Fox Valley Real Estate: Week of August 24-28, 2026

This was a week where the national numbers looked considerably worse than anything happening on the ground here. New-home sales posted their sharpest monthly drop since January, the Midwest region fell off a cliff in that report, national affordability worsened for the first time in about three years, and consumer confidence hit its lowest reading since January. Meanwhile the Fox Valley spent the week approving townhomes, breaking ground on a 760-acre master plan, and running a special census. The gap is real, and the explanation is boring: we do not have enough houses, so national demand softness has not reached our pricing yet.

Aurora

M/I Homes’ Kingsley Row went before City Council on Monday, August 25 - 185 townhomes in 38 buildings on 28 acres of long-vacant land near Ogden and 75th, in the District 204 attendance area (Hoodline). Two details are worth more than the unit count. The builder is paying for the road improvements rather than the city, and the homes are being built to Aurora’s efficiency standards, pitched at roughly 60% more efficient than a 2006 build, at an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more per unit. I have not seen the final vote tally confirmed in print, so treat approval as reported-but-unverified until the minutes post.

Separately, another 500 apartments were approved as part of the Fox Valley Mall reimagining (Patch). That corridor now has the 304-unit Lumen from 2022, the 323-unit Lucca from 2025, and this. If you own near Ogden and Route 59, the department-store land behind you is becoming dense residential, and that is a permanent change to the character of that stretch. Aurora’s median list price ran near $415K (Movoto). One item worth asking about if you are buying there: the Choose Aurora Homebuyer Assistance Program launched in February, and whether it stacks on new construction is a live question.

North Aurora

Silverthorne Homes opened presale pricing this month on Silverleaf, 99 homes off Deerpath Road. The road news matters more for the next 60 days. North Aurora Road reopened August 3 between Pennsbury Lane and Frontenac, but the final phase of that project starts September 29 - replacing the roughly 110-year-old railroad bridge and widening to five lanes with a trail, running into late 2027. If you are listing near that corridor, the clean showing window closes at the end of September. Median list ran near $444K with Lennar the active builder.

Batavia

The downtown pipeline is the whole story here. The city’s RFP for four city-owned downtown sites - the Boardwalk Shops parcel, the former Larson-Becker properties, and the old First Baptist Church lot - is live, targeting mixed use with commercial on the ground floor and up to three stories of residential above (City of Batavia). River Street Plaza, a new public gathering space, is already approved. July median list ran near $500K, with roughly 14 new-construction homes listed near $480K; median sale price sat around $479K with roughly four offers per home in the low-40-day range. Batavia continues to run meaningfully under comparable Geneva product, which is the practical argument for it.

Geneva

The number that stood out this week: median list around $547K at roughly $268 per square foot in August, but down about 8% year over year (Kombrink, Movoto) - one of the softer year-over-year reads in the Tri-Cities. That sits awkwardly next to the median sale price near $530K with about five offers per home that keeps getting quoted. Both can be true if the mix shifted toward smaller homes, but I would not build a listing price off either figure without pulling the actual comps. Worth knowing that the offer-count figures trace to an agent-authored blog rather than MLS data.

Practical note for showings: crews are replacing underground cable along Miller Road and in the Blackberry neighborhood from August 24 through September 4, and the $22M IDOT rebuild of East State Street from Glengarry to the river runs into late next year.

Sugar Grove

The Grove is no longer a proposal. Crown Community’s 760-acre master plan at I-88 and Route 47 has broken ground on Area 1 - 214 single-family homes on 60- and 70-foot lots along Merrill Road, with the first completions expected this year and roughly 1,400 residences eventually (Crown Communities). A builder and sales launch announcement appears imminent. The village also awarded the Route 47 and Park Avenue work to D-Construction at $2.43 million, roughly 46% under the engineer’s estimate (WSPY), which says something about how hungry contractors are right now.

The honest part: resident opposition to The Grove has not gone away. If you own in Sugar Grove, this is the dinner-table topic and a genuine question mark about what the village looks like in ten years. Resale median has been running near $499K.

Naperville

Still the tightest market on the list at roughly 0.63 months of supply, with inventory down about 19% year over year, homes going pending in roughly 10 days, and sellers holding near 99.5% of ask. The median is quoted anywhere from $595K to $620K depending on the source, and the frequently cited +4.4% year-over-year figure is Zillow’s home value index, not a change in median sale price - those are different measurements and get blended together constantly. The 13 city-owned acres at the 5th Avenue Metra station remain the redevelopment wildcard downtown.

Oswego

The new Comprehensive Plan runs through fall 2026, layered on the Unified Development Ordinance adopted in 2024, and it will shape the density fight for the next decade. In the pipeline: the Oswego Grand annexation petition, M/I’s Piper Glen, D.R. Horton’s Sonoma Trails. The Breybourne cricket stadium PUD remains an unusual amenity bet for the area. Kendall County’s median ran near $370K, up about 4.8% year over year, but days on market stretched to roughly 67 from 56 a year ago. Buyers here have time. Sellers should price accordingly.

Yorkville

The land-use rewrite continues. Project Cardinal covers 1,037 acres and 14 buildings at roughly 17 million square feet, approved in November 2025 with its annexation deadline pushed to the end of 2027; Prologis’s Project Steel covers 540 acres, 24 two-story buildings, 9 million-plus square feet and three substations, with first-phase construction eyed for summer 2027 (Data Center Dynamics, Shaw Local). The updated Comprehensive Plan is steering farmland toward industrial and commercial use, and there is a lawsuit tangled up in it.

Two quieter items that will matter more to homeowners: the city is running a special census that could add roughly $1 million a year in revenue, and Lake Michigan water arrives mid-2028 through the DuPage Water Commission connection, backed by more than $125 million in state grants. Residential kept moving - roughly 48 new-construction homes listed at a median near $418K, with activity in Grande Reserve, Raintree Village, Autumn Creek, Whispering Meadows and Timber Ridge Estates. Yorkville is still the value entry point out west, with the caveat that you should know exactly what is approved behind the property before you write.

County and rate backdrop

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed averaged 6.66% for the week ending August 27, up one basis point from 6.65% the prior week and above the 6.56% of a year ago; the 15-year averaged 5.98% (Freddie Mac PMMS). Illinois-specific pricing ran near 6.63% on August 25 (LendingTree, Bankrate).

One correction worth carrying forward, because it has shown up repeatedly: rates did not fall through the summer. Freddie’s weekly series rose across July - 6.43%, 6.49%, 6.55%, 6.58%, 6.66% - and today’s 6.66% is above where the year started for this stretch. The “rates are easing” framing came from comparing a daily broker average against a weekly survey, which manufactures a decline that did not happen. Fannie Mae moved its year-end 2026 forecast the other direction this month, to 6.8% from the 6.4% it projected in July. If you have buyers waiting for a rate break before they act, the data this month argues against the wait.

National watch

The commission litigation is over. On August 19 the Eighth Circuit affirmed final approval of the nationwide Sitzer/Burnett settlement, upholding more than $1 billion in settlements and the 2024 business-practice changes, and rejecting all seven consolidated appeals in a 35-page opinion (Inman, RISMedia, Real Estate News, Duane Morris). NAR’s own $418 million deal covers hundreds of MLSs and associations. The practice changes stand: the cooperative compensation rule is gone from the MLS, and buyer agents must have a written agreement disclosing their compensation before touring, with the eventual fee capped at that number.

NAR was pleased and framed the outcome as pro-consumer. That framing deserves the obvious discount - NAR is a trade association whose members are paid on transaction volume, so a story where the rules changed, consumers won, and nothing needs to change further is exactly the story its interests predict. The objectors’ case was not frivolous: they argued a nationwide class swept in sellers with no real day in court, that copycat claims were extinguished on a settlement they had no hand in, and that the practical effect has been to move compensation from an MLS field into a contract most buyers sign without negotiating. The court found the class adequately represented and no due-process failure at the November 2024 fairness hearing. My read is narrower than either side’s: the fight is legally finished, commissions did not collapse, and the actual change is that the number is now written down and in front of you before you tour. That is an improvement, and it only helps if you read it.

The other national item was uglier. Census and HUD reported July new single-family home sales at a 607,000 annual rate on August 25, down 10.5% from June and 6.3% below a year ago, the lowest since January. The Midwest fell 43% month over month to a 43,000 rate, its weakest since September 2012. Inventory sits at 488,000 units, roughly 9.6 months of supply, and the median new-home price at $393,800 is a five-year low. NAHB’s Robert Dietz called it a second consecutive annual decline for single-family building; Zillow’s Orphe Divounguy argued sales are running roughly where they were before the pandemic and flagged weather effects in the Midwest print. Both can be right - the level is not catastrophic, and the direction is not good. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his first Jackson Hole keynote this morning, which is worth watching more for tone than for policy.

The bottom line

National new-home sales cratered, national affordability worsened, sentiment slipped, rates held in the mid-6s, and the Fox Valley approved townhomes and broke ground on a master-planned community anyway. That disconnect holds only as long as inventory stays this thin, which is a fragile thing to build a pricing strategy on. Priced right and move-in ready still wins here; overpriced or dated still sits, and it sits longer in Kendall than in Kane. If you are weighing a move in any of these towns, I am happy to talk through what it actually means for your situation.

Sources: Freddie Mac PMMS (Aug. 27); Fannie Mae August ESR; LendingTree and Bankrate (Illinois rates); U.S. Census Bureau / HUD Monthly New Residential Sales, July 2026 (rel. Aug. 25); NAHB (Dietz); Zillow (Divounguy); Inman, RISMedia, Real Estate News and Duane Morris (Eighth Circuit, Aug. 19); Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (Jackson Hole); Hoodline and Patch (Aurora); Village of North Aurora; City of Batavia; Kombrink and Movoto (Geneva, Batavia); Crown Communities and WSPY (Sugar Grove); Oswego Long-Range Planning; Data Center Dynamics and Shaw Local (Yorkville); Redfin and Zillow (medians, days on market, months of supply).