Chicago Sees Strong 2Q Rent Growth

CHICAGO—The Chicago metro area saw above average annual rent growth as of the second quarter of 2013, just missing the top ten performers among the 100 largest metro areas in the US, according to a study recently published by MPF Research, the market intelligence division of RealPage, Inc., a Texas-based software provider. Chicago tied with Raleigh-Durham for 11^th place, with both areas seeing 3.5% increases in effective rents for new leases compared to the second quarter of last year.

“What really pushed up the overall rent growth from where it had been earlier was some newfound momentum in the suburbs,” Greg Willett, vice president of MPF, tells GlobeSt.com. “Most suburban areas saw annual rent growth move from about 1% earlier to about 3% now.” Still, the strongest annual rent growth happened in urban neighborhoods like Lincoln Park/Lakeview, which saw growth of 7.6%, and the Loop, which had growth of 5.7%.