Chicago’s Apartment Vacancy Rate Is Somewhere Between 3% and 5.4%. Here’s Why.

Ask what share of Chicago apartments are sitting empty right now and you’ll get a different number from every report: 3.0%, 4.4%, 5.1% or 5.4%, all for the second quarter of 2026. The honest answer is that vacancy is low by Chicago’s own historical standards, and every major report agrees on why: the city simply isn’t building many new apartments.

Here’s where each number comes from, why they don’t match, and what a tight market looks like from the renter’s side of the lease.

The four vacancy numbers for spring 2026

Four commercial real estate firms published Chicago apartment reports for the second quarter of 2026 (April through June), and they land in a two-and-a-half-point range:

• Matthews: 3.0%. Its Aug. 13, 2026 report says metro vacancy fell 52 basis points from the first quarter, with renters absorbing 5,025 units against 1,064 new completions.
• Cross Street: 4.4%. Its citywide average was unchanged from a year earlier, according to REjournals’ Aug. 26, 2026 write-up of the report.
• Cushman & Wakefield: 5.1%. It reports occupancy rather than vacancy, at 94.9% across the metro, above its 10-year average of 93.8%.
• Northmarq: 5.4%. Up 30 basis points from a year earlier and about 70 basis points above the mid-2022 low. Northmarq forecasts 5.2% by the end of 2026.

Why the vacancy reports disagree

The reports disagree because they measure different places, different buildings and different data. None of them is wrong; they’re answering slightly different questions.

Geography. Cross Street tracks Chicago’s downtown and city neighborhoods. Cushman & Wakefield’s “Chicago” is the whole metro: 529,280 units from the Loop out to Kane County, Kenosha and north Lake County, Indiana. Matthews’ lowest numbers come from the suburbs, too: South Cook County at 1.9% and Joliet/Will County at 2.1%.

Data source. Northmarq’s vacancy figures come from REIS; Cushman & Wakefield’s come from CoStar. Different databases count different properties.

Building type. These are numbers for professionally managed apartment buildings. Cushman & Wakefield notes its figures include buildings with five or more units, which leaves out a lot of how Chicago actually lives: the two-flats, three-flats and greystones where a landlord might live downstairs and a vacancy goes up on a hand-lettered sign in the window.

Building class. Newer, top-tier buildings have more room than the market as a whole. Northmarq puts Class A vacancy at 7.4%, two points above its overall number, while vacancy ticked up in older Class B and C buildings.

Why Chicago apartment vacancy stays low: not much new construction

Vacancy stays low because Chicago adds very few new apartments each year compared with the size of its market. Cushman & Wakefield counts 9,935 units under construction across the metro, and inventory grew just 0.6% in the first half of 2026. Matthews counts 11,895 units under construction, about 1.5% of inventory, and says completions over the past year were down 37% from the year before.

The forecasts for this year’s deliveries don’t quite agree either. Matthews points to reports that 2026 is on pace for the fewest new apartments since 2012. Northmarq expects deliveries to pick up to about 5,000 units in 2026, after roughly 4,000 last year, which it calls the slowest in more than a decade. Either way, it’s a thin pipeline.

Downtown is where most of the new building is happening. Cross Street counted 5,278 units under construction downtown as of June 30, and estimates that nearly 44% of downtown units delivered this year will be adaptive reuse: old office and industrial buildings turned into apartments, with the Loop leading.

What low vacancy means for Chicago rents and move-in deals

Low vacancy has meant rising rents and fewer move-in specials. All four reports show rents up year over year in the second quarter, from Northmarq’s 2.5% (asking rent of $2,060) to Cross Street’s 4.3% (effective rent of about $1,974). Effective rent is what tenants pay after concessions; asking rent is the number on the listing.

Concessions, the free month or reduced first-month rent, have been shrinking. Cross Street found downtown concessions averaged 1.18% of rent in the second quarter, about $37 a month, down from 1.25% a year earlier. In the neighborhoods they fell to 0.60% of rent, from 1.03%.

Timing still matters. Cross Street says leasing followed the usual pattern this year, building through the spring and easing in June, so spring and early summer are when the most apartments change hands. The Class A gap matters too: if the newest buildings carry the highest vacancy, they’re also the most likely to be the ones with room.

None of this tells you what to do about your own lease. If you’re deciding whether to renew, move or buy, the numbers are a backdrop; your building, your block and your budget are the real variables. (If buying is on the table, our look at adjustable-rate mortgages covers what the other side of the math looks like right now, and a lender can talk through your situation.)

How to read the next Chicago vacancy headline

When a new vacancy number comes out, check three things before reading anything into it: whether it covers the city or the metro, which quarter it measures, and whether it’s vacancy or occupancy (94.9% occupied is 5.1% vacant). A swing of half a point between reports usually says more about the methods than the market.

Found an apartment this year, or watched a For Rent sign come down in a day? Share your Chicago with #Chicago111.

Sources: Matthews, Chicago Multifamily Market Report Q2 2026 (Aug. 13, 2026); REjournals on Cross Street’s Q2 2026 Chicago report (Aug. 26, 2026); Cushman & Wakefield, Chicago Multifamily Q2 2026; Northmarq, Chicago Multifamily Market Insights Q2 2026.

Photo: Alissa Kennedy / Unsplash