Residential Market Stays Warm Despite Arctic Weather in East
Subzero temperatures and heavy snows in January may have kept children home from school, but they didn't freeze the Chicago-area residential market.
Preliminary sales data suggest the home-buying market stayed warm last month, but not hot. Thirty-five percent of homes listed in January sold in the same month, up from 29.5 percent in January 2013, according to Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, the Chicago-area multiple listing service.
For all homes that sold in January, their average time on the market was 106 days, nearly 25 percent less than homes that sold in January 2013.
It will be another month or two before more data becomes available to draw a definitive conclusion about sales activity last month. But Laurie Christofano, a Re/Max agent in Oak Park, saw little drop-off.
"I was out with buyers during every single snowstorm," Ms. Christofano said. "We've had a lot of people who are looking to buy before what they perceive to be an even bigger rush of buyers when the thaw comes."
She even had clients stay in her car when she hopped out to direct traffic on a snow-jammed street during one Friday-evening storm. She said her sales and sales by all real estate agents in Oak Park appear to be running well ahead of 2013 for January and so far in February.
Mario Greco had the opposite experience. Mr. Greco, a Prudential Rubloff agent on Chicago's North Side, said he lost count of the number of property showings canceled or postponed by "people who didn't want to go out in that weather."
PICKY BUYERS
Buyers who did venture out, Mr. Greco said, were "picky, pickier than we've seen in a long time," partly because they knew other buyers were sitting it out at home. He said sales volume appears to be down more than 15 percent for the year so far, but he emphasized that this was incomplete preliminary data.
Clearly, home shopping last month demanded more hardiness and layering. The average Chicago temperature at O'Hare International Airport was 27.5 degrees in January, well below the 35.3-degree average a year earlier. Temperatures also dropped below zero nine times last month but never once got that low in January 2013.
The weather didn't cool off sellers' price expectations: The average new listing price in January rose 26 percent from December, according to MRED data. The prior year, January brought a 16 percent increase in sellers' prices, which itself seemed optimistic but was eventually borne out by spring's run of increasing sale prices.
The number of Chicago-area home sales fell 7.1 percent last month from January 2013, but a big drop-off in foreclosure sales dragged down the total, according to MRED. Excluding distressed homes, sales rose 7.1 percent in January from a year earlier.
January sale prices were up as well, according to MRED data: The average was $315,307, up 16.3 percent from January 2013.
But those figures cover home sales that closed in January, deals made weeks or months before. Most deals made in frigid January won't close until a month or more down the line, meaning MRED's data in mid-March and mid-April will reveal more about the weather's impact.
One sign that January and early-February sales may have dropped: The number of new mortgage applications nationwide for the week ending Feb. 14 was down from the week before, and, when seasonally adjusted, was at its lowest level since September 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. drodkin
Subzero temperatures and heavy snows in January may have kept children home from school, but they didn't freeze the Chicago-area residential market.
Preliminary sales data suggest the home-buying market stayed warm last month, but not hot. Thirty-five percent of homes listed in January sold in the same month, up from 29.5 percent in January 2013, according to Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, the Chicago-area multiple listing service.
For all homes that sold in January, their average time on the market was 106 days, nearly 25 percent less than homes that sold in January 2013.
It will be another month or two before more data becomes available to draw a definitive conclusion about sales activity last month. But Laurie Christofano, a Re/Max agent in Oak Park, saw little drop-off.
"I was out with buyers during every single snowstorm," Ms. Christofano said. "We've had a lot of people who are looking to buy before what they perceive to be an even bigger rush of buyers when the thaw comes."
She even had clients stay in her car when she hopped out to direct traffic on a snow-jammed street during one Friday-evening storm. She said her sales and sales by all real estate agents in Oak Park appear to be running well ahead of 2013 for January and so far in February.
Mario Greco had the opposite experience. Mr. Greco, a Prudential Rubloff agent on Chicago's North Side, said he lost count of the number of property showings canceled or postponed by "people who didn't want to go out in that weather."
PICKY BUYERS
Buyers who did venture out, Mr. Greco said, were "picky, pickier than we've seen in a long time," partly because they knew other buyers were sitting it out at home. He said sales volume appears to be down more than 15 percent for the year so far, but he emphasized that this was incomplete preliminary data.
Clearly, home shopping last month demanded more hardiness and layering. The average Chicago temperature at O'Hare International Airport was 27.5 degrees in January, well below the 35.3-degree average a year earlier. Temperatures also dropped below zero nine times last month but never once got that low in January 2013.
The weather didn't cool off sellers' price expectations: The average new listing price in January rose 26 percent from December, according to MRED data. The prior year, January brought a 16 percent increase in sellers' prices, which itself seemed optimistic but was eventually borne out by spring's run of increasing sale prices.
The number of Chicago-area home sales fell 7.1 percent last month from January 2013, but a big drop-off in foreclosure sales dragged down the total, according to MRED. Excluding distressed homes, sales rose 7.1 percent in January from a year earlier.
January sale prices were up as well, according to MRED data: The average was $315,307, up 16.3 percent from January 2013.
But those figures cover home sales that closed in January, deals made weeks or months before. Most deals made in frigid January won't close until a month or more down the line, meaning MRED's data in mid-March and mid-April will reveal more about the weather's impact.
One sign that January and early-February sales may have dropped: The number of new mortgage applications nationwide for the week ending Feb. 14 was down from the week before, and, when seasonally adjusted, was at its lowest level since September 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. drodkin