Chicagoland Rents Are Climbing and Listings Just Shrank 7.8% — Buckle Up, Renters

Chicago's median asking rent just ticked up to $1,833, active listings across Chicagoland dropped 7.8% in June, and somewhere a landlord is smiling in a way that should concern you.

Two headlines, one story: it's getting more expensive to be a renter and harder to be a buyer with options, and both of those pressures are pointing the same direction — toward suburbs like ours where your money still buys you an actual yard.

Rents keep marching up

Realtor.com reports Chicago's local median asking rent has landed at $1,833, and rent — for now — remains a lower monthly commitment than buying. Cute in theory. But "lower monthly commitment" isn't the same as "cheap," and every dollar that number climbs is a dollar closer to the point where renting stops making obvious financial sense. Add in that Chicago's City Council is currently debating a new tenant protection ordinance (the "FAIR" ordinance, possibly merging with a "Protecting Renters" proposal) that could standardize fees and deposits and pressure landlord operating income — meaning some of that regulatory cost has a way of finding its way back into rent checks, ordinance or no ordinance.

And listings just got scarcer

Meanwhile, Chicago Agent Magazine's current market data shows active listings across Chicagoland dropped 7.8% in June. Fewer homes on the market means more competition for the ones that are, which is exactly the kind of environment that makes buyers nervous and sellers comfortable. It's not all bad news on the new-construction front, though — ground is about to break on a townhome project in Highland Park, on the former Solo Cup factory site, courtesy of The Habitat Co. and M/I Homes. Every new project like that helps, but one townhome development isn't going to single-handedly fix a region-wide inventory squeeze.

What this means for you

If you're a renter watching that $1,833 number creep up and wondering if you're just funding someone else's mortgage, this is your semi-annual reminder to run the numbers on buying — especially out here in the NW suburbs, where your rent-equivalent dollar still stretches into an actual driveway. And if you're already a homeowner sitting on the sidelines wondering whether to sell, a market with shrinking inventory and rising rents is not a bad market to be a seller in. Less competition for your listing, and a buyer pool that's increasingly motivated to stop renting and start building equity.

Tight inventory plus rising rents is basically the market's way of nudging fence-sitters off the fence. Just saying.