Chicagoland New Development at Highest Level Since 2008
Posted by Leo Clark. on Friday, November 6th, 2015 at 4:44pm.
New construction around downtown Chicago has been on the rise for awhile now, especially when it comes to large-scale rental and apartment developments. Hundreds of high-end residences have been delivered all throughout the downtown area in 2015 and as we inch closer to the beginning of a new year, things don’t look to be slowing down anytime soon.
In fact, according to some reports, new construction in the entire Chicago metro area has seen constant progress over the past 12 months, with residential new construction at its highest level since the third quarter 2008. Recent statistics from MetroStudy—a Houston-based market leader in real estate stats and analysis—show developers in the Chicagoland region have started construction on 6,143 new residences in the first three quarters of 2015, which equates to about a 7.6% jump over the first three quarters of 2014.
Along with higher new construction numbers, demand is also on the rise, and with the rental market not just in Chicago but all over the region becoming more and more saturated, the need for more for sale homes is certainly expected to continue.
Perhaps the one major concern specifically for the Chicago area relates to pricing, as fewer and fewer new construction units that come to market are affordable. Also noted in the report, the Chicago market saw roughly 35,000 new home starts at the height of its strongest new development years, with approximately 45% of those units priced under $250,000. Today, as fewer new homes are being built, an even lower percentage of those are under $250,000, with most estimates set around 35%.