Naperville home sales prices up 10%

>Naperville home sales prices posted a solid 9.77 percent gain over the past two years

Don't tell that to people that bought their house in 2007 and can't sell it for what they paid for it. Additionally, average home price is like any statistic in that it can not measure what is really happening. Sales are down, time to market is longer and more and more you are seeing people cut their prices 2 and 3 times. Just ask Rick Klau whom you featured in an article just this past winter. He had to cut his price more than 3 times and finally sold for 100K less than what he orignally asked.

Bottom line, if you aren't pricing your house correctly, plan to wait a long, long time for it to sell. Just ask the owners of some of those homes on Jefferson that have been on the market for over a year.

There are currently some 775 homes for sale in the 350K-550K range. That is a lot of competition.

Looking at averages can be very misleading. I had a statistics teacher who used the example of three friends eating a sandwich at a fast food restaurant. Michael Jordan suddenly appeared, bought a sandwich and asked if he could join them. The three friends were entry level workers making $25K and Michael Jordan was in his prime as a player and was earning close to $40MM. The teacher then posed the question, "How accurate is the statement that the average salary of this table of 4 is $10,000,000?"

A true comparison would be to look at individual neighborhoods, lot size, square footage, age of home, etc. Unfortunately I think the million dollar homes being built in the downtown area, and subdivisions like Kinlock (sp?) and Ashwood are skewing the numbers higher than they truly are.

Everybody got greedy, people thought they could buy a tear down and sell it a year later for a huge profit. I have a hard time finding sympathy for people who overbought and got way more house than any individual family needs. Buy a house within you budget. I bought my current home in Naperville in 1990 during the last big housing slump. Half these tear downs aren't even furnished because the people living in them don't have the means to keep up with the payments, let alone the Jones'es. Naperville home prices are still very reasonable compared to home prices in the Northwest Suburbs and Lake County. You may not believe this either, but our taxes are not as high as other collar counties. We got a pretty good deal in this town.

New home sales plunge to lowest level in 16 1/2 years, prices drop by largest amount in 38 years.

Naperville will not be immune to this.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080424/economy.html

I thought the same thing about the numbers. So the average sales price of homes are going up in Naperville.

I read it differently then the Sun's interpretation. I see it as more higher price homes are on the market than a year ago. Meaning more people in more expensive of homes are selling those homes, possibly due to job change or perhaps due to the fact they can't afford it. This does not support the statement that Naperville home prices are rising as a good thing.

See people like me prefer to keep my home and the $1100 mortgage that goes with it. I'm not in the $350 - 500k home, but if I and others in my situation sold. We would bring the numbers down. But why sell, I'm sitting really pretty.

In April 2006, the average sales price was $471,724 and in April, 2008, the average was $517,791

Average as mean or median?

I suggest that the writer of the story consider the information provided at http://www.napervillerealestate-bw.com/homes-sold-in-naperville.asp

This article is eye opening. The real estate sales slump is in full force in Naperville-compare the number of homes sold in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Consider the average sale price as a percentage of the asking price and then look at the number of days on the market. How many more sellers have taken their home off the market because of the difficulties in selling. How many potential buyers want to live in 60540. Not too many from the information at this website. Potential buyers have probably figured out that property taxes are out of control, having exploded almost exponentially in the last few years. Question--is Naperville really one of the best places to live? If so, why are so few houses being sold?

Another eye opener...

http://www.realtytrac.com/news/Press/newsletter-articles.asp?a=b&ItemId=4289&accnt=173392

And yes, sales are down and the number of homes are the market in Naperville has gone up day after day...

The End is near.

America's Worst-Selling Housing Markets include Chicago and communities that build multi-million dollar bell towers with taxpayer money.

http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-worst-selling-housing-markets.html\

http://www.kunstler.com/

http://books.google.com/books?id=zC2OMovDiC4C&dq=long+emergency+com&pg=PP1&ots=3ZTfB8v7aX&sig=4VHQi0HkW364DLXBwcm7S8A-PR0&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=long+emergency+com&spell=1&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail

Jim's Forecast for 2008

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2008.html

We can not deficit spend ourselves into prosperity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

Vacant homes hit a record high

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080428/vacant_homes_record_high.html