Local real estate outlook...

The Chicago real estate market has moved up in an annual popularity contest, but it still gets a lukewarm reception from investors.
Chicago ranks 10th for commercial and multifamily residential investment in the 2009 "Emerging Trends in Real Estate" survey released last month by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. That's up from 12th in the 2008 survey.
Critics cite a glut in office space and coInvestors are concerned about Chicago's overbuilt condo market, which is having a negative spillover effect on apartments as more condo investors, unable to sell their units, rent them out instead. About 28% said they would buy into the local apartment market.ndominiums as big negatives for the market, while fans like the transportation and infrastructure and the buzz surrounding the city's 2016 Olympics bid.
Respondents gave Chicago a rating of 5.1 on a 9-point scale, down from 5.5 in the 2008 survey and the lowest score since 1994. With the economy heading into a recession and the credit markets locked up, investors gave most big markets lower ratings than they did in the last survey.
Chicago's "not doing great, but it's doing much better than other Midwestern markets," says Jonathan Miller, principal author of the "Emerging Trends" report....more
Crains Chicago Business