Chicago apartment market shows no signs of cooling off

 

The new report, released yesterday, shows that Chicago apartment rents had by the end of January increased by 15.6 percent when compared to the same month a year earlier.

Apartment List reports that the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago stood at $1,265 at the end of January. That median figure rises to $1,395 for a two-bedroom apartment in the city.

For the entire state, median apartment rents have jumped 14.2 percent on a year-over-year basis. For the entire country, that year-over-year increase is 17.8 percent.

Not all areas of Chicago, of course, are seeing rents rise at the same rate. Apartment List reports that median apartment rents in the suburb of Lombard were down 0.9 percent on a year-over-year basis. The median rent for two-bedroom apartments in that suburb is $1,919, while one-bedroom units have a median rent of $1,438.

Naperville has the most expensive rents among larger cities in the Chicago area. Apartment List reports that the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Naperville now stands at $2,033.

And the cheapest apartment rents in the Chicago area? You’ll find those in Waukegan. According to Apartment List, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in that suburb is now $1,212.

While renting an apartment in Chicago isn’t cheap, units are less expensive here than in many other comparable cities. San Francisco, for instance, has a median two-bedroom rent of $2,681, more than one-and-a-half the median two-bedroom rent in Chicago.