In the News

Thirty-six percent. That’s the share of a typical American family’s income now going to the mortgage on a median-priced existing home, according to the NAHB Cost of Housing Index released this month. Last quarter it was 32%. A four-point jump in ninety days is not a drift — it’s a lurch. And yet in Wheaton,…

A story went around this month claiming the median local move in America costs $145. If you are sitting in a four-bedroom in Bartlett looking at a basement full of Rubbermaid totes, a treadmill nobody has touched since 2019, and a piano somebody’s grandmother left you, that number is going to feel like a practical…

On August 14, Governor Pritzker signed a flood relief bill, stood in front of storm-wrecked houses in the south suburbs, and every headline in the state ran some version of “Illinois homeowners to get flood rebates.” If you own a house in Bartlett, Carol Stream, or Bloomingdale and you read that over coffee, you probably…

Here is a scene that plays out a dozen times a month across Bartlett, Carol Stream, and Streamwood: a buyer falls in love with a two-bedroom townhome, writes a clean offer, gets it accepted, and then the whole thing quietly dies three weeks later. Not over the inspection. Not over the appraisal. Over a PDF….

If you looked up “Chicago housing market” this week, you probably landed on a number like this one: an average price around $430,000, up roughly 11.7% from a year ago, with a competitiveness score of 66 out of 100. That’s Redfin’s read on the city of Chicago. It is a fine number. It is also…

The 30-year fixed sat at 6.77% this week, with the 15-year at 5.95%, according to Forbes Advisor’s running tally. Bankrate’s rate panel for the week of August 13–19 expects a modest drift lower, noting that inflation came in exactly on forecast — which gave the bond market nothing to react to in either direction —…

If you’ve been waiting for the housing market to do something dramatic this summer, I’ve got news that’s either reassuring or maddening depending on your temperament: it’s not. As of mid-August 2026, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate is sitting around 6.71%, barely a rounding error from where it’s been for weeks. The Federal Reserve held…

Something interesting is happening in the suburbs, and it’s not showing up on the average buyer’s radar yet. According to a new report from Chicago-based investment firm Interra Realty, multifamily sales volume in suburban Chicago grew 67.8% in the first half of 2026. That’s not a typo, and it’s not a rounding error. When institutional…

Here’s a number that should make every homeowner in Bartlett sit up a little straighter this morning: the average Chicago-area home price is now hovering around $430,000 — up roughly 11.7% from a year ago, according to Redfin’s latest read on the market. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a serious jump, and it’s happening…

Every August somebody asks me if the market is finally going to “break.” And every August I get to give the same slightly boring, slightly reassuring answer: nope. Not this year either. The numbers that landed this week tell a story we’ve been living out here in Bartlett, Carol Stream, and Streamwood for a while…