Chicago Rental Market Softening (Humboldt: sales, apartments, renters)

[dtcbnd03]

Anyone else notice the Chicago rental market softening? I have properties in East Humboldt, Logan Square and Lakeview. Apartments are recently renovated in last few years. A few units opened up this summer and they were tough to rent. Noticed the quality of tenant looking declined and had to lower price a bit from last year (approx. 5%). Last year and the year before I could raise rents 5-10% YOY, had dozens of responses to my ads and tenants would snap up the property in days even if I was in the middle of renovating (and they could only envision final product).

Certainly I understand the apartment building boom downtown has increased the supply but just surprised how quickly that happened. I expect rental prices to decline further in 2018 when another 8,000 new units come online. Curious what other landlords / renters have experienced...

[prhill]

The population keeps dropping too so less people here looking to rent as they are leaving and people are not moving too Chicago. I had a friend who was going to move here decide not too and now another one might decide not too move here. It is getting too expensive with all of these taxes and cost of living and add to that the violence that just keeps getting worse. Who wants to pay high rent to live with all of that! Especially considering apartments in the city are so small

[chicagobear]

Lots and lots of apartments coming on stream over the next year on the north side. Construction sites everywhere. I think some developers will get burned as in 2008.

[lepoisson]

The unit above mine has been vacant since April. No idea what's going on.

[dtcbnd03]

Originally Posted by chicagobear

Lots and lots of apartments coming on stream over the next year on the north side. Construction sites everywhere. I think some developers will get burned as in 2008.

Not like 2008 but I definitely think some developers coming on late will get burned. However, they can build them like apartments and then shift them to condos easily. I've heard that's how they get financing from banks anyways so I think a lot of the 2018 activity will be apartment-to-condo conversions.

[Floridabound2]

I think maybe a lot of people moving to North center and surrounding area hard to find apartment this area studios 1100 one bedroom 1400

Vintage studio 1000 vintage 1 bedroom 1200

[Slats Grobnick]

Supply and demand. There is a glut of new developments popping up in West Loop, Logan Square, and Downtown. Huge developments with hundreds of units.

[OKParker]

I'm going to disagree with most people in this thread -

Your anecdotal evidence does not represent Chicago as a whole: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-ren...us/il/chicago/ & when considering specific neighborhoods w/in Chicago, the average rent was up much higher than my source. Yes, many people are leaving Chicago, but the North/Northwest/Close West all went up in population + increased in median income.
Many buildings are being built, but we need to catch up to typical building rates in the 70s/80s/90s that we fell behind due to the huge drop in construction post-crash. (Also note, the 70s-90s were a decline period for Chicago, so not necessarily the highest benchmark you can compare to).
People are not leaving Chicago unless you are trying to rent in specific black or hispanic areas.

[Floridabound2]

Originally Posted by OKParker

I'm going to disagree with most people in this thread -

Your anecdotal evidence does not represent Chicago as a whole: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-ren...us/il/chicago/ & when considering specific neighborhoods w/in Chicago, the average rent was up much higher than my source. Yes, many people are leaving Chicago, but the North/Northwest/Close West all went up in population + increased in median income.
Many buildings are being built, but we need.

These statistics are scewed Chicago's most dense population from downtown to uptown along lake has higher rent higher income.

[deeman7]

Originally Posted by dtcbnd03

Last year and the year before I could raise rents 5-10% YOY, had dozens of responses to my ads and tenants would snap up the property in days even if I was in the middle of renovating (and they could only envision final product).

That's why I moved out of the city. I moved into a tiny 1 bedroom in Ukranian Village in like 2010 for 1k a month. Three years later they were asking 1,400. Add the sales tax, various fees added to tv and cell phones and vehicle registration etc, I was getting priced out. They wouldn't budge on the price of rent so bought a place in the suburbs and I spend less on mortgage and escrow a month than I would have on rent for some apartment.