Mid-Illinois Realtors Association

The frenzied Bloomington-Normal housing market has cooled off, though a local Realtors group says rapidly rising prices might not level off until the middle of 2023.

The Mid-Illinois Realtors Association said Wednesday home sales are up for the first two months of the year. Sales were up marginally for the McLean, Dewitt, and Livingston County region, but they rose 4% percent for the Bloomington-Normal metro area.

A total of 102 newly built homes sold in Bloomington-Normal last year. That's $34 million in new property value created in the community to meet demand, according to figures from the Mid-Illinois Association of Realtors. And it's more than twice the amount of new home construction in 2020. Early signs are this year will be even better.

The Mid-Illinois Realtors Association is urging Bloomington and Normal municipal governments to use pandemic relief money to encourage home ownership.

Low inventory, a scramble for available homes, and rising prices characterized 2021 in the McLean, Livingston, DeWitt County region, according to the Mid-Illinois Association of Realtors.

Can you call it hot housing karma? It’s the mojo that comes around when you sell a house well over asking after struggling to find a house somewhere else within your price range in this crazy real estate market.

In the first three months of this year 589 homes, condos, and zero lot line homes have sold in the Bloomington-Normal area, according to the Mid-Illinois Realtors Association. That’s an increase of 25.6%.

The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating many industries, but the real estate market is thriving in the Bloomington-Normal area.Mid-Illinois Realtors…