Home sales in the Chicago area sped up last month with 9,145 units sold, up nearly 27% from year ago levels, RE/MAX said Wednesday.
For the second month in a row, foreclosures and short-sales represented a larger share of all Chicago homes sales. Distressed sales in August accounted for 37.5% of all transactions, up from 36.4% a year ago and 36.1% in July, RE/MAX said.
The pace of sales in Chicago’s seven-county region ticked up with properties spending only 139 days on the market, compared to 165 days in August of 2011. This is the fastest sales pace since December 2007.
“It indicates that the market is being brought back into balance,” said Laura Ortoleva, a spokesperson for the RE/MAX Northern Illinois real estate network.
Homes sold in the metro-Chicago area in August had a median price of $170,000, down 4.4% from a year earlier.
