In the latest Crain's Chicago Business piece by Dennis Rodkin, the spotlight is on record-high asking prices across Chicago, with a special mention of my successful listing on Elmdale Road. As sellers are setting optimistic prices, our strategic approach has once again proven effective, drawing multiple offers well above asking. This is a testament to the buoyant market and our expertise at navigating it even amidst fluctuating inventories. Dive into the full article to understand the current dynamics of the Chicago-area real estate market. Original article can be read  HERE

Sellers are setting record-high asking prices for their homes

When they got wind of the high prices neighbors have been getting for their homes in recent months, a Glenview couple decided they’d give it a whirl and put theirs up for sale.

Although they’d bought the Elmdale Road house just 15 months ago, they priced it “optimistically,” said their listing agent, Connie Dornan of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. They tacked about 6.5% onto the $892,500 they had paid for the house in January 2023.

It turns out they weren’t as optimistic as they could have been. Dornan said the house quickly attracted six offers at more than the asking price. Because the deal doesn’t close until April 29, Dornan couldn’t disclose the contracted sale price, but she said it is “well above” the asking price.

These Glenview sellers aren’t the only ones with a hopeful price outlook. The median asking price for Chicago-area homes hit a record high in the week ended April 21, according to Redfin, an online real estate marketplace. At $362,561, it’s the first time the figure has crossed $360,000, and it's a little over 7% above the median asking price this time last year. In the corresponding time in 2021, when the COVID-era housing boom was accelerating, the median asking price was 15% below where it was last week.

“My sellers are excited,” said Akos Straub, a Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago agent. “They feel confident because they see what’s going on despite high interest rates.” That is, buyers are going along with the higher prices that are the offspring of low inventory. “Sellers have a better opportunity now” than they have had in a while, said Straub. He’s representing a four-bedroom house on Wicker Park Avenue in the neighborhood of the same name with an asking price just under $945,000.

For the most part, sellers aren’t getting fizzily exuberant. They’re responding to “data points and market indicators that support” higher asking prices, said Anne Connolly Rief, an @properties Christie’s International Real Estate agent. She listed her clients’ condo in a three-flat on Wolcott Avenue in Ravenswood yesterday at $869,000.

The data on recent sales suggests they could go considerably higher with their three-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot condo — that's extra-large for condos in the area, Rief said — but “they wanted to price it where they did and let the market come to them.”

After just one day on the market, it was too soon to say whether buyers will offer more than the asking price, but Rief says she’s confident they will. The data points may be hyperlocal, such as Rief’s analysis of the condo stock near where her clients are and the fact that it comes with an oversized yard, a rarity for a condo. Or they might be broader-based, such as the news that the closed prices on Chicago-area home sales have been up in the 10% range in four of the past five months, compared with the same period a year ago.

With the inventory of homes for sale at drought levels, the buyers who are in the market have little choice but to pay up to get the home they want. And with sale prices buoyant, Dornan said, many homeowners “are waking up to the opportunity.”

It’s not only Chicago-area sellers who are asking record amounts for their homes. Nationwide, asking prices reached a new height last week as well, at $415,925. Chicago sellers appear to be slightly more optimistic than the nation’s sellers. Asking prices here are up 7% from a year ago, but nationwide the increase is about 6.7%.

They’re asking for record amounts in several big metro areas near Chicago. Milwaukee, Rockford and Indianapolis all reached new heights with their median asking prices last week, according to Redfin.

Of the three, Rockford shows the most bullish asking prices. The median ask last week in the Rockford metro was about $210,000, up 14.7% from a year ago. And that was before The Wall Street Journal pronounced Rockford the country’s top real estate market yesterday.

The Journal’s judgment could inflate Rockfordians’ optimism even further.