Even as home prices nationwide continued to inch up for the 7th month in a row, the news was less rosy in Chicago. From November to December, Chicago home prices had the sharpest decline of 20 metro areas tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller home Price Index.
Chicago home prices declined throughout 2009, ending down 7.2% for the year, according to Case-Shiller. Still, the drop was only half as bad as what we saw the previous year, when home prices in Chicago plunged more than 14% in 2008.
“As measured by prices, the housing market is definitely in better shape than it was this time last year, as the pace of deterioration has stabilized for now. However, the rate of improvement seen during the summer of 2009 has not been sustained,” David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement accompanying the report.
It seems that the impact of the government’s $8,000 and $6,500 tax credits for home buyers may be wearing off. If this is how the Chicago housing market fares when buoyed by government support, what can we expect prices to do next? It’s as if the boom never happened: As of the 4th quarter of 2009, average home prices across the United States are now back to 2003 levels, according to Case-Shiller.
For the year, just 6 out of 20 cities saw steeper price drops than Chicago in 2009: Las Vegas (down 20.6%), Tampa (11%), Detroit (10.3), Miami (9.9%), Phoenix (9.2%), and Seattle (7.9%).
