CHICAGO — For the first time since early in the recent housing recovery, prices for single family homes in suburban Cook County showed stronger growth than those in the city of Chicago, according to the Sept. 10 release of the Cook County House Price Index from the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.

The index found that house prices within suburban Cook County improved faster than in the city of Chicago during the most recent quarter. While prices for single family homes were up nearly 17 percent in both suburban Cook and the city of Chicago year over year, comparing the first and second quarters of 2014 shows that price levels increased by just 3 percent in the city while increasing 7 percent in suburban Cook.

This is the seventh consecutive quarter to show increases in house prices in Cook County, according to the index. Despite the slightly faster pace of growth in the suburbs in the most recent quarter, house prices in the city are still further along in their recovery than those in suburban Cook. Single family house prices in the city are roughly 24 percent off previous peak levels and at pre-crash levels last seen in the third quarter of 2003. Prices in suburban Cook County are nearly 27 percent off previous peak levels and at fourth quarter 2002 levels.

“It will be interesting to see if strong price growth in the suburbs is a trend that continues in future quarters or is a one-time blip,” says Geoff Smith, executive director of the Institute for Housing Studies. “While these types of short-term price trends are encouraging, continued long-term price growth will be a function of continued demand for owner-occupied properties and a declining inventory of distressed properties for sale.”

The index also looked at the long- and short-term price trends in areas of Cook County that had been impacted to different degrees by the foreclosure crisis. In the second quarter, trends were similar to those seen in the first quarter of 2014.

In Cook County neighborhoods hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis house prices increased just over 30 percent year over year, almost double the increase seen in areas that were least affected by the crisis. However, these highly foreclosure-distressed neighborhoods still have a long road to full price recovery, according to the index. The latest data shows prices in these areas were still down almost 55 percent from their peak and at pre-1997 levels. Cook County neighborhoods that experienced the lowest-levels of foreclosures during the crisis, which began in late 2006, continue to have consistent and stable price gains, increasing 15.5 percent year over year, and in these neighborhoods, house prices are currently at levels last seen in the first quarter of 2005.

The Institute for Housing Studies is a research center based at DePaul University that provides analysis and data to inform affordable housing policy and practice. The institute’s second quarter 2014 House Price Index tracks quarterly price changes for single family properties in Cook County with repeat sales from the first quarter of 1997 through the first quarter 2014. The report is at http://bit.ly/2Q2014_IHS.

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Source:
Geoff Smith
gsmith33@depaul.edu
312-362-5962

Media Contact:
Tina Fassett Smith
kfassett@depaul.edu
312-362-5974