Market Conditions: Did the Cubs World Series Run Depress Chicago Home Sales?
The Chicago housing market appears to have slowed in October.
But was it any worse than any other October?
Data from agents about the number of showings on properties says “yes.”
From Crain’s:
Foot traffic through local homes for sale plunged more last month than in any of the previous four Octobers, according to data gleaned from local real estate agents.
That includes October 2012, the last time a presidential campaign was going on.
“You have the election and the World Series distracting buyers, or making them nervous,” said the data provider, Paul Lazarre, a co-founder of Chicago-based real estate site Truepad. The site gathers data from about 25 percent of the region’s real estate agents.
Lazarre gauges demand using data that essentially compares the number of homes on the market to the number of showings buyers’ agents request. In the three weeks that ended Oct. 29 (a popular day for open houses), Chicago-area showings dropped about 30 percent, he said.
In the comparable period in the past four years, the drop was from about 3 percent to about 10 percent, Lazarre said. Data for years before 2012 is available but not quite comparable, he said, because the real estate market was so depressed.
Was everyone so busy watching the Cubs World Series championship run that they didn’t go see any properties for sale?
And does that mean the market will be picking up now that the Cubs are champs and the election is over on Tuesday?
House hunting takes back seat to Cubs, campaign [Crain’s Chicago Business, by Dennis Rodkin, November 2, 2016]
Wrigleyille prices are going to skyrocket now that the Cubbies have broken the curse. And if this young team continues to perform and win a few more, well then, prices will only go even higher. Who wouldn’t want to buy in the neighborhood and get in on the action! Buy now or quite literally be priced out forever.
On a more serious note, Realtors usually the weather for low traffic, but given the gorgeous weather we’ve had this fall, and not even a hard freeze yet, they needed something to blame for the lack of interest in the high priced low inventory market.
I would like flat Stanley’s take on this 🙂
But nah, don’t home sales always slow down in October anyway? Winter is coming…
Maybe no one else had any traffic because we had all the buyers and we didn’t show them very many properties before they found their dream home? My fledgling Team has 5 closings scheduled for November (October clients) and we continue to be busy with new leads as well as the older ones who can’t seem to find what they’re looking for. We’ve got 3 or 4 new listings coming on this month too. September was the slow month – October was great fun!
Ya finally went ahead and did it. Congrats. Ya musta all been shittin brown water out your asses during that 8th inning though.
This is another example of why the American people hold the media in disdain and not credible. But they keep at it.
Instead of just reporting the facts, they report the fact and then within the same headline opine about it.
Give us the facts and then we can form our own opinions.