Inventory continues to decline across the city and suburbs of Chicago and predictably the result is rising price and dropping market time.
The Illinois Association of Realtors released it's numbers for January and existing home sales in the metro fell 5.2 percent from the previous year to a 5,619. The median price rose 8 percent, from $163,000 to $176,000.
In the city, sales fell even more dramatically, by 8.3 percent to 1,295 properties with a median price increase by 11 percent, from $222,000 to $285,000.
As a whole, inventory dropped 2.5 percent for the metro area and 5.4 percent in the city. Marketing times were also down to an average of 72 days in the metro and 61 in the city.
If the price increases don't tempt more sellers into the market, then the situation will only continue to exert upward pressure on prices.
For more, head over to the Chicago Tribune's report here.
And there's another report on the continued housing inventory declines and how it's affecting the price of condos at DNAinfo.
They report that, according to an expect at the University of Illinois, February, March and April will continue to see price increases and that it will likely buoy the economy as homeowners see sales prices rise and unemployment continuing to decline.
For that report, head over here.
Meanwhile, rents are down in the city and older downtown apartment buildings (those too old to be new, but too new to be vintage) are looking to remodel to compete with the rental apartment towers that are coming online.
Zillow said Friday that rents have fallen half a percent in the Chicago area over the last year.
"Chicago did a whole lot of overbuilding during the housing boom," their director of economic research Svenja Gudell told Crain's.
Dialing down into the neighborhoods, however, does show that some have seen rental prices increase, including downtown for the moment.
For that report, head over to Crain's here.
Finally, another apartment tower has officially begun construction in the city's booming West Loop neighborhood.
The new 29-story tower planned for Halsted and Lake is designed by Booth Hansen, developed by Jeff Shapack of Shapack Partners and expected to be completed summer of 2016. It will include 227 rental apartments, 162 parking spaces and 9,700 square feet of ground level retail.
It was issued a permit this week and joins 18 highrises in the city 200 feet or taller currently under construction.
For more on that project including renderings, head over to Curbed Chicago here.
