It’s over six months into 2013, so where is the Real Estate market in Brookfield, Riverside, and North Riverside? Your questions probably include, are prices up or down, what’s the demand for single family homes in these areas, and is there enough inventory for sale.
Here’s an examination of the activity in each of these three villages. The attached graphs track three years of Single Family home sales based on the Median Sales Price. Median Price is a primary benchmark used to evaluate if a specific area is increasing or decreasing in value. It looks at the midpoint figure of all the actual dollars that all Buyers paid all Sellers for similar properties over a given timeframe. Median Price lets us read the “pulse” of the market.
We see somewhat mixed results in our villages. Beginning with Brookfield, larger sized homes have increased in value over all three years but the three-bedroom homes have not. Why, historically low interest rates may be the reason; buyers could purchase more house for their dollars. Currently 68 three-bedroom or larger homes are for sale with List Prices ranging from $139,000 to $$454,000. Thirty-one percent of these are Contingent. Demand is strong in Brookfield.
What does the Contingent label mean? Simply, a contract has been made between a buyer and seller but may be broken based on further issues such as results from home inspections, financing terms, closing date agreements, and more. However, most will sell.
Housing in Riverside can be described as “modest to mansion”. It’s the most varied of our three villages and an overview of pricing trends considers all value ranges. Right now there are 65 three-bedroom or larger homes for sale with List Prices ranging from $119,900 to $1,549,900, quite a spread, and 20% of all have a contract. The graph tells us that larger homes have recently sold for more compared to the prior year but far from the Median Price of the 8/10 – 7/11 time period. Again, low interest rates may have been a factor. Three-bedroom homes indicate a “see-saw” in values on our graphs, however, overall demand is good in Riverside.
North Riverside housing stock is primarily known for its three-bedroom homes, and we see an increase over the prior year but it’s still lagging behind the 8/10 – 7/11 time span. There just aren’t as many of the larger homes to choose from here when compared to our other two villages and because of this limited inventory, the values appear to be way down. At this time, fifteen three-bedroom homes with List Prices from $121,900 to $449,900 and eight larger sized ones with asking prices from $209,000 to $439,900 are on the market. Thirty percent of all are under contact, so strong demand in North Riverside.
Real Estate everywhere has taken a beating in these last years, however, we are seeing increased values, and, the key, buyer demand in all three of our villages. For sellers, this is good news, and buyers may want to buy soon and take advantage of the still very low interest rates.
As August ends and the results of this month’s sales appear, we’ll take another look at the number of closings and the sold prices in Brookfield, Riverside, and North Riverside to explore any changes in these real estate markets.
Maria Murzyn works for Wednesday Journal Publications which publishes the RB Landmark and is a broker at Gloor Realty Co. in Oak Park. All data is taken from the MRED, Midwest Real Estate Data, formerly known as the MLS, Multiple Listing Service. And, if you are looking for ideas on “Fun, Frugal Events” in our area, go to www.oakpark.com and see her local events blog under the Calendar menu.
