Northern Illinois Housing Market Update - August 2026

Northern Illinois showed a clearer slowdown in activity during August, but prices remained above year-earlier levels while available supply stayed tight. Across detached and attached properties combined, new listings fell 2.8%, homes under contract declined 1.8%, and closed sales dropped 5.9%. The combined median sales price still rose 5.9% to $360,000 and the average sales price increased 7.4% to $460,986. Inventory was down 8.6%, months supply fell 6.8% to 2.0 months, and average market time increased to 39 days.

Median Sales Price -- Trailing 12 Months

Pricing and Value

Metric	Detached	Attached
Average Sales Price	$488,858 (+6.9% YoY)	$402,488 (+9.5% YoY)
Housing Affordability Index	80 (-10.1% YoY)	101 (-7.3% YoY)
Median Sales Price	$390,000 (+7.2% YoY)	$320,000 (+6.3% YoY)

Market Speed and Competition

Metric	Detached	Attached
Average % of Original List Price Received	98.5% (0 percentage points YoY)	99.2% (+0.4 percentage points YoY)
Average Market Time	39 days (+2.6% YoY)	39 days (+5.4% YoY)

Homes for Sale -- Trailing 12 Months

Months Supply -- Trailing 12 Months

Supply Snapshot

Metric	Detached	Attached
Homes for Sale	12,846 (-10.7% YoY)	5,844 (-3.6% YoY)
Months Supply	2.1 (-7.9% YoY)	1.9 (-3.9% YoY)

Market Activity

Metric	Detached	Attached
Closed Sales	6,887 (-7.1% YoY)	3,279 (-3.5% YoY)
New Listings	9,793 (-4.6% YoY)	4,875 (+1.1% YoY)
Under Contract	6,492 (-2% YoY)	3,061 (-1.4% YoY)

What This Means for Sellers

• Home values remained above last year, with the detached median up 7.2% to $390,000 and the attached median up 6.3% to $320,000.
• Supply remained constrained. Detached inventory fell 10.7% with 2.1 months of supply, while attached inventory fell 3.6% with 1.9 months of supply.
• Sellers received 98.5% of original list price on detached homes and 99.2% on attached properties on average.
• Transaction activity cooled in both segments: detached closed sales fell 7.1% and attached sales fell 3.5%, while contracts declined 2.0% and 1.4%, respectively.

What This Means for Buyers

• Inventory remained below last year's level in both segments, so the market still offered limited overall selection despite slower sales activity.
• Affordability weakened further. The affordability index fell to 80 for detached homes and 101 for attached properties.
• Average market time increased to 39 days for both detached and attached homes, giving buyers somewhat more time to evaluate some listings than a year earlier.
• Sale-to-original-list-price ratios remained high at 98.5% for detached homes and 99.2% for attached properties, so broad price concessions were still limited.

Deeper Market Data

August's combined-market figures show that activity weakened more than pricing. Year to date, new listings were down 0.7%, homes under contract were down 0.6%, and closed sales were down 2.0%, while the combined median sales price was up 6.6% and the average sales price was up 6.9%. The year-to-date affordability index was 8.8% lower. The segment split also remained uneven: detached year-to-date closed sales were down 3.1%, while attached sales were essentially flat, and attached contracts were still 1.2% higher year to date even though August contracts declined.