Yeah interesting, on one hand I can see why it is happening as home prices can only stay down for so long..and this "housing crisis" has been going on for several years now...
but on the other hand , what about the shadow inventory and homes that are yet to be foreclosed upon? We could possibly see a drop if a bunch more homes are dumped on the market.
I'm not too familiar with Chicago, but I have looked up listings a few months ago or so and was surprised to find properties with asking prices of under $50,000 and the last sale price was $250,000+ . Many of them were in bad shape and probably in "bad areas" but still amazing.