normal sales only was 10.4%.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CHICAGO LOOP CONDO BUYERS

With lower inventory you don’t have the choices that you had a year ago. You won’t be able to negotiate as much since there aren’t as many sellers competing against each other. Higher sales show that there are more buyers now for you to compete with.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CHICAGO LOOP CONDO SELLERS

Given that the market appears to be forming a bottom, I don’t recommend selling unless 1. you really need to or 2. you want to move up to a more expensive home. It’s probably come down more in value in the past few years than your current home. As always, if your home is priced right when it goes on market, it will sell in a reasonable amount of time.