This midsize Illinois metro area saw housing prices drop 10 percent from its 2007 peak, according to the FHFA, but now it seems to be on the mend. The median home, worth $105,900 a year ago, is now $116, 500. It has had one of the strongest gains in jobs of any US metro during the past year. Employment in the trade, transportation, and utilities sector grew 5.8 percent in 2011.
Kankakee has been a regular on the National Association of Home Builders/First America Improving Market Index, which tracks housing markets on the mend, intending to draw attention to local metro where economic recovery is under way. The index measures improvement in employment, house prices, and single family housing permit growth. A softening in February dropped Kankakee from the list for the first time since October.
