The Chicago multifamily market features some of the most steady and stable demand fundamentals in the United States. Over the past five years alone, Chicago increased its occupancy levels and households and doubled its rent growth returns, all while population growth declined in absolute numbers.

>Chicago officials are soliciting proposals to convert vintage office buildings into hundreds of affordable apartments on a stretch of the city’s one-time LaSalle Street financial corridor that in recent years has lost large tenants to new developments.

For most areas in downtown Chicago, the precipitous drop in office occupancy is devastating to more than just the office landlords. Fewer downtown workers equal less demand for retail tenants and for hotels relying on midweek business travel.

U.S. apartment sales during the past nine months have outpaced last year but some analysts say it could fall short in the fourth quarter of reaching 2021’s record level.

We won’t see something like 2008 again,” Summers said, noting that homeowners are much less leveraged, inventory is not overbuilt and lenders are stronger and much more careful in underwriting mortgages than they were during the sub-prime crisis.

The multifamily asset class will remain a safe place to deploy capital despite rising rates and inflation, one industry watcher tells GlobeSt.com.