CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Handro

Wait is that a real article?!

Not sure if it's NYT but I saw something maybe in the winter that stated Chicago is one of the most expensive cities in the world and it's more expensive than NYC.

From what I remember, it didn't count housing costs which is one of the dumbest things you can possibly do considering housing usually is the largest cost for households per month.

I'd say more people called BS on it than they didn't but still a lot of people blindly accepting it as truth.

[TR Devlin]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Property taxes are definitely more here ...

You say that property taxes are higher in Chicago than they are in NYC. But what if you compare the taxes on a 2 br condo in the South Loop to the taxes on a 2 br condo in Long Island City. Or compare the taxes on your 2400 sq ft condo in Lincoln Pk to a 2400 sq ft condo in a similar neighborhood in NYC? I bet what you'd see is that the taxes in Chicago are lower than they are in NY.

And also, thanks for all your posts. I really look forward to them.

[galleyfox]

In Chicago, the website Brixbid.com facilitates an influx of people bidding on rent. Landlords start the bidding with a suggested price. Renters then have the choice to lowball them or bid even higher. Some apartments now go 10% to 15% over ask on Brixbid, said company co-founder James Peterson.

Chicago real-estate agent Jodi Dougherty of Downtown Apartment Co. has told her clients to write in their best offers on any rental application they submit. Many applicants are losing out when they assume the asking rent is enough, she said.

Earlier this month, a client succeeded by pre-emptively offering $1,000 over the asking price for a three-bedroom apartment near downtown Chicago that was listed for $4,000. “We did not win it by a landslide, by any means,” Ms. Dougherty said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidding...rs-11656322200

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by TR Devlin

You say that property taxes are higher in Chicago than they are in NYC. But what if you compare the taxes on a 2 br condo in the South Loop to the taxes on a 2 br condo in Long Island City. Or compare the taxes on your 2400 sq ft condo in Lincoln Pk to a 2400 sq ft condo in a similar neighborhood in NYC? I bet what you'd see is that the taxes in Chicago are lower than they are in NY.

And also, thanks for all your posts. I really look forward to them.

Thanks. NYC property taxes are low enough that the equivalent place in Brooklyn that costs $2.7M or $3.5M might only be $200 - $600 per month more than the equivalent $1M place in Chicago. But obviously the barrier to entry in Chicago is much lower to afford a place like that in that it could be 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of one in Brooklyn and even better when compared to one in Manhattan. We cannot afford a $3.5M place and in Chicago we can afford to equivalent.

On the other hand, property taxes in New Jersey are actually on average worse than Illinois (only state worse than Illinois) although there are some places with OK property taxes but still definitely more than NYC. Someone who still makes a good living there but cannot afford $3.5M might go to a suburb like Fort Lee, NJ for their housing. It is not a bad suburb actually with a lot of good Korean food and some walkability, but this place is priced similar to something you could get in Lincoln Park. But the one in Lincoln Park is going to be a lot more updated than this. Property taxes are pretty similar between the 2 places. I am sure the equivalent $1M Lincoln Park place in a suburb like this would be like $1.2M and have more property tax of course.

[TR Devlin]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Thanks. NYC property taxes are low enough that the equivalent place in Brooklyn that costs $2.7M or $3.5M might only be $200 - $600 per month more than the equivalent $1M place in Chicago. But obviously the barrier to entry in Chicago is much lower to afford a place like that in that it could be 1/3 to 1/4 of the price of one in Brooklyn and even better when compared to one in Manhattan. We cannot afford a $3.5M place and in Chicago we can afford to equivalent.

That's amazing.

Years ago someone told me that the price of housing in NY was 50% higher than in Chicago. And that the 50% NY premium had been fairly constant for much of the 20th century and probably wouldn't change much in the future. But now the price of high-end homes in NY is 3 to 4 times what it is in Chicago. That doesn't seem at all healthy for either city.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by TR Devlin

That's amazing.

Years ago someone told me that the price of housing in NY was 50% higher than in Chicago. And that the 50% NY premium had been fairly constant for much of the 20th century and probably wouldn't change much in the future. But now the price of high-end homes in NY is 3 to 4 times what it is in Chicago. That doesn't seem at all healthy for either city.

Keep in mind what I was comparing is more higher end luxury places.

NYC is such a big place - the prices swing pretty wildly depending on where you are and what kind of place you are even looking at. NYC also has a lot more co-ops which are typically cheaper to purchase than a condo because you don't actually own the entire condo, but rather a share of the building instead.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...5_M38865-90039

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...2_M39914-73062

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...2_M48420-61229

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...4_M32513-65850



For the prices, I'm not so sure it all of a sudden recently went from 50% to 25% on some of these. Pretty sure it's been like that for a decade at least.

[marothisu]

On another note, Illinois had the largest drop in individual returns filed for the IRS from 2019 to 2020 of any state....but it had the 5th highest increase of them from 2020 to 2021. It almost gained back what it lost in terms of filers. Interestingly there's 14 states that "lost" more filers from 2019 to 2021. What's also interesting is that Illinois gained more gross collection money in terms of filing to the IRS from 2019 to 2021 than Texas, despite Texas gaining 1.3M+ filers in that period and Illinois losing 25K....

[Steely Dan]

Thompson Center news moved to the Thompson Center thread:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=249335

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Thompson Center news moved to the Thompson Center thread:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=249335

Crains article --> https://www.chicagobusiness.com/comm...e-office-space

Google looking to hire 1000 more people in Chicago. They've hired 600 people since the beginning of 2020 here and now has a headcount of over 1800 in the city.

[tjp]

Celine is opening a boutique on Rush St.. Not a big space but still news for downtown retail.

https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2022...ping-district/

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by tjp

Celine is opening a boutique on Rush St.. Not a big space but still news for downtown retail.

https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2022...ping-district/

The worst thing I did this week was tell my wife. She has 10+ bags from them. They have a space at Neiman Marcus but this is good to see a standalone.

[marothisu]

Digital bank Chime is opening a Chicago office in Fulton Market at 333 N Green St in 26K sq ft on 2 floors. They had 6 local employees at the start of the pandemic in Chicago and have over 200 now. This is their 3rd office...SF and Vancouver are the others.

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...go-office.html

[marothisu]

Change in IRS tax filings for individual+estimated income tax by state from 2020 to 2021 via https://irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book

FL: +933,655
TX: +827,324
PA: +442,339
NY: +428,913
IL: +398,648
NJ: +343,778
NC: +338,658
GA: +329,531
MA: +317,881
VA: +281,977
MD: +248,863
IN: +228,102
WI: +223,719
TN: +217,689
MO: +198,572
SC: +179,334
MN: +176,115
CT: +138,141
AL: +130,157
IA: +125,785
OK: +99,041
KY: +89,612
AR: +81,030
ME: +64,342

[jboy560]

Is it possible to compare 2019 tax filings (the last “normal” year before the pandemic) to 2021 tax filings? I didn’t see a way to do that in the link, but I’m just curious to see how much of this is actual growth vs. “catch up” or pandemic rebound.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by jboy560

Is it possible to compare 2019 tax filings (the last “normal” year before the pandemic) to 2021 tax filings? I didn’t see a way to do that in the link, but I’m just curious to see how much of this is actual growth vs. “catch up” or pandemic rebound.

It’s mostly rebound for Illinois, but the change from 2019 is low enough now that we’re probably back to downstate losses vs small Chicago growth again.

https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-t...irs-data-books

Table 3
Individual Income Tax + Individual Estimated Income Tax

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by jboy560

Is it possible to compare 2019 tax filings (the last “normal” year before the pandemic) to 2021 tax filings? I didn’t see a way to do that in the link, but I’m just curious to see how much of this is actual growth vs. “catch up” or pandemic rebound.

It's rebound. But remember that IL lost the most of these filers of any state from 2019 to 2020. There's no magic rule saying you have to rebound, and the additions of the last filings almost make up for the losses of the prior year.

California lost nearly 750K of these filers from 2020 to 2021 and lost some the previous year too..

The next population estimates for Illinois and Chicago for 2022 could be interesting. This is one major source of data the Census uses to do those estimates. The fact that NY, IL, NJ, nd PA are on this list in the top 10 tells me that Chicago, NYC, and Philadelphia have or probably are rebounding nicely from any early pandemic losses.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It's rebound. But remember that IL lost the most of these filers of any state from 2019 to 2020. There's no magic rule saying you have to rebound, and the additions of the last filings almost make up for the losses of the prior year.

California lost nearly 750K of these filers from 2020 to 2021 and lost some the previous year too..

The next population estimates for Illinois and Chicago for 2022 could be interesting. This is one major source of data the Census uses to do those estimates. The fact that NY, IL, NJ, nd PA are on this list in the top 10 tells me that Chicago, NYC, and Philadelphia have or probably are rebounding nicely from any early pandemic losses.

That along with apartment vacancy back near all time lows and rents skyrocketing show a huge increase in demand.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

That along with apartment vacancy back near all time lows and rents skyrocketing show a huge increase in demand.

Yup. Big time demand in a number of cities now. While city doomsdayers are salivating over the 2019-20 migration data from IRS, they also released the 2021 SOI data which shows that a lot of the cities had a mass migration back to them again. And of course, rental prices going way up still and housing prices still increasing in certain areas showing the demand. Completely lost on some people it seems.

The next population estimates are going to be funny I imagine.

[marothisu]

Morningnstar is shifting hundreds of jobs from Shenzhen, China to Chicago, Mumbai, Madrid, and Toronto. Not sure how many jobs will be added in Chicago yet.

"Morningstar Cuts Hundreds of Shenzhen Jobs in China Shift | Crain's Chicago Business" https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...bs-china-shift

[twister244]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Morningnstar is shifting hundreds of jobs from Shenzhen, China to Chicago, Mumbai, Madrid, and Toronto. Not sure how many jobs will be added in Chicago yet.

"Morningstar Cuts Hundreds of Shenzhen Jobs in China Shift | Crain's Chicago Business" https://www.chicagobusiness.com/fina...bs-china-shift

Interesting....

I wonder if Chicago will get a good chunk considering they are HQ'd here?