Guides for anyone relocating to Chicago or its suburbs: what homes cost, how buying works here, and the practical questions every move raises. Researched from local data and sources, and updated as the answers change.
Sixty-nine Chicago condominium buildings bought in bulk since 2018 have left the tax rolls as condominiums, the nearest parcels now classed as apartment buildings or two-to-six-flats; 46 were bought in 2018 through 2020. Chicago requires 85 percent of unit owners to approve such a sale.
The Cook County Assessor’s building file, 2000 to 2025: since 2008 the count of houses and small apartment buildings rose just 3,087, with the suburban townships up 6,351 and Chicago’s down 3,260. Lake township alone lost 3,075; Lemont gained 19.6 percent. All 38 townships, net change by period.
The Cook County Assessor’s condominium file: 372,354 condo units in 2025, 63 fewer than in 2010, after a 73.2 percent rise from 1999. Half the growth sat in buildings built from 1999 on; the other half, by our reading, was older buildings converted. Chicago’s townships more than doubled their count.
The Cook County Assessor’s exempt-parcel list, tax year 2025: the City of Chicago holds 16,943 of 93,641 parcels, 819 fewer than in 2022 and fewer each year. By our reading, nine of the ten largest owners are public bodies; the other is the Catholic Bishop of Chicago, with 2,312. Robbins leads the suburban municipal owners.
The Cook County Assessor’s building file, tax year 2025: just over half of the county’s 1.1 million houses and small apartment buildings date from 1954 or earlier, and 2.2 percent from 2010 or later. The middle year is 1925 in Chicago’s townships and 1960 in the suburban ones, and the count has barely grown since 2008.
The Chicago Historic Resources Survey file behind the city’s Demolition-Delay Ordinance, read whole and placed by community area: 9,282 properties rated red or orange, 1,590 of them in Lincoln Park and none in Burnside, Calumet Heights, Mount Greenwood or Riverdale. The Loop and Near North Side hold 80 of the 151 placed red-rated properties, 63.7 percent of dated rows were built before 1900, and the file’s demolished flag marks just four.
Twelve numbers for anyone weighing a move to Chicago, each from a public agency's own file and a published KCM analysis: the 81 percent valuation-to-sale ratio, 60 percent of self-filed appeals winning, an October 1 tax due date, 311's clocks, 69,852 basement-flooding requests, 2.76 million potholes filled, 3,852 house-share registrations, 86/65 percent transit recovery, $4.21-a-mile rideshares, a $1,750 federal rent figure, and 5 percent of beach tests at advisory level.
Austin leads Chicago with 6,777 two-to-six-flat parcels on the Assessor's 2026 roll, ahead of West Town and Logan Square - the top ten areas hold 38 percent of the city's 119,978. Class-211 parcels, not buildings, with the shrinking-stock arc in the companion analysis.
West Town has more registered murals than any other Chicago community area - 66 of the 458 on the city's own Mural Registry - with Uptown at 56 and the Loop at 54 behind it. The top ten areas, each count placed by the mural's own coordinates, and the registry-not-a-census rule that scopes every rank.
Chicago's own Mural Registry lists 458 works, and three community areas - West Town, Uptown, and the Loop - hold 176 of them. Install years run 1971 to 2024 with the busiest years in 2017 and 2019, 55 of 77 areas hold at least one, and the registry's own area column disagrees with its own coordinates on nearly half its rows - so every mural here is placed by its coordinates. The registry as recorded, mapped in full.
