S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic released their last Case Shiller home price indices update for 2021 this morning. Because of their normal reporting lag it’s for October. Both the nation and the Chicago area continue to post healthy but slower home price appreciation from the peak 4 months ago. This is the third month in a row with slower price growth.

The nation’s home prices rose 19.1% in the 12 month period while Chicago tied with Minneapolis for last place among the 20 largest metro areas with a mere 11.5% appreciation. At least that’s among the highest Chicago area appreciation rates since late 1988 and we now have company at the bottom of the list. And then there is Phoenix, which cooled a bit from last month and posted a measly 32.3% appreciation rate.

Condo prices are also cooling off a bit, though they never matched the stride of single family home prices. They dropped to a 2.5% year over year growth rate.

Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director at S&P DJI, pretty much said the same things he’s been saying for the last few months – that pricing is being driven by pandemic related changes in what people are looking for in a home and “More data will be required to understand whether this demand surge represents an acceleration of purchases that would have occurred over the next several years, or reflects a more permanent secular change.”

Case Shiller Chicago Area Home Price Index By Month

The graph below shows Chicago area home prices by month going back to 1987 along with a red trend line that I created for single family homes based on pre-bubble data. You can really see how single family home prices have pulled ahead of condos lately. In October single family home prices rose an additional 0.6% from September while condo prices actually fell by 0.4%. That left single family homes priced about 1.3% above their bubble peak and condo prices still 0.5% below their peak.

From the bottom of the housing market crash single family home prices have risen a total of 66.3% while condo prices have bounced back 64.6%. And you can see how single family home prices have closed some of the gap with the red trend line lately. However, it’s still falling short by 20.4%.

#ChicagoHomePrices #CaseShiller #HomePrices

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.