last august, we finally went public with our carefully-harvested apartment data, hoping our rapidly-expanding list of landlord and tenant clients could benefit from additional insight into the local residential rental market.  our blog readers will recall that we released a chart reflecting the median rents for the most common unit types (studios through three-bedrooms) in the fifteen chicago neighborhoods with the highest number of listings on domu.  building on that foundation, we are now ready to serve up some more data.

a word about our methodology first.  during the final four months of 2011, we recorded the asking rents for more than 3,700 units, ranging from studios to three-bedrooms, in our “top 15” neighborhoods.  to decrease bias and increase population size, data collected from domu rental listings was supplemented with data collected from a host of other online advertising channels.  the collective data was then massaged, gently, with not too much pressure.  some listings just made no sense.  you can’t rent three-bedrooms in lincoln park for $800 unless you’re living with the prairie dogs at the lincoln park zoo.  and you don’t pay $3,500 for a one-bedroom in ukrainian village unless the ice box produces cubes of gold bullion.  inevitably, we had to throw out some highs and some lows.

using a distilled down set of ostensibly reliable data, we analyzed the change in median apartment rents for each of the four major unit types in each of the top 15 neighborhoods, covering 60 data points in all.  we then applied a formula to weight each of the data points in proportion to the number of data points collected in the corresponding neighborhood as a whole.  the result, we believe, provides valuable insight into the movement of apartment rents, across all unit types, in each of the top 15 neighborhoods during the final quarter of 2011.  here, have a look:

at first glance, you might scoff at the notion that rents in wicker park increased 7.20% over the course of just a few months.  it’s a fact, however, that prospective renters consulting the most common online sources would have seen a set of asking prices that, as a whole, was 7.20% higher than the set of asking prices they would have seen a quarter earlier.  we know it's a fact because we watched it happen.

incidentally, if we weight the fourth quarter rent changes for each neighborhood by a factor representing the number of data points collected for that neighborhood in proportion to the number of data points collected for the top 15 neighborhoods collectively, we learn that the asking apartment rents in the 15 most popular neighborhoods on domu increased 1.08% as a whole in the fourth quarter.

these findings are consistent with reports we have received from many of our property management clients.  insiders at firms that manage properties of all types (high-rise, mid-rise, vintage brownstones, etc.) have informed us that vacancy rates continue to be low, that waiting lists are growing, and that rental increases are projected for the year ahead.