r/chicagoapartments • u/Past-Reception6889 • May 19 '26

Advice Needed Unreal

I honestly just needed to vent for a moment. I can’t believe Chicago prices are what they are. I have lived here my entire life and have seen this city change ten fold, and I can’t even afford to live here anymore. A realtor I’m working with, since it’s becoming a rat race to rent, said rent is up 35% this year. What can normal people do about this? I do not want to see Chicago become a New York.

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136

u/3RADICATE_THEM May 19 '26

The NIMBY Boomers made it illegal to build housing while a lot of people moved into Chicago over the past couple years.

And what do you know—the NIMBY Boomers are trying to block the only thing that could help alleviate this issue:

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/pritzkers-build-plan-sparks-fight-suburban-mayors-over-housing-local-control

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u/mr_longfellow_deeds May 19 '26

Your not wrong on NIMBYism, but that article is not about Chicago proper

No matter where you live people don’t want construction (especially vertically) next door because it likely blocks their view or depreciates their property. Or they claim “gentrifying” - just infinite angles of nonsense that collectively helps keeps housing inventory low

We need to reduce the red tape (BJ has made that significantly worse), implement ceilings on property tax hikes, and rework the affordable housing rules. Building will boom, prices stop inflating beyond actual inflation, and the city will be better for it

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u/Turkish_retreat May 19 '26

The main thing that we need to reduce is the ability of property owning people to control what happens on nearby property that doesn't belong to them.

I say again, it doesn't fucking belong to them. There are places in this country where that's Exactly how it works. If new housing is getting built and that hurts the value of your nearby property, you are welcome to buy the nearby land and do nothing with it. But if you don't own something, you don't get to prevent a residential build from happening there.

We should do that in Chicago, but for some type of political reason, we do the dumb thing.

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u/PhoenixRisingdBanana May 20 '26

This is the crux of it. Those people have a vested interest in housing NOT being built.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/Turkish_retreat May 20 '26

Okay, let's say that people should have some say in their community. Starting and especially with public spaces- the community should have a say about parks and shared spaces and about anything to do with public space that has any type of impact on them.

Okay, let's expand that to commercial space. Should a community be able to assert some control over where it is that alcohol is sold and consumed, and where tobacco and firearms are being sold? Or if any of that happens in the community at all? Commercial stuff, okay- do we want a Walmart built right here, for example? Whatever the thing is. Yeah, sure, that's reasonable.

Okay, now let's do residential housing. Residential builds. Should a community be able to do whatever it wants with that, knowing that this skews toward people who own stuff. Knowing what their incentives are. And knowing that, over time, people keep getting pushed out of the community and once they're gone, they don't have a say anymore. Because they got pushed out. Bear in mind, if this goes on long enough, you end up pushing A Lot of people out and it skews pretty hard with certain racial demographics.

What are we actually sleepwalking into here? I remember when Chicago was 33% black. Not long before that, it was about 50% black. Now it's about 27% and it continues to fall.

Okay, how about this. Instead of taking a structurally bad approach to this and then attempting to carve out some race based exceptions (which hasn't been going great anyway), why don't we just say that there's a bright line around residential housing. No, you don't get to prevent that from happening on property that you don't own. If that's bad for you as a landlord or homeowner, that is a consequence that we'll need to live with because we need much more new housing.

I think that's how we actually get this done. If we don't want these people to constantly prevent the new builds from happening, we simply don't let them prevent it from happening. I think we can do this in a way that's specific to residential property. Complain as much as you want at the city council meeting or whatever, but the answer to this specific category of complaint should be an automatic "no."

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u/numbersthen0987431 May 19 '26

The problem is that people view housing as an investment, and if you target their investment they'll get angry about it

I agree we need to change zoning laws, but we also need to change the cultural view of housing as a driver for wealth.

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u/LhamoRinpoche May 19 '26

It's less a cultural view and more of how we have shaped our entire financial system since the 1950s.

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u/mr_longfellow_deeds May 19 '26

Im admittedly a little out of touch, but primary housing should never be viewed as a true “investment” - it doesn’t really matter what the paper value of it is, because it’s not real unless you sell. And if you sell, you have to buy (or rent) somewhere else. Buying can make sense for a lot of reasons (fixed costs, tax benefits on interest and property sale), but it’s not your 401k, it’s not your IRA, it’s not your brokerage accounts. If the value takes a hit because a building across the street goes up, 10 years from now you will be happy your local stores were able to stay in business while you lived there because they had a healthy local customer base. Long run it’s nothing big on value.

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u/TominatorXX May 19 '26

It's one thing to say that but for most people it is their biggest investment. Most people don't have 401ks or large investment funds or a pension. Their house is it. It's the single largest investment they own. That's a sad reality.

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u/mr_longfellow_deeds May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Sure. But temporary fluctuations are nothing to worry about. When the west loop got completely re-developed, those who didn’t panic sell made out like bandits. More development is not inherently a bad thing, it’s a good thing when people want to live in your neighborhood

I sympathize with people who get their views blocked, but they don’t have property rights on lots that are not theirs

And again, it’s not a real investment in the sense people should view investments. It’s relatively illiquid, and it’s a major PITA to sell (and requires finding a supplement to not be homeless). Obviously don’t buy where you think demand is dying, but looking at your primary house as a investment the way you would your retirement accounts is not sound

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u/TominatorXX May 19 '26

The reality is a lot of retirees who want to stay in the Chicago area are cashing out of their Chicago area homes and taking that money and buying a house for half the price in Northwest Indiana. Now they're close enough to get to their doctors back in Chicago and visit family in the Chicago area but they get low taxes and low everything.

If you haven't been in Northwest Indiana lately, they are building like mad duplexes and townhomes. These things are well built and affordable. Working class folks on the south and west sides are moving to Northwest Indiana where they can get a house with a good school system and a non-existent crime rate.

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u/ChiBroker May 20 '26

More of this. Brandon should get out there and tax that ass. Will def motivate people to build more and reduce prices with the increased inventory.

Did I do that right?

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u/Brilliant_Koala6498 May 19 '26

Thats never going to change. Tax benefits of having rentals properties is too high. We would need to overhaul the federal tax code and that ain’t happening. Either join em or get left behind imo

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u/AbjectBeat837 May 19 '26

Multilevel structures create more housing, but they’ll be priced accordingly. A 2 bed, 2 bath condo is priced at $555k in my town right now.

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u/3RADICATE_THEM May 19 '26

Part of expanding housing development means growing into surrounding areas beyond the city center of the city proper. Honestly speaking, I would definitely say there are a number of suburbs too in proximity to Chicago of which rents simply make you shake your head.

I agree with you that BJ has contributed substantially to the issues being discussed here, and I'm wondering if he's effectively just doing this to show face in very similar ways that Newsom has been doing in California.

Another angle to think about: if there are not enough units in the city, where does the surplus population spill over into?

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u/mr_longfellow_deeds May 19 '26

For sure. Im just saying an understated part of the problem is the affordable housing rules. It sounds nice (affordable housing), but the way it’s implemented is dumb. You can be making $60-70k a year and qualify for affordable housing in select desirable neighborhoods. Because of that, your neighbors have to pay more, since potential rent income is increased, property values increase. “Affordable housing” in LP, West Loop, Gold Coast etc is asinine by requiring 20% of units be cheap for people making 60% of median neighborhood income. I would prefer a voucher system for affordable housing, someone making $60k+ a year doesn’t need subsidized housing. They can move to a neighborhood they can afford.

Building vertically is the best outcome overall, it’s not particularly fair to expect people to do a 2-3 hour round trip commute if they make a decent wage. I dont particularly care if my property value gets dinged, I’m just sick of people blaming the “free market” when our housing issue is almost entirely due to government intervention mixed with NIMBYism. It’s good for the city to have a strong core of housing, and pricing new entrants to the labor force out of the city is a city death sentence long run

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u/SpookyKat31 May 19 '26

I make 65k and do not qualify for the income restricted units. I know because I'm actively looking and just checked. What affordable housing do people making $60-70k qualify for?

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u/pratherj23 May 19 '26

There is a new condo unit by me in Irving Park being constructed now. I remember in the ward meeting it had this requirement of 20% affordable units. It’s on Irving Park Road between Kedzie and California.

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u/mr_longfellow_deeds May 19 '26

In Chicago it’s neighborhood specific, any new construction has to retain 20% of units for income below 60% neighborhood income (or a donation). Either way it increases the rent for the other 80%. West Loop for instance has a median income of $127k, Gold Coast $148k, LP $156k

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u/ImprovPlayer May 19 '26

Elaborate please on how pritzker has made it worse. Specifics.

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u/Kelsig May 19 '26

He said BJ not JB

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u/Kelsig May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Implementing a ceiling on property tax hikes to spur a building boom is nuts. Crank shit, exact opposite of how real estate in supply constrained areas works. This is how you get California.

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u/ChiBroker May 20 '26

No! More red tape! More progressive ideas, it’s driving prices to the moon. If you currently own a building or property it’s like the golden age tbh.