Regional Rental Market Analysis (RRMA) For Rent: Housing Options in the Chicago Region

MPC served as project manager for the Regional Rental Market Analysis in 1999. The University of Illinois Chicago was the lead researcher, and the Urban Institute and Applied Real Estate Analysis particapated on the research team.

This summary report of MPC’s Regional Rental Market Analysis, describes a tight rental market with significant annual rent increases. This unprecedented analysis, which measured 1999 rent and vacancy rates within each of the six metropolitan counties and provided forecast levels through 2004 and 2009, placed the overall vacancy rate in the region at an extremely low 4.2%.

Surprise findings from the Regional Rental Market Analysis:

Renters in DuPage County face the region’s highest rent burdens, with 43 percent paying more than a third of their income for rent. In Chicago, 36 percent of renters fall into this category.
Larger apartments–those with three or more bedrooms–comprise 23 percent of the rental market and have a slightly higher vacancy rate than other size units.
Compared to other midwestern metropolitan areas, Chicago is consistently under producing the number of housing units that econometric models would predict.
The tightest rental markets are DuPage, McHenry, north suburban Cook County, and on the north side of Chicago. The region’s tightest rental market is in McHenry County, with a vacancy rate of just 2.4 percent.

For Rent: Housing Options in the Chicago Region provides an executive summary of the reports produced by the research team.

Regional Rental Market Analysis (RRMA) Technical Reports:

Forecasts of the Rental Housing Market in Metropolitan Chicago: Model and Preliminary Results
Estimating Demand for Affordable Rental Housing in the Chicago Region
Providing Rental Housing in the Chicago Region: Challenges and Issues
Housing Trends and the Geography of Race, Poverty, and Neighborhood Renewal
Searching for Rental Housing in the Chicago Region
Metropolitan Chicago Regional Rental Market Analysis: Rental Housing Supply Survey Report
Condition Survey: Chicago Regional Rental Market Analysis, prepared by Applied Real Estate Analysis, Inc.
- Appendices: Building and Neighborhood Condition Survey: Chicago Regional Rental Market Analysis

Regional Rental Market Analysis (RRMA) Key Findings:

Regional Rental Market Analysis (RRMA) further information:

Download file