by Calculated Risk on 8/31/2009 09:05:00 AM

From the Chicago Tribune: Chicago's a renters' market, but vacancies, delinquencies on rise

More apartments are available in Chicago, and at prices that have slipped since the beginning of the year, creating a renter's market and allowing some consumers to trade up to better housing. ... according to a study scheduled to be released Monday by DePaul University's Institute for Housing Studies.
...
"If anything, I think [DePaul] is reporting less than what I see," said Jack Markowski, president of Community Investment Corp., a non-profit mortgage lender to multifamily buildings that started seeing increases in multifamily mortgage delinquencies 18 months ago. Multifamily buildings, he said, "are vulnerable right now."
...
Landlords, seeking to cover their costs, are lowering rents to attract tenants, and the study found that rents declined in all sizes of buildings and in all city neighborhoods except for the North Side.
...
The level of multifamily mortgages foreclosed on in Chicago during the year's second quarter, at 0.8 percent of the total supply, was twice as high as it was in the comparable year-ago period, said James Shilling, a DePaul professor and director of the institute.

"It only gets worse," Shilling said of the predicament the rental market finds itself in. "There's downward pressure on rents and upward pressure on vacancy rates. I think for the rest of 2009 and 2010 we'll see more defaults."