Your Windy City Guide

Several news sources are reporting that home sales are still sliding throughout the US and in Chicago specifically.  Your guide wanted to examine the data more closely to parse out the information for some of our popular Chicago neighborhoods.

The news sources pretty much all reported in unison the same info.  This one from Zillow:

According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, home values in Chicago decreased 14.3% in the first quarter of 2009, compared to the first quarter of 2008.  Nationally, home values decreased 14.2% during this same period.

From the map below, the same information is displayed graphically.  But Chicago is a pretty big place.

And from Tuesday’s Case-Schiller Home Price Index, as reported over at YoChicago.com:

Chicago home values:

• Year-over-year: -18.6 percent
• Quarter-on-quarter: -10.8 percent (-11.2 percent)
• Month-to-month: -3.1 percent (-3 percent)

Chicago condo values:

• Year-over-year: -12.7 percent
• Quarter-on-quarter: -7.5 percent (-6.8 percent)
• Month-to-month: -2.2 percent (-2.2 percent)

Ten-city home values:

• Year-over-year: -18.6 percent
• Quarter-on-quarter: -6.6 percent (-5.8 percent)
• Month-to-month: -2.1 percent (-2 percent)

Twenty-city home values:

• Year-over-year: -18.7 percent
• Quarter-on-quarter: -7 percent (-6.2 percent)
• Month-to-month: -2.2 percent (-2.2 percent)

Fortunately, it is possible to drill even deeper into Zillow’s website and find the appreciation/depreciation stats broken down by neighborhood.

As several of my co-workers and I suspected, the headlines don’t tell the whole story.

In the neighborhood breakdown above, the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park essentially stayed flat or had just a smidge of appreciation.

And to the north, Lakeview, Uptown, and North Center neighborhoods had values decrease only slightly.

The same appears to hold true for the Loop, the Near South Side, and several other near downtown neighborhoods.

Sellers, if you are getting offers on your property listed for sale (hopefully with a pro like your guide) be sure you have the stats for your neighborhood.  Because buyers that are in the marketplace are certainly going to be using these stats in their negotiations on property they make an offer on.

Links by request:

Zillow Real Estate Market Reports

Lots of Charts at Zillow

Appreciation Map of Home Values at Zillow

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