(The Center Square) – Republican state Rep. Chris Miller argues it’s not hard to see why Chicago has become such an outlier when it comes to its struggling housing market.
Price growth in the Chicago housing market is now running twice as high as the national average, with Crain’s monthly real estate data roundup showing rising costs across much of the area have been in effect since last summer as interest rates have continued to remain high.
“It’s been an accumulative effect of bad public policy from J.B. Pritzker and the radical Democrats because over the past four years, their policy has been so disastrous and their solution was to print money and throw money at everything and we all know that when you increase the velocity of money coming into the marketplace, it increases inflation,” Miller, R-Oakland, told The Center Square. “The high real estate taxes and all these things are a culmination of bad public policy. We’ve had population fleeing, businesses closing down.”
Overall, Illinois Realtors reports the median price of homes sold in Illinois in March was up by 6.1% compared to 2.7% across the country, with the number of homes sold in Chicago representing the fewest for the month since 2011, when the country was still struggling to rebound from the 2007-2008 housing bust.
With local home prices having recently hit a record high of $377,563 and sellers now asking for more than 7% more for their homes than they were just a few months earlier, Miller said it’s making for a far different looking Illinois.
“People are voting with their feet,” Miller said. “They’re buying homes, they just aren’t buying them in Illinois because they’re trying to get out of here and get to places that have better opportunity. I think the net effect of everything is that the economy in Illinois is driving people out. The greatest job fair for other states surrounding us is the behavior of the Illinois politicians.”
In late April, Chicago-area sellers were seeking an average of 3% more for their homes than they were at the same time a year prior.
