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Homes September 14, 2022
After spring frenzy, summer real estate market cooled Looking toward fall, sellers ‘not in driver’s seat so much anymore’ By LACEY SIKORA
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Contributing Reporter
abor Day is over, the kids are back in school and summer is officially over in all but the meteorological sense. For the real estate world, September is the end of a summer buying and selling season that has been marked by changes following an unprecedented spring. A few local real estate experts recap the summer and weigh in on what might be ahead for fall. After a spring market that was decidedly was significant. Her Oak Park-based team tilted in favor of the seller with homes of- works in Chicago as well as in the suburbs ten receiving multiple offers and selling west of Oak Park, and she says that their above asking price, the summer market large territory clues them in took a turn. Linda Rooney of when there is a market shift. Oak Park’s RE/MAX In the “We noticed at first with our Village says that the spring condos in the city,” Murphy market carried over to clossaid of the summer market. ings in June and July but that “Our condo listings started to selling activity then slowed. see days on market increasing, Her clients selling in the and then a couple of weeks latsummer had fewer showings er, our suburb listings started and fewer offers than her to see fewer offers coming in. spring clients. This was a big shift from even a “Those who closed in late TABITHA MURPHY month or two earlier where we June and July did fine, but were seeing, in some cases, sevthey were not receiving much en to 12 offers on new listings. over ask price as we were in the spring We started to see that number decrease sigmonths,” Rooney said. Tabitha Murphy of Berkshire Hathaway nificantly. Throughout the summer, we still HomeServices Chicago says the slowdown were experiencing multiple offers in most
age of the final sale price might cases, but we were maybe seeing not have been as high in the past, two to three buyers making ofbut they still existed. Sellers and fers versus the demand we were buyers both still had to put their seeing previously.” best foot forward.” Swati Saxena, a broker of At the end of the summer, Baird and Warner’s Oak Park ofSaxena reported seeing “slightly fice, attributes the summer slowlonger market times, and lower down after the hectic spring to a final sales price, but not as long bit of normalization. She calls market time as in past, and highthis this first “normal” summer SWATI SAXENA er sales price than in the past.” of the past two years, and says Stephanie Eiger, a real estate people were out enjoying summer with vacations and camp, which led to agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Oak the seasonal slowdown that typically comes Park saw similar activity. From her perspective, early summer was in summer. “Interestingly enough, during the early to still a seller’s market. “Summer was more about pricing than mid-part of the summer, the properties that were on the market, if in good condition and our spring was,” Eiger said. “It was also well-priced, still had multiple offers,” SaxSee MARKET COOLS on page B4 ena said. “The number of offers or percent-
September 14, 2022 ■ Wednesday Journal/Forest Park Review
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