Chicago luxury’s 185% sales ratio is valid arithmetic, not a sale probability. Learn what the ratio, eight-day median and incomplete size data mean.
Evidence: August 2026.
One number in Chicago's luxury report is likely to stop a reader: a 185% sales ratio in the single-family $1 million to $1,099,999 price band.
The arithmetic is straightforward. The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing reports 24 sales and 13 inventory in that band. Dividing 24 by 13 produces 184.6%, which the report rounds to 185%.
The interpretation requires more care. This does not mean that 185% of a fixed group of homes sold. It compares a flow of completed transactions with an available-inventory count. The source itself explains that a ratio above 100% means reported sales exceeded current inventory.
A ratio above 100% is not an impossible result
Imagine a shop that sells 24 items during a month and has 13 on its shelves when inventory is counted. There is no contradiction. Sales occurred across the period, and the inventory count represents a different measurement.
Housing is more complex because homes enter, leave and change status. The illustration explains the denominator issue; it does not reconstruct the histories of the Chicago properties in this report.
Three of the 15 single-family price bands had ratios above 100%. Two attached bands also exceeded 100%. These observations are consistent with sales flows exceeding the available inventory counted in those categories. They are not buyer counts, offer counts or cohort conversion rates.
The eight-day median needs similar care
The same report shows an eight-day median for sold single-family luxury homes, down from 12 a year earlier. That median describes the homes represented in the completed-sales results. It does not measure the age of every active listing.
A market can contain properties that sell quickly and others that remain available much longer. The report does not provide an active-listing age distribution, so it cannot show the size of that unsold backlog.
A seller should therefore ask two separate questions: how quickly did comparable successful listings sell, and how long have the current competing listings been waiting? The first answer alone cannot establish the likely outcome for a new listing.
A size-based analysis has an additional missing-data problem
The report's square-foot tables exclude properties without disclosed size. For single-family luxury, that table covers 332 of the 372 sales, leaving 40 outside the size analysis. For attached luxury, it covers 187 of 247 sales, leaving 60 outside it.
That is approximately 10.8% and 24.3% of the respective sales populations. The size tables can still describe the records they contain, but the missing records prevent treating them as a complete view of the market. Whether the missingness favors particular property types or price levels is unknown.
This matters when a dramatic size-band result is used to support a pricing recommendation. The analyst should first establish who is missing and whether the conclusion survives their inclusion.
A credible market explanation does more than repeat a striking percentage. It identifies the numerator, denominator and population, then states what the number can support. Here, 185% is a valid ratio with a specific meaning, not a promise about an individual property's chance of selling.
Source and method: ILHM Chicago September 2026 report, pages 2-5. Original ratio and coverage calculations. The report excludes pending properties from its trend data and excludes undisclosed square footage from its size tables.