Chicago Bucks National Trend as Home Affordability Slips

Chicago’s housing market has a new distinction, and it’s not one brokers will love to tout.

While homebuying became more affordable over the past year in most of the country’s biggest metros, Chicago moved in the opposite direction. Buyers in the region needed 3.5 percent more income in December to afford a median-priced home than they did a year earlier, according to a report issued Wednesday by Redfin. Crain’s reported that in eight of the nation’s 10 largest metro areas, required income dropped during the same period.

The biggest affordability boost came in Dallas, where buyers needed 7.4 percent less income, year-over-year. Nationwide, the income required to buy the median-priced home fell 4 percent — a 7.5 percentage point swing compared to Chicago’s decline.

The culprit is Chicago’s relative steadiness. Unlike pandemic boomtowns such as Phoenix, where prices skyrocketed and are now giving back gains, Chicago saw slower, steadier appreciation, according to the report.

“The reason Chicago was getting more expensive in 2025 is that it didn’t get too expensive during the pandemic,” Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather told the outlet, contrasting the city with markets that overheated in 2021 and 2022.

At the peak of the boom in early 2022, Chicago home prices were up roughly 10 percent, year-over-year. Phoenix’s were rising at about triple that pace. Now Phoenix buyers have seen affordability improve by 3.7 percent, nearly the inverse of Chicago’s slide.

Local agents say the squeeze feels persistent. Ryan Gable of StartingPoint Realty told the outlet that affordability “has not gotten better in years.” Uran Kabashi of Fulton Grace Realty pointed to the double bind of elevated mortgage rates and thin inventory, compounded by broader inflation eating into buyers’ budgets.

Among the 50 metros Redfin tracked, only Detroit saw a slightly larger drop in affordability, with buyers needing 3.6 percent more income, year-over-year.

Even so, Chicago remains comparatively attainable. The median home price in Dallas tops $377,000, versus just under $349,000 in Chicago. And while buying power improved in coastal markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, households there still need more than $230,000 in income to afford a median-priced home — more than double the $105,440 required in the Chicago area.

— Eric Weilbacher