Chicago Home Prices Are Outpacing New York, but Buyers Are Chasing Only the Best Homes. What Chicagoland Buyers and Sellers Should Do

Chicago is quietly outrunning the coasts. According to Yahoo Finance, home prices in Chicago are rising faster than prices in New York, and local agents say buyers are competing hard for the best listings. One Gold Coast agent summed it up: people are going crazy over the good ones.

That quote explains the whole story. Chicago is not hot across the board. Well-located, well-kept, correctly priced homes draw several buyers quickly, while dated or overpriced listings sit. The strong price growth in the headlines comes from competition for a small share of the inventory.

The other side is worth knowing too. A recent MoneyLion analysis ranked the Chicago, Naperville and Elgin metro third on its list of the most overvalued housing markets in the country. Both can be true. Measured against local incomes and past trends, prices can look stretched, and demand for the best homes can still outrun supply. For buyers, that means staying disciplined on the average house and moving quickly on the exceptional one.

What Chicago buyers should do. Get fully underwritten before you tour, not just prequalified. Decide your ceiling and your walk-away point ahead of time, because the homes worth competing for rarely last through a weekend. Ask your agent for the recent sales in that specific building or on that block, not a citywide average. When the market is split like this, the citywide number tells you very little about the home in front of you.

What Chicago sellers should take from it. Strong headlines do not lift every listing. Buyers pay for condition, light, layout and location, and they discount deferred maintenance heavily. Pricing in line with recent comparable sales and presenting the home well is what puts a property among the good ones. Overpricing because the news sounds hot is the fastest way to end up in the other group.

The San Diego angle. Our San Diego clients often think of Chicago as the value market, and in dollar terms it still is. Faster price growth there, while parts of coastal Southern California cool this fall, shows that markets move on their own schedules. Buyers relocating between the two cities, or owning property in both, should plan around local data instead of national impressions.

Our team works both markets every day. If you are thinking about a move in Chicagoland or want a clear read on where your home stands, we are glad to walk through the numbers with you.