Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
This would be the calculation for a first-time buyer only.
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And that's all anyone here is saying.
No one is saying that Chicago is a great place to invest in real estate (or at least I'm not).
Only that it has low real estate purchase costs on a PSF basis, apples to apples, relative to the other big urban coastal cities (minus Philly, which appears to be more in chicago's league).
That can be an attractive situation to many first time home buyers who don't have much money, but would still like to own their own home in a big urban american city. No, it will not make them rich, but for some people there are advantages to home ownership that go beyond strict investment potential.
Relative to other tier 1 US cities (or tier 2 if we rightfully place NYC in its own tier), Chicago has lower barriers to entry to the local real estate market and lower ceilings on the returns. Most of the other tier 1/2 big urban coastal cities are the exact inverse of that equation.
Pick your poison: higher barriers or lower ceilings.
That's the trade off.