CHICAGO— If you’ve been trying to find the perfect apartment in a Chicago suburb lately, you may already know that it can be difficult. But a new set of national rankings underlines the pain of chasing a spot in the greater metro area.
While some consider New York City, or possibly the San Francisco Bay Area, to be the most difficult place to find a place to live, one study shows that the champion for that dubious title is actually the suburb of Chicago.
The research was published in the New York Times.
It said the unique difficulty of finding a place in Chicago’s suburbs was the result of a number of factors, including the growth of hip suburbs, major companies moving to the area, and high occupancy rates and slow construction.
“Demand is amplified by high occupancy rates – only one in 20 apartments are available – and slow construction of new apartments, which represent only one in 1,000 rentals in Chicago’s suburbs and one in 200 in the city itself. This has led, in some places, to hiring bidding wars,” wrote reporter Tim Heffernan.
All of these elements helped push Chicago’s suburbs beyond Miami-Dade County to the top of the list. However, the report admits that Miami still has more potential tenants per available unit, with 18 compared to the 16 in the Chicago suburbs.
Rounding out the rest of the top five are Milwaukee, Bridgeport-New Haven and, wait for it, the city of Chicago itself.
The report ranks New Jersey as the sixth most competitive rental market for apartment hunters, several positions above Manhattan (ninth) and Brooklyn (tenth).
