By Don DeBat

Nov. 9, 2025 – The 2025 holidays may be only weeks away, but dark clouds still hang over Chicago’s North Side resale home market, leaving gold-seeking prospective buyers wondering if they will find a lump of coal in their Christmas stockings.

Through the third quarter, the North Side residential market continued to struggle with the same year-long hangover headaches – limited listing inventory and strong buyer demand, which keeps pushing home prices higher – extending a cloud-filled trend that has been in place for the last several years.

That’s the assessment of veteran broker Mary Jo Nathan of Baird & Warner’s North Center office at 4037 North Damen Avenue. Nathan is the author of the quarterly Chicago North Side Market Report, which tracks sales of single-family homes and attached properties in nine North Side neighborhoods: Edgewater, Lake View, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, Near North Side/Gold Coast, North Center, Rogers Park, Uptown, and West Ridge.

The North Side market again set a quarterly record for the highest median home price, Nathan noted. The third quarter median price of $445,000 – covering single-family homes, condominiums, townhomes, and cooperative apartments – rose by 7.2 percent over the same quarter a year ago. Looking back ten years, the third-quarter median price is up a lofty 31.6 percent.

“A continued contraction in the inventory of available homes remains a major factor in the current housing market,” reported Nathan (left). “The North Side inventory of attached and detached homes at the end of the third quarter was 1,418 units, a steep decline of 24.8 percent from the same point in 2024.”

The only good news for home buyers now is home loan interest rates are continuing a downward slide. On November 6, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey reported that average benchmark 30-year fixed home loans were at 6.22 percent, up from 6.17 a week earlier but down from 6.79 a year ago.

“Mortgage rates continued to trend down this week, hitting their lowest level in over a year,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “At the start of 2025, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage surpassed 7 percent, while today it hovers nearly a full percentage point lower. This dynamic has kept refinancings high, accounting for more than half of all mortgage activity for the sixth consecutive week.”

Despite the dwindling supply, third-quarter home sales numbers stayed relatively stable, falling just 0.5 percent for the quarter to 2,335 properties, according to data from MRED, the regional multiple listing service. The average time on market before going under contract for properties sold from July through September was 51 days, which compares to an average a year earlier of 52 days.

“The market remains challenging for buyers, and patience is required because they will often face competition for any home on which they make an offer,” said Nathan. “Crafting an offer that is aggressive enough to compete successfully while at the same time not overpaying for a home is the balance buyers must pursue in the current environment. It often takes several attempts before that goal is achieved.”

Condo and townhome inventory down but sales up

Even though the inventory of condominiums and townhomes was down 22.5 percent for the third quarter, sales in the attached homes category rose 1.1 percent to 2,105 units across the North Side market. That increase was almost entirely attributable to the Near North/Gold Coast submarket, the largest city market for attached homes, where sales rose 16.6 percent to 785 units.

Elsewhere across the North Side, only Edgewater managed to eke out an increase, with sales up 1.8 percent to 168 units. The three other large attached home submarkets – Lake View, Lincoln Park, and Uptown – saw sales decline 1.5 percent, 12 percent, and 1.1 percent respectively.

The median sales price of an attached home on the North Side rose 5.1 percent for the quarter to $400,000, easily the highest third-quarter median price for attached homes ever recorded for the North Side.

The median sales price moved higher in five of the nine North Side communities, led by gains of 22.1 percent in Lake View (right), 15 percent in Lincoln Park, and 14.5 percent in Rogers Park. Photo by 606 Vision

Edgewater and Near North/Gold Coast also had increases in the median sales price. Average market time was 51 days, unchanged from a year earlier.

Sales of single-family homes were significantly hampered during the third quarter by the lack of inventory, with active listings sinking an amazing 43.5 percent to just 117 properties at the end of September. That contributed heavily to the 13.2 percent decline in third quarter sales, which totaled 230 North Side properties.

Conversely, the median sales price for those homes was $1,572,500, a substantial 24.8 percent increase. That is by far the highest quarterly median price on record for this North Side market segment.

Much of the price increase is because two of the largest and most expensive North Side markets for detached home sales posted strong gains. In Lincoln Park, third-quarter sales rose 20.8 percent, while in North Center they were up 27.3 percent.

Elsewhere across the North Side, single-family home sales volume was up a solid 22.2 percent in Rogers Park (left) and 25 percent in Near North/Gold Coast. Photo by 606 Vision

However, sales fell in the five other community areas, topped by declines of 61.9 percent in Edgewater and 51.2 percent in Lincoln Square. Both those areas ended the quarter with single-family inventory in the single digits – three homes for sales in Edgewater and four in Lincoln Square.

Median home prices generally north of $1 million

The median sales price rose in eight of the nine North Side community areas. The sharpest increase was in Uptown, a gain of 52.3 percent to $1,572,500. Other top gainers were Near North/Gold Coast, up 28.4 percent to $2,252,500, and Lincoln Park, up 26.2 percent to $2,462,500. Only North Center posted a decline, dropping 1.3 percent to $1,665,000.

Among the nine community areas, only Rogers Park and West Ridge posted a single-family median sales price of less than $1 million for the quarter.

During the quarter, the time it took for detached homes to go under contract was 50 days, 13 days less than one year earlier.

North Side Median Prices – Q3 2025