Prices, inventory, and demand — distilled every month into one clear verdict: buyer’s market or seller’s. The investor’s read, before you make an offer.
Only on the right house. Neither side has the upper hand in Chicago right now.
Neither side has the upper hand in Chicago. Buyers and sellers are evenly matched. The market will not hand you a discount. You have to find it in one specific listing.
Only 87 out of every 100 homes for sale have found a buyer. The other 13 are still waiting. Your offer may be the only one on the table. Few sellers are dropping their price. Asking prices are holding firm. Your discount will come from one stale listing, not from the whole market.
A typical Chicago home takes 36 days to find a buyer. Half of them take even longer. That is 9% faster than a year ago. Those sellers are paying to own a house they want to sell. Search for homes listed 60+ days ago. There are 3,032 homes for sale in Chicago. That is 1.1 times the tightest month on record, but below the peak of 9,026. Supply is shrinking against last year.
Asking prices are 11.4% below their May 2024 peak. You are not buying at the top. Prices stopped falling about a year ago. They are flat now. Waiting will not get you a cheaper house. It might still get you a more motivated seller. Chicago prices rose in only 72 of the last 108 months. This market goes up and down. Timing matters here. Growth will not rescue a bad price.
This market is turning. Which way is not settled yet. Check the monthly numbers above before you commit.
Most Chicago households rent. 54 out of every 100 households are renters. The renter share is shrinking. Five years ago it was 55 in 100. Chicago added about 35,000 renter households in five years. Renter households average 2.1 people. Singles and couples rent here. Two bedrooms beat four.
Households grew 9% in five years. The housing stock grew 5%. Demand is outrunning supply. 9.5% of homes sit empty. That is normal for a healthy market.
The median Chicago household earns $80,730 a year. Incomes here have grown 5.4% a year since 2019. Incomes are rising faster than home prices. Affordability is improving. A typical home costs 5.3 times the median income. That is the national middle. Neither cash flow nor appreciation is free here. A tenant on the median income can pay about $2,018 a month. That is the standard 30% affordability line. Rents above it thin your tenant pool fast.
That is the market, not your address. Run an address through the app to see its rent estimate and cash flow.
Only on the right house. Neither side has the upper hand in Chicago right now. 87 out of every 100 homes for sale have a buyer, 10% of sellers have cut their price, and a typical home takes 36 days to sell.
Asking prices are 11.4% below their May 2024 peak. You are not buying at the top. Prices stopped falling about a year ago. They are flat now. Waiting will not get you a cheaper house. It might still get you a more motivated seller.
Assume +0.2% a year. Chicago grew 2.9% a year over the decade. Ignore that rate. Most of it landed in the 2020 and 2021 boom. Without the boom, Chicago prices are flat. Assume no growth. Prices rose 1.6% over the last year. That is a timing signal, not a trend.
A typical Chicago home takes 36 days to find a buyer. Half of them take even longer. That is 9% faster than a year ago. Those sellers are paying to own a house they want to sell. Search for homes listed 60+ days ago.
Most Chicago households rent. 54 out of every 100 households are renters. The renter share is shrinking. Five years ago it was 55 in 100. 9.5% of homes sit empty. That is normal for a healthy market.
A tenant on the median income can pay about $2,018 a month. That is the standard 30% affordability line. Rents above it thin your tenant pool fast. The median Chicago household earns $80,730 a year.
60603. Only 18 out of 100 homes there have a buyer. 15% of sellers there have cut their price, and a typical home takes 67 days to sell.
Where it isn't: 60646 ranks #1,086 in the country for buyer demand. Expect the least room to negotiate there.
ZIP 60624 is on both lists. That is rare. It is the one place in Chicago where leverage and growth overlap.
| ZIP | $/sqft, 2 yrs | $/sqft now | Buyers per home | For sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60623 | +105.8% | $287 | 0.73 | 15 |
| 60621 | +41.9% | $123 | 0.62 | 26 |
| 60636 | +30.3% | $142 | 0.59 | 55 |
| 60615 | +22.7% | $210 | 0.72 | 97 |
| 60624 | +19.9% | $163 | 0.71 | 14 |
Computed from each ZIP's own ten-year history. ZIPs with fewer than 10 homes for sale are excluded: a median across a handful of listings is noise, not a signal.
Chicago has 79 ZIP codes. Each links to its live market dashboard.
Closest matches on asking price, price per square foot, days to sell, buyer demand, and price cuts.
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