Although a deep shortage of homes on the market is driving prices ever upward, don’t count on a surge of new inventory to ease up the price crunch.

That’s the main lesson gleaned from Crain’s monthly look at the latest round of real estate market data.

The best news for Chicago-area households hoping to a buy a home soon is that down payments are far more manageable here than in many big cities.

Here’s a look at the data.

Home price growth is steeper in the city than in the metro area. 

The median price of homes sold in Chicago was up 10.4% in January from the same time a year earlier, according to data released by Illinois Realtors on Feb. 21.

It was the second-biggest increase in the past three years, behind only November’s 12.4%, and it was only the second time price growth was in the double digits since late 2021.

The median price of city homes sold during the month was $350,000.

Price growth was less vigorous in the larger metro area. The median price of homes sold in the nine-county metro was up 7.9% in January from the same time in 2024.

It followed December’s 11.1% growth, the closeout of a year when prices were up about 8.5% overall.

The median price of homes sold in the nine counties in January was $340,000.

Both the city and regional figures were several points ahead of the nation’s. The median price of homes sold nationwide in January was up 4.8% from January 2024, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors on Feb. 1. The median sale price was $396,000.

The Illinois Realtors data uses the U.S. Census Bureau definition of the Chicago metro area, which comprises Cook, Lake, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties.

Chicago-area price growth outpaces the nation and nearly all big cities.

Home prices have been growing faster in Chicago than nationwide for more than a year, and December was no different. According to data released this morning by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, which lags the Illinois Realtors' data by a month, home values here were up 6.6% in December, compared to 3.92% nationwide.

The gap between the two, 2.68 percentage points, is slightly wider than the prior month, when the Chicago figure was 2.45 percentage points higher than the nation’s.

Of 20 major cities the index tracks, only New York had higher price growth in December, 7.22%. In nine of the 20 cities, price growth was less than half what it was in Chicago.

For both Chicago and the nation, price growth was stronger in December than in November. Here, the index showed growth of 6.21% in November, and nationally, 3.92%.

The number of homes sold improved but remains low.

The number of homes sold in both the city and the nine-county region was up in January from a year earlier, but still well below pre-pandemic norms.

In Chicago, 1,265 homes sold in January, according to Illinois Realtors, an increase of 17.8% from a year earlier. The regional sales tally was 4,991, an increase of 8.4%. But January 2024 was toward the end of a long dropoff in sales after the pandemic-era housing boom.

Compared to the years before the pandemic, January sales were off. In the city, the number of homes sold was about 87% of the average for January in the years 2016-2020. In the nine-county metro area, it was 85% of the old January average.

Inventory isn’t coming to soften price growth.

One major reason prices have been rising sturdily is that the small number of homes available to buy means sellers can often name their price.

Those market conditions might suggest sellers would be convinced to jump in, even despite having a sub-5% mortgage from the good old days of cheap loans.

It’s not happening. In the first eight weeks of 2025, 2.7% fewer homes have come on the market in the Chicago area than in the same period in 2024, according to weekly reports from Midwest Real Estate Data.

The drop really came in February. So far this month, there’s been a decline of over 6.5% in new listings, from 16,873 in 2024 to 15,766 in 2025. January listings were up 2% from a year earlier.

Down payments are easier in Chicago.

One of the most difficult onramps to buying a home, amassing a down payment, is easier in Chicago relative to the nationwide housing market.

The median down payment buyers made on their Chicago-area home purchase in December was 10.1%, according to data released today by Redfin, the online real estate marketplace.

That’s compared to 16% nationwide and 20% or more in 15 of the 40 big real estate markets covered by the report. The highest was in Anaheim, Calif., where the median down payment was 25% of the purchase price.

Many buyers in those markets are making bigger down payments so they can defray interest costs by taking out a smaller mortgage, Redfin reported. It’s also likely that some of these big down payments are possible because of hefty payouts from the owners’ previous home, whose value soared in recent years.

The dollar figure of Chicago down payments is also relatively small, a function of our home values remaining lower than those on the coasts.

The median down payment in Chicago was $37,500 in December, according to Redfin. In Anaheim it was over $284,000, and in New York, over $178,000.

New York’s median down payment was 20%.