Home Buying is Rebounding for Cambridge Title Company!

On this blog, we've written in great detail about the Illinois housing and real estate markets. By now, it's no secret that Illinois has terribly low home inventory on the market. Meanwhile, interest rates continue to creep up.

But in spite of that, Cambridge Title Company saw a record month for 2017 last month. As a matter of fact, Cambridge Title Company saw a 72% increase in home closings from April 2017 to May 2017. It seems the home buying season is finally here.

Cambridge Title Company sets itself apart from the competition primarily through its private banking level of customer service, meaning that each client is treated as if they are the only client in the world. Our customer first mentality speaks volumes about the way we handle each home closing, whether it's through our flat-rate fees or through our negotiation style.

For more information on Cambridge Title Company, call us at 224-330-1886 or email us at info@cambridgetitleco.com.

Declines in Home Sales

Now that we're headed into June, April home sales data is fully available. Unfortunately, the real estate market continued its streak of ups and downs, this month being the "downs".

The Chicago Tribune reports that "Sales were down 2.3 percent compared with a year ago, but prices rose 5.2 percent as sellers raised prices amid a limited supply of homes for sale. There were 10,157 homes sold."

Illinois Realtors further expounds on this data with revealing statistics on the inventory level. In April 2016, 41,558 homes were for sale, whereas April 2017 only had 33,503 homes for sale. Additionally, while closed sales declined for single-family units, condos, and all properties entirely, median sales prices rose across the board.

So could a rise in sales prices and a decline in inventory be leading the lower sales activity? Absolutely.

While prices throughout Illinois, in general, are on the rise, it's only natural that homeowners would expect more for the sale of their home. And with a lower inventory, home buyers (especially, first-time home buyers), have more competition when it comes to landing that dream home. But there's a flip side as well.

Despite being a seller's market, first-time home buyers are dwindling as well. Nowadays, many are choosing to rent, at least in part, due to the unaffordability of homes. And when the Illinois' inconsistent housing market is brought up time and time again, it doesn't encourage support for home buying.

That said, Illinois, as a whole, is doing better for the year than it was during April 2016. In fact, 44,680 home sales were closed in April 2017, whereas April 2016 had 43,684. Overall, when it comes to the Chicago and Illinois housing markets, trends are bound to ebb and flow.

For additional questions pertaining to Cambridge Title Company, please call us at 224-330-1886 or email us at info@cambridgetitleco.com.