Illinois Apartment Loans

Illinois: In the Spotlight

Illinois, often known as the Prairie State, is home to roughly 12.8 million people. The state of Illinois is the 5th most populous state and is also home to cities like Chicago, which is the third-largest city in the United States, with more than 2.6 million residents in the city. Springfield, the state’s capital city, is another key location in the state, with more than 113,000 people calling the region home.

The world’s very first skyscraper was built in Chicago, Illinois in 1885.
State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co. is the largest employer in Illinois, with over 13,000 employees.
Finance, professional services, manufacturing, and real estate are among the largest industries in the state.
The average age in Illinois is 38 years old.
Illinois has 5.5 million employees across the state.
The homeownership rate is just over 66%, which leaves 34% of the residents looking for apartments and rental properties.

How Lenders Underwrite Apartments in Illinois

Most Illinois apartment lending is in Cook County, where property tax drives the underwriting. The Cook County Assessor reassesses one-third of the county each year. The City of Chicago was reassessed in 2024, and the south and west suburbs are being reassessed in 2026 after their last reassessment in 2023. Apartments are assessed at 10% of market value, and the state then applies an equalization factor, 3.0300 for tax year 2025, to Cook County assessments. A reassessment can move a building's tax bill sharply, and appeals at the Assessor and the Board of Review can move it back.

Taxes are paid a year in arrears in two installments, and the schedule has slipped. Second-installment bills for tax year 2025 were due October 1, 2026, about two months later than usual. Lenders set tax escrows on the projected next bill rather than the last bill paid, and they look at the appeal history and whether a reassessment falls in the first years of the loan.

Timing: a purchase just before the property's triad is reassessed carries the most tax risk, because the new value often lands after closing.
Affordable set-asides: Cook County's Affordable Housing Special Assessment Program, passed in 2021 (35 ILCS 200/15-178), lowers assessments for buildings that commit units to households at or below 60% of area median income. The tax savings raise NOI if the owner accepts the rent and income restrictions.
Rent rules: the Rent Control Preemption Act (1997) bars local rent control in Illinois, and repeal bills have not passed, so lenders underwrite rent growth to the market.

Stabilized Chicago-area buildings fit Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and bank loans. Build the expected reassessment into your DSCR calculation before you size the loan.

Illinois Apartment Loan and Lending Options

In the state of Illinois, there are several different ways that you can finance your new apartment investment, whether you’re looking for a massive multi-unit tower in Chicago or a simple eight-unit property in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Rockford. We work with opportunities like:

Finance Your Illinois Apartment Building Now

Apartment.loans has an expert team specializing in apartment building loan products and options available for borrowers and investors of apartment properties throughout Illinois. Whether you are looking to finance a small apartment building, a complex with hundreds of units, or a cooperative, our team endeavors to meet all of your apartment mortgage loan needs. Illinois is a state that has been a decently strong market for apartment property loans and we are no strangers to arranging high-quality loans in the state for investors. We have a plethora of many available loan products to help qualified borrowers purchase or refinance an apartment property.

Apartment.loans offers apartment loans with terms and amortizations of up to 30 years, with recourse and non-recourse options, and flexibility when it comes to prepayment. Illinois apartment building loans typically close within 45 days of application. With the apartment.loans streamlined application process (with no-cost and no-obligations), gain unbiased access to the best possible apartment financing in the state of Illinois!

Our apartment loan brokerage and lending strengths are available in markets throughout the state, with a particularly strong presence in Chicago, Aurora, Springfield, and Rockford.

Apartment loans from $750,000 and up.