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.
Cook County's second-installment bills now have a due date: October 1, 2026, per the Treasurer's table - 61 days past the statutory August 1 and the mildest of the four late years in the ledger (151, 122, 136, and now 61 days). Every date the county's own, every source linked.
Chicago’s individual-landmark register credits Frank Lloyd Wright on 11 of its 412 entries — 10 as sole architect, plus the Charnley House’s shared credit — from an 1891 house on Astor Street to a 1917 pair on South Hoyne. All 11, in construction-date order, with the register’s own dates and designations.
The oldest standing building on Chicago’s individual-landmark register is an 1833 farmhouse in Norwood Park — three years older than the Clarke House. The twelve oldest register entries, through a four-way tie at 1869, with the commemorative sites and one stone marker kept apart and every date the register’s own.
Chicago’s ledger of vacant-building cases against financial institutions: 5,012 violations across 4,175 hearing dockets, most from the early 2010s — and four in five ended in “City non-suit,” the city ending its own case. $1.53 million assessed at the docket grain the file itself uses, $1.26 million paid. Read in full, with the double-counting trap the file sets explained.
Chicago’s register of individually designated landmarks holds 412 entries, and more than half were designated in one mayor’s 22 years — about 10.4 a year under Richard M. Daley against roughly 6.5 under the next two administrations, with the pace back near Daley-era levels since 2023. Mapped area by area, with the register’s 1990s-built civic monuments included.
Before demolition or asbestos work, Chicago requires a notice of intent — 1,253 carry proposed 2026 starts, heaviest on the Near North Side, in Lake View, and in the Loop. The demolition subset runs a different belt, and the complaint file points somewhere else again. All mapped from CDPH’s own files.
Chicago’s own inventory listed 12,110 parcels as city-owned on August 3, 2026 — and Englewood holds more than any other community area, with West Englewood second. The top ten, with every count and caveat from the city’s own file.
The highest two-bedroom value on HUD’s FY2026 rent schedule for Chicago’s core ZIPs is a 14-way tie at $2,670 — the cap’s work. The lowest is $1,290, in 60609. Schedule values by ZIP, from the agency’s own files.
The city's own land inventory: 12,110 parcels marked owned, a fifth of the located ones in Englewood and West Englewood alone. Sales fell from 259 in 2024 to 195 in 2025; just 874 parcels are marked Offered. Among 2023-and-later sales with both dates, the median parcel had been city property for 23.4 years.
Chicago issued wrecking permits at 4,482 sites in 2018-2022. We matched every one against the city's new-construction permits by parcel number and address: 42.8 percent show a rebuild permit. Logan Square, 187 of 222. West Englewood, 1 of 287. West Pullman, 0 of 137. Where a rebuild comes, the median gap is 50 days.
