Chicago’s recorded house sales for January through April 2026 now number 4,129, against 4,376 for the same months of 2025 — 5.6 percent fewer. In July this page reported the opposite, 23 percent more, because Cook County’s sales file was still missing 1,147 of the early-2025 sales it holds today.
Cook County Assessor Parcel Sales (wvhk-k5uv), read July 28, 2026 and September 30, 2026; file last updated September 15, 2026 · Chicago’s eight assessment townships · houses and small residential buildings, condominiums excluded · market sales only, by the file’s own screens · median recorded price $340,000 then $360,000 in both readingsCorrection, September 30, 2026: this page was first published on July 28, 2026 under the headline “Zillow Cut Its 2026 Outlook to Flat. Chicago’s Recorded Sales Through April Ran 23% Ahead of Last Year.” That comparison set a 2026 count against a 2025 count the page called complete. It was not complete, and the headline finding does not hold. The headline, the chart and the text below have been rewritten around both readings of the file. The July page said it would re-run the count and print the result “whichever direction that is”; this is that re-run.
What changed between the two readings?
| January through April | On file July 28 | On file September 30 | Added in between |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 3,229 | 4,376 | +1,147 |
| 2026 | 3,986 | 4,129 | +143 |
Only the file changed. Between July 28, 2026 and its September 15, 2026 update, the county added 1,147 sales dated January through April 2025 — 35.5 percent more than the 3,229 it showed at the first reading, arriving more than 14 months after the dates of those sales. Over the same weeks it added 143 to January through April 2026, 3.6 percent. So the older year grew by a third while the newer one barely moved, and a comparison that read 3,986 against 3,229, 23.4 percent ahead, now reads 4,129 against 4,376, 5.6 percent behind.
| Month of 2025 | On file July 28 | On file September 30 | Added |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 641 | 911 | +270 |
| February | 726 | 918 | +192 |
| March | 600 | 1,158 | +558 |
| April | 1,262 | 1,389 | +127 |
| May | 1,370 | 1,489 | +119 |
| June | 952 | 1,455 | +503 |
March 2025 is the starkest case: 600 sales at the first reading, 1,158 now, 93.0 percent more. In July that thin March made 2026 look like a surge. This page said then that January through March 2026 each ran well ahead of the same month a year earlier and that April ran 7.7 percent behind. On the file as it stands now, all four months of 2026 sit below their 2025 counterparts.
Is 5.6 percent fewer the answer, then?
Not yet, by our reading. The first reading was wrong because it treated 2025 as finished when the file was still filling it in more than a year later. The same caution now applies to 2026, whose January-through-April sales are only five to nine months old at this reading: if they fill in the way 2025 did, the comparison will move again, in 2026’s favor, by an amount the file cannot tell us today. The county’s own description of the file says sales are reported on a lag, with many records not populating until months after their official recording date. It does not say when a month is complete, and neither can we.
One figure did not move. The median recorded price for January through April was $340,000 in 2025 and $360,000 in 2026 at both readings, up 5.9 percent, even though the 2025 median now rests on a third more sales. May, June and July 2026 are still arriving — the file holds 1,046 sales for May 2026 against 1,489 for May 2025 — so this page compares nothing past April.
What the forecasters were saying in June and July
The count was first run against a change in the national outlook, and that record stands as read at the time. 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 — 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.
Those are national estimates and forecasts; Chicago’s figures here are counts of recorded sales in one city, and neither checks the other. The July version of this page set the two side by side and suggested Chicago’s counted market was running well ahead of its own prior year while the forecasts were being cut. The record no longer supports that, and it does not yet support the reverse.
What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you
Confirmed, as recorded on September 30, 2026: 4,376 market house sales dated January through April 2025 and 4,129 dated January through April 2026, with median prices of $340,000 and $360,000. Also confirmed: the file showed 3,229 and 3,986 on July 28, 2026, and we kept those rows. Not shown: how many more sales will arrive for either year, why the county’s records for early 2025 took more than a year to appear, or anything about why people bought or sold. A count from this file is a floor for any recent month, and a year-over-year comparison of counts is only as sound as its older year is complete.
The bottom line
The claim this page made in July is withdrawn: on today’s file, Chicago’s January-through-April house sales number 4,129 in 2026 against 4,376 in 2025, 5.6 percent fewer, not 23 percent more. Prices held through both readings, up 5.9 percent at the median. We will read the file a third time in January 2027 and print all three readings here.
Three questions this page can answer
How many sales did the county add to January through April 2025 after July 28, 2026? 1,147. Did the median price change between the readings? No: $340,000 for 2025 and $360,000 for 2026 both times. Which month changed most? March 2025, from 600 sales to 1,158.
- Chicago sales: the Cook County Assessor’s Parcel Sales file (wvhk-k5uv), read July 28, 2026 and again September 30, 2026 (file last updated September 15, 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” — 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 two readings: the first reading’s rows were kept, so the additions are counted directly: each month’s count on the file now, minus its count in the rows saved on July 28. The second reading selected sale dates and prices only.
- The window: January 1 through April 30 of each year, as in the original. No window is described as complete.
- The forecasts: Zillow’s June 23 forecast revision and the NAR’s July 9 existing-home sales release, both read in full in July and not updated here.
- What this is not: a forecast, a claim about why sales moved, or a final count for either year.
Computed by KCM Desk from the Cook County Assessor’s sales dataset as retrieved July 28 and September 30, 2026; first published July 28, 2026, corrected and recomputed September 30, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.