“There might be a bit of a golden age for multifamily,”\u00a0Brown said.<\/p>\n
![\"Placeholder\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750589843_18_placeholder.png\")
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\n Bisnow\/Ryan Wangman\n <\/p>\n
\n KeyBank Real Estate Capital’s Samantha Miller, Apprise by Walker & Dunlop’s Meghan Czechowski, T2’s Jeff Brown, Focus’ Vicky Lee, Woodlawn Central’s J. Byron Brazier, Lodge Financial’s Matthew Bowker and Kirkland & Ellis’ Joshua Hanna.\n <\/p>\n
Just 4,200 units are expected to come online in Chicago in 2025 \u2014 down nearly 50% from the average over the last decade, according to a second-quarter\u00a0Chicago multifamily report<\/a>\u00a0from Marcus & Millichap. Deliveries are anticipated to be more evenly spread across submarkets than in previous years.<\/p>\n The area encompassing The Loop, Fulton Market and West Loop is slated for fewer than 450 completions in 2025, a steep drop from\u00a0more than\u00a02,100 openings last year. Aurora, the Near North Side and Chicago\u2019s northwestern suburbs\u00a0are projected to see\u00a0new units drop from over 600 apartments in 2024 to fewer than 330 units in 2025.<\/p>\n The\u00a0shrinking pipeline comes as the gap between the cost of renting and buying a home has widened, giving multifamily a powerful advantage, Brown said. Advances in construction technology, from off-site modular methods to robotics, could\u00a0also break down cost and scheduling barriers that have long\u00a0hindered developers, he said.<\/p>\n But while Brown highlighted tailwinds for owners, others on the panel\u00a0said\u00a0the sector is still contending with a cloud of uncertainty that has lingered for years.<\/p>\n Vicky Lee<\/a>, senior vice president of development for developer and general contractor Focus<\/a>, said she had a deal on the market before the start of the year to get equity and debt. Then\u00a0tariff talks began and Liberation Day followed, which\u00a0caused equity groups and investors to pause.<\/p>\n \n Bisnow\/Ryan Wangman\n <\/p>\n \n NORR’s George Sorich, Thomas Roszak Architecture’s Thomas Roszak, Soucie Horner Design Collective’s Meg Prendergast, Project Management Advisors’ Trina Sandschafer, LG Group’s Brian Goldberg and Skender’s Joe Pecoraro.\n <\/p>\n The good news for multifamily developers is that real-time data shows that subcontractors are willing to bear the increased cost\u00a0of the tariffs, Lee said. A drier construction pipeline means more competition for construction work, and healthy profit margins during the pandemic-era construction boom leads to those groups being able to take a hit now.<\/p>\n To move forward in the current environment, investors need to find a way to reduce risk and operate with less clarity, she\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We should probably expect uncertainty for the next three and a half years,” Lee said. “Whether or not investors choose to work with uncertainty is still to be seen.”<\/p>\n Multifamily operators have been dealing with the “uncertainty buzzword” for over two years for different reasons, said Meghan Czechowski<\/a>, senior vice president and head of Apprise by Walker & Dunlop. But the pace of the news cycle and presidential administration isn’t\u00a0going to let up, so players in the multifamily space need to turn their attention to supply and demand dynamics.<\/p>\n Particularly in the Midwest, the sector\u00a0is very healthy, Czechowski said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We have to really focus in on housing and shelter as a basic need,” Czechowski said. “We need more of it. We want to focus on the underlying fundamentals … nationally, they’re pretty solid at this point, trending in a better direction. But in the Midwest, the fundamentals are fantastic.”<\/p>\n \n Bisnow\/Ryan Wangman\n <\/p>\n \n CLA’s Jim Milliken, Illinois Housing Development Authority’s Kristin Faust, Evernest Multifamily’s Mark Kurgan, Belgravia Group’s Alan Lev, Monroe Residential’s Mike Obloy, Daniel Management Group’s Roger Daniel and JAB Real Estate’s Frank Campise.\n <\/p>\n Chicago\u2019s rent growth is expected to outpace all other primary U.S. apartment markets this year, according to Marcus & Millichap. Building on strong first-quarter gains, the brokerage projects the average effective rental rate\u00a0will rise to $2,160 per month.<\/p>\n Samantha Miller<\/a>, a vice president of mortgage banking for KeyBank Real Estate Capital<\/a> who originates debt for multifamily projects, said she’s starting to see some of that uncertainty wane, which has unlocked some bank capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n Transaction velocity rose roughly 20%\u00a0in the 12-month period that ended in March,\u00a0making it one of the most active periods on record, according to Marcus & Millichap.<\/p>\n “You’ve seen an abundance of capital on the debt side, and it has remained extremely strong and competitive throughout this year,” Miller said. “We’ve definitely seen some of the most aggressive terms in the banking market, too. That goes for construction and new development as well. It definitely feels like we’ve seen a turn.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A shortage of new apartments and lingering market uncertainty could set the stage for growth\u00a0in Chicago multifamily.\u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":214516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,22739,5386,1818,22735,117294,117293,117295,117296,22741,117297],"class_list":{"0":"post-214515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-focus","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-jeff-brown","13":"tag-keybank","14":"tag-marcus-millichap","15":"tag-meghan-czechowski","16":"tag-samantha-miller","17":"tag-t2-capital-management","18":"tag-vicky-lee"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115177952956049362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n<\/p>\n