Rents up 7% YoY
Chicago’s premium multifamily rents are running about 7% higher than a year ago, with average asking rates around $4.33 per square foot — a clear sign the market’s top tier is still pushing rents. That pace of growth was highlighted in recent local market commentary and broker posts documenting aggressive repricing across small portfolios and individual listings (x.com).
Chicago’s top apartment market is pulling away from the rest of the city. Cushman & Wakefield put downtown Chicago at $3.70 per square foot in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 6.4% from a year earlier, while the broader metro averaged $2.34. (cushmanwakefield.com) That gap has been widening for a while. In the second quarter of 2025, downtown rents were already $3.77 per square foot with 5.1% annual growth, and Chicago ranked second for rent growth among the 50 biggest United States apartment markets. (cushmanwakefield.com) The engine is simple: not enough new units. CBRE said in January 2026 that Chicago has the lowest apartment construction pipeline among major United States markets and is heading for its lowest level of completions since the Great Financial Crisis. (cbre.com) You can see that shortage in the leasing data. MMG Real Estate Advisors reported 5,282 units absorbed in the first half of 2025 against 3,372 deliveries, and occupancy hit 95.8%, which it called a decade high. (mmgrea.com) By year-end, Cushman & Wakefield still had Chicago occupancy at 95.0%, which is above the market’s 10-year average of 93.7%. In 24 of 26 submarkets, stabilized occupancy was at least 93.0%, so landlords were not fighting a citywide vacancy problem. (cushmanwakefield.com) The squeeze is strongest in the neighborhoods where new luxury towers cluster. Cushman & Wakefield showed West Loop and Fulton Market, Gold Coast and Old Town and the Near North Side leading the proposed pipeline, which means the highest-rent pockets are also the places where owners keep testing higher prices first. (cushmanwakefield.com) There is a broader backdrop here too. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development said average apartment rent in the Chicago area was $1,838 in the first quarter of 2025, up 3% year over year, while rental-unit permitting had fallen from 10,450 units in 2022 to 5,375 in the 12 months ending May 2025. (huduser.gov) So when small Chicago luxury portfolios and individual listings get repriced higher, that is not just a broker trying his luck. It is what a low-supply market looks like when the most expensive slice still has renters willing to pay more than last year. (cbre.com)
