Market Update · August 2026

Chicago Leads the Nation in Prices. Price Yours Conservatively Anyway.

In early July the Chicago Tribune described open houses with eighty pairs of shoes at the door, three or four offers by dinnertime, and buyers routinely paying over asking. One broker called demand “insatiable.” That was an accurate description of the July market. Six weeks later the weekly data has moved — and the sellers still pricing on that headline are the ones whose listings are sitting.

First, the part that's still true

Chicago is genuinely exceptional right now, and you are not imagining your leverage as a seller. In the most recent S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data, covering May 2026, Chicago led all twenty tracked metropolitan areas in year-over-year price growth, at 6.9%. The next closest market was New York, at 4.2%. Seven metros posted outright declines. The national index rose just 1.1%. DePaul University's Institute for Housing Studies independently projected July prices in Chicago running about 6% above last year — the same story arriving from a second direction.

The reason is supply, not exuberance. Inside the city there were roughly 3,337 homes listed for sale in May, a 30% drop from a year earlier, with the median sale price up 7.7% to $420,000. Here on the Northside it's tighter still: as of the end of July, 60625 was carrying about 0.9 months of supply in single-family homes. Six months is considered a balanced market. We have less than one.

What the past twelve months rewarded

Look at what actually happened to homes that sold in 60625 over the trailing year, and the picture is emphatic:

• 25 days. Average market time for a closed single-family sale — down from 45 days in early 2023.
• 103.6% of original list price. The average closed sale finished above the seller's first asking price. In early 2023 that figure was 98.9%, meaning sellers were taking slightly less than they asked.
• Inventory down by two thirds. Roughly 30 homes for sale in January 2023; about 10 now.
• New listings down 37%. An annualized 274 in early 2023 versus 173 today.

Read that second figure again, because it is the single most useful number a seller has this year. Over the past twelve months, sellers who priced sensibly were bid past their own number.

Then August happened

Those are trailing figures, covering a year that was mostly very strong. The current week looks different. Altos Research publishes a Market Action Index that gauges buyer demand against available supply — above 30 is seller's territory, and higher means hotter. In 60625, that index has fallen from 77 to 59 in a single month. Still firmly a seller's market. Moving in one direction.

Underneath it, the active listings tell the same story. Homes currently sitting unsold in 60625 have been on the market an average of 82 days. Roughly 44% have been relisted. Not one has raised its price. Nationally, Compass Chief Economist Mike Simonsen — whose Altos data drives these weekly reads — reported in mid-August that 41.4% of active listings had cut their price, still climbing, which he called a clear signal that buyers are becoming more cautious. Mortgage rates are hovering around 6.7%, and pending sales nationally have flattened against last year.

Why prices are up is not what most sellers think

Here is the distinction that matters. Chicago's price growth is a scarcity number, not an enthusiasm number. Prices are climbing because there is almost nothing to buy — owners sitting on 3% mortgages have no reason to list, and new construction hasn't filled the gap. That is a very different market from one where buyers are competing eagerly, and it calls for a different pricing strategy.

Buyers, meanwhile, are cautious. Geoff Smith, who directs DePaul's Institute for Housing Studies, put it plainly in that same Tribune piece: there is still a great deal of economic uncertainty and inflation, which could affect demand. Nervous buyers don't stop buying. They concentrate. They pile into the listings that feel like sure bets and leave everything else alone — which is precisely how you get packed open houses and 82-day listings in the same neighborhood in the same month.

Price for what your home actually is

A sure bet is not a perfect house. Buyers in this market are picky about finishes, but they will happily take on a project — they simply won't take on a project priced as though it were finished. The same holds for location, for a difficult floor plan, for a small yard. A sure bet is a home priced honestly for what it actually is, compromises included. Buyers will forgive nearly anything except a price that pretends the compromises aren't there.

Which brings us to the advice that sounds backwards, and isn't: price low and let the market tell you what your home is worth.

Every seller hears that as an instruction to leave money on the table. It is the opposite. You are not accepting less — you are refusing to guess. An aggressive list price does not capture a premium; it prevents the competition that creates one. It thins the open house, delays the first offer, and starts the clock that turns into a price cut, a relist, and a stale listing that buyers scroll past. The evidence sits in the figures above: 103.6% of original list is what happens when you let buyers set the number, and 82 days with a 44% relist rate is what happens when you set it for them.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. In this business it's more specific than that: you never get a second chance to come new on the market. The first two weeks are when your listing has the full attention of every serious buyer — the ones with saved searches, the ones whose agents call the moment something fits their criteria. That window is the only time real competition can happen, and it does not come back. Spend it proving you're overpriced and you'll be cutting the price for an audience that has already scrolled past. That 44% relist rate is the sound of sellers trying to buy the moment back. It doesn't work the same way twice.

At the end of the day, a home is worth exactly what a ready, willing and able buyer will pay for it. Your list price is not a valuation. It's an invitation.