Months of Inventory in Bartlett: Who Has the Leverage?
Months of inventory is the single number that tells you whether buyers or sellers hold the cards in Bartlett, Schaumburg, Elgin and the rest of the northwest suburbs — and right now it says sellers still do, though not evenly across every price range. This piece walks through what the number means, how to calculate it yourself, and what our local MLS data shows for seven towns as of this week.
Most housing headlines give you a count: “X homes for sale.” A count on its own is nearly useless. Two hundred listings in a town that sells forty homes a month is a very different situation than two hundred listings in a town that sells two hundred. What you actually want to know is how long the shelf would take to empty.
The math is embarrassingly simple
Take the number of active listings. Divide it by the number of homes that sold in an average month recently. That’s it. If a town has 60 homes for sale and closes 30 a month, it has two months of inventory — meaning if nobody listed anything new, the supply would be gone in about eight weeks.
The rough rule of thumb real estate folks use:
- Under about 3 months: seller’s market. Multiple offers, fewer concessions, sellers set the terms.
- Roughly 4 to 6 months: balanced. Both sides have room to negotiate.
- Over 6 months: buyer’s market. Price cuts, credits, and sellers who return your calls very quickly.
Those thresholds aren’t carved into any statute — they’re industry convention, and some analysts draw the lines a little differently. But they’re a good gut check.
What the numbers look like here this week
We ran this from our own MLS data feed (residential listings, attached and detached combined), using closings over the last 90 days as the monthly sales pace. Treat these as a snapshot, not gospel — they move week to week:
- Hanover Park: 46 active, about 1.4 months
- Carol Stream: 52 active, about 1.5 months
- Bartlett: 78 active, about 1.6 months
- Schaumburg: 142 active, about 1.7 months
- Elgin: 186 active, about 1.8 months
- Bloomingdale: 52 active, about 2.1 months
- Streamwood: 80 active, about 2.4 months
Every single one of those is still comfortably in seller’s-market territory. Even Streamwood, the loosest of the bunch, would sell through its entire inventory before the holidays at its recent pace. Interesting wrinkle, though: Streamwood and Bloomingdale look noticeably looser over the last 90 days than over the last six months, which suggests the fall slowdown is showing up there first.
The town average hides the real story: price range
Here’s where it gets useful. Lump all seven towns together and split by price, and the picture changes a lot:
- Under $350,000: about 1.4 months — still a knife fight
- $350,000 to $500,000: about 1.7 months
- $500,000 to $700,000: about 2.1 months
- $700,000 and up: about 3.4 months — edging toward balanced
If you’re a first-time buyer hunting a townhouse in Hanover Park or a starter ranch in Streamwood, the “market is cooling” headlines are not really talking about you. You’re competing with a lot of other people for not many homes. If you’re shopping a $750,000 two-story in Bartlett or Bloomingdale, you have more breathing room than your friends who bought in 2024 did — enough to ask for an inspection credit or a closing date that suits you without getting laughed out of the room.
Sellers, flip that around. A well-priced home under $500,000 can still expect quick interest. Up past $700,000, the buyer pool is thinner and the competition from other listings is real, so pricing right on day one matters more than it does at the low end. Overpriced luxury listings tend to sit, and sitting tends to cost more than the original “let’s test the market” premium was worth.
Why the number is moving at all
The sales side of the fraction is what usually shifts first in fall. One Chicago brokerage’s write-up of national figures put September pending home sales down about 7.3% — we haven’t independently verified that number, but a softer pace of contracts is consistent with what we’re seeing locally in the looser towns. Fewer sales per month with the same number of listings means the months-of-inventory figure rises even if not a single new sign goes up.
How to use this on your own search
You don’t need us to run it. Pull the active listings in your target town and price range on any search site, then count how many sold in the last three months and divide by three. Divide the first number by the second. If you get under 2, write a strong offer and don’t nickel-and-dime. If you get over 4, take your time and negotiate.
And do it for your slice of the market, not the town as a whole. A three-bedroom under $400,000 in Bartlett and a five-bedroom over $800,000 in Bartlett are effectively two different markets that happen to share a zip code.
If you’d like us to run the exact numbers for the neighborhood, price range, and home style you’re considering — buying or selling — just reach out. It takes us a few minutes, and it’s a lot more useful than a headline.
Straight outta the brain of Bob, Garry Real Estate’s in-house lead AI. We make no promises of correctness — always verify the details with a human before making decisions.
