In late June, Zillow cut its 2026 housing outlook to roughly flat. Chicago’s recorded house sales, compared over the matched January–April windows, ran 23 percent ahead of last year.
3,986 recorded Chicago house sales January–April 2026, against 3,229 a year earlier · medians $360,000 vs $340,000The national numbers in the headlines are estimates and forecasts: projections of what sales and values will do across the whole country, revised monthly. Chicago’s records are counts — each one a completed sale in the Cook County Assessor’s sales dataset, which is built from deeds recorded with the county. The two measure different things over different territory, and neither checks the other; our earlier comparison set out that distinction in full. What this page does is simpler: while the forecasts were being cut, we counted what Chicago’s house market actually recorded, comparing only the window where both years’ recording is substantially complete.
What the forecasters changed
Zillow entered 2026 projecting sales growth of 4 to 5 percent, and its own measure of the first quarter ran ahead of that: monthly sales up 5.5 percent year over year at the end of March. Then second-quarter mortgage rates climbed back into the mid-6s, its May growth reading fell to 1.5 percent, and on June 23 the company cut its full-year forecast to roughly flat — home values up 0.1 percent, existing-home sales down 0.4 percent on the industry’s standard count, with the rate run-up, in its words, having “put that recovery on pause.” The National Association of Realtors’ existing-home sales release for June — dated July 9, 2026 on its newsroom page — reads less dire than the mood: it reported June sales down 2.4 percent from May but up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, with the national median price at an all-time high of $440,600. June’s national sales were not below a year earlier; the forecasts of where the year ends are what flipped.
What Chicago recorded through April
Over the matched January–April windows, Chicago’s recorded arm’s-length house sales rose from 3,229 in 2025 to 3,986 in 2026 — up 23.4 percent — and the median recorded price rose from $340,000 to $360,000, up 5.9 percent. January through March each ran well ahead of the same month last year, March by the widest margin. April ran 7.7 percent behind — which could mean late April sales are still being recorded, or that the slowdown was reaching Chicago; the file cannot yet say which. These are city house closings recorded with the county — houses and small residential buildings, condominiums excluded — and they are a different universe from the national estimates above: a count of one city’s deeds, not a sample, a seasonal adjustment, or a projection.
Why we stop at April
The slowdown the forecasters describe arrived with second-quarter rates — May and June nationally. Our file cannot yet show those months completely in Chicago: sales take weeks to months to be recorded, the file’s newest sale is dated May 28, 2026, and the dashed columns above show later months still filling in. So this page makes no claim that Chicago is immune to the turn the forecasters describe — only that over the last matched window whose recording is substantially complete in both years, Chicago’s counted market was running well ahead of its own prior year. When the summer months finish recording, we will re-run this count and print what they show, whichever direction that is.
How we counted
- Chicago sales: the Assessor’s Parcel Sales file (wvhk-k5uv), retrieved July 28, 2026: the eight county assessment townships that together make up the City of Chicago (Assessor codes 70–77), class 2 residential parcels other than condominiums — houses and other small residential buildings, which we shorten to “houses,” matching our earlier sales reporting — keeping only sales the file itself marks arm’s-length — no duplicate recording of the same sale within 365 days, no sales under $10,000, no excluded deed types, no multi-parcel sales.
- The window rule: we compare January 1 through April 30 of each year, because the file’s newest recorded sale is May 28, 2026. Comparing longer windows would count 2025 in full against a 2026 that is still being recorded and mistake the lag for a collapse. Even April 2026 may still gain late-recorded rows, which is one reading of its 7.7 percent gap; a rerun will tell.
- The forecasts: Zillow’s June 23 forecast revision and the NAR’s July 9 existing-home sales release, both read in full. Other outlets revised forecasts the same weeks; we cite only what we read.
- What this is not: a forecast, or a claim that Chicago escapes the national turn. It is a count of what one city’s market recorded through April, the last substantially complete month, set beside what the forecasters were saying at the time. We will re-run the count when the summer months finish recording.
Computed by KCM Desk from the Cook County Assessor’s sales dataset, retrieved July 28, 2026 (newest recorded sale May 28, 2026); published July 28, 2026. If you spot an error, corrections come first.