What You Need to Know About Rockford IL's Booming Housing Market

Rockford, Illinois was just named the top housing market in America, but the reality of what that means isn't great news for all residents.

Rockford, Illinois Named America's Top Housing Market

Henryk Sadura, ThinkStock

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times; living in Rockford isn't as bad as it looks like in the news, but it does have its fair share of issues.

For now, let's skip the debate about what's wrong and what's good about living in Rockford and just stick to the facts; the housing market in this city is HOT, and now the entire nation knows it.

Rockford, Illinois just landed the number one spot on the latest Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking, primarily due to the city's complete turnaround in the last decade.

The city has come a long way since its underwater mortgage days in 2013, when nearly one-third of the metro area’s mortgages were for homes that were worth less than the money owed on them.

While being the hottest housing market in the nation may sound cool, let's break down what that means for the people who live here.

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What Does Being a Top Housing Market Mean?

Basically, being named the top housing market in America is great news for anyone who has a home to sell in Rockford. The Wall Street Journal article says;

The median listing price of a home in the Rockford metro area soared to $235,000 in March, up a stunning 51.7% compared with a year ago, which is the largest gain of any metro area in the ranking’s top 20.

Now let's read between the lines.

For anyone looking to buy a home in Rockford, earning the title of "top housing market" means your house hunting process will require a lot of patience and a lot more money.

We have already established that the average listing price in Rockford has jumped over 50 percent in the last year, but the even bigger struggle is the amount of homes for sale in this area.

Rockford real-estate agent Dianne Parvin told the Wall Street Journal;

A normal market in the Rockford metro area has around 1,000 homes for sale, in March, there were only about 230 active listings.

When you combine already high listing prices to the issue of having more interested buyers than homes for sale, you end up with a highly frustrating home buying process that requires a lot of money to succeed in.

I guess the moral of the story is this; if you want to sell a home in Rockford do it NOW, but good luck finding another home to buy in Rockford that won't require paying way over asking price for.

Sounds like on huge headache to me.

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