Tag Archives: Cook County

The percent of income Cook County residents pay to own their home

Posted on by

How much does it cost to be a homeowner in Cook County?

Photo by Ricky Esquivel on Pexels.com

Homeownership expenses — including typical monthly mortgage payments, homeowners and mortgage insurance and property taxes — accounted for 29.2% of the average income earned by a Cook County resident as of the middle of this year, up from the 23.2% historical average based on data collected between 2005 to 2025, according to ATTOM, a national property data provider.

That is lower than the 33.7% national average and slightly higher than the 28% typically recommended by mortgage lenders, the data shows.

For the average Chicago resident, 42% of their mortgage payment is for expenses such as property taxes and insurance, marking it the fourth-highest share in major markets across the country, according to Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research for Intercontinental Exchange, a data and financial technology firm. This is in large part, he said, because of property taxes.

This particular article suggests these costs are high for those who want to start a family; they may be able to purchase a home but there is not much left over after that point. The figures above help provide context for the 29.2% homeownership cost:

  1. This is higher than the average in the past. Homeowners in Cook County are now paying more per month than previously.
  2. The figure it higher than the 28% lenders might recommend.
  3. But the Cook County percentage is lower than the national percentage.
  4. And out of that overall percentage, Chicagoans tend to pay more for property taxes and insurance.

And a little more context: the homeownership rate in Cook County is about 62.5%.

All interesting information. Owning a home takes resources for purchasing it and maintaining it. The same lending practices that make it possible to get a mortgage for 30 years also mean costs for that long. But could the issue be something different: the costs of having children? How have those costs changed over time?

The Chicago area is often regarded as having a medium cost of living. Big cities in the Northeast and West cost more, places in the South and Midwest cost less. People living in these different contexts adjust. With the relative costs of living, how much does it differ to raise children in each place?

Homeownership is one of the biggest financial investments that a person or household will make. How many Americans now experience or believe that pursuing homeownership, a vital part of the American Dream, impedes their ability to pursue having kids?

Bureaucracy misses property tax assessments, property owners can pay up to 3 years later

Posted on by

A report on errors in property assessments by the Cook County assessor’s office includes this summary of Illinois legislation:

Photo by Karolina Kaboompics on Pexels.com

State law allows county assessors to back-tax property owners for up to three years of missed assessments, even when the homeowners did nothing wrong.

This can have serious consequences:

A homeowner in Northbrook was hit with a nearly $7,800 bill in back taxes this year after the home, built by 2022, was added to the rolls in 2023. The assessor’s office had the permit data on file, records show.

That homeowner’s next door neighbor was hit even harder…

Finished in 2020, it sold for nearly $1.4 million the same year. The owners paid less than $1,800 in property taxes last year because the assessor’s office listed it as vacant land for three years before realizing their error.

Their bill this year: more than $93,000. The sum includes more than $67,000 in back taxes.

In an even more extreme case, Kaegi’s office classified an $11 million lakefront house in Winnetka as vacant until 2022, even though its construction was completed in 2020. This year, its owner owes $651,346 in property taxes, including more than $370,000 in back taxes from 2020 and 2021 — more than 4% of all property taxes being collected by the village of Winnetka this year.

The bulk of the story is about the difficulty the assessor’s office has had in keeping up with current property values. From it not being the top priority to not being able to keep up with all the data they have to not getting the data in the first place, it sounds like there are multiple areas to improve in.

So I wonder about the consequences of this passed along to property owners. They might have choices in local elections about who is in this position. They tend to assume the local government is doing their job. Yet I would guess this position is not the radar screen of most people. They might not be very aware of how to appeal their taxes or how their taxes are calculated. They get their taxes each year and pay the bill.

There is even a story in the article about a property owner who realized their taxes were probably low and tried to ask about it. Nothing happened.

If property taxes are important to local government – and I know they are – then it would behoove them to be on top of assessing properties, collecting taxes, and working with the public.

Not many takers of money available to Cook County suburbs to help migrants

Posted on by

Money is available to suburban communities in Cook County to help migrants. Only two have applied for it:

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As of now, only Oak Park and Ford Heights applied for the fund Cook County created last fall. The lack of effort is frustrating some non-profit leaders who see the need in their communities…

The Cook County Board created a $100 million disaster response and recovery fund last fall, and of that $20 million was earmarked for suburbs if they wanted to play a bigger role in helping migrants. The money can be used for a variety of services, from shelter and short-term rental assistance to helping migrants enroll their children in school or apply for public benefits, according to the application.

Suburbs can pass the money through to other organizations, such as non-profits or community health centers…

She has her theories about why suburbs aren’t applying for the county’s big pot of money. She points to Joliet Township, which was awarded money from the state, then didn’t take it after blowback from residents…

But some suburbs are frank about why there’s been little interest — they say they’re already overwhelmed by their existing needs. In west suburban Forest Park, Mayor Rory Hoskins said he already has a lot on his plate. His community is the last stop on the CTA’s Blue Line. He said his small fire department is stretched thin responding to mental health calls, overdoses and assaults.

This is not surprising given the lack of interest suburban communities have shown in having migrants in the community beyond a drop-off and train trip to Chicago. In other words, local officials are likely worried about what residents will say if they take the money. This could lead to them being voted out of office.

Another way to think about this is what incentives would prompt a suburb to provide help to migrants. Is there a dollar amount? Some sort of special project or program could be brought to the community?

It would be interesting if similar funds were made available throughout the Chicago region. How many suburbs would accept money? More than five?

Create property tax exemptions for homeowners and some communities have to make up the revenue elsewhere

Posted on by

Homeowners generally like to pay lower property taxes. But, according to a new report looking at Cook County, reducing their own property taxes can affect the community as a whole:

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

UIC professors David Merriman and Rachel Weber, experienced researchers on property taxes and government finances who led the report, said this is one of the first attempts to measure the impacts of exemptions on the county as a whole. In total, $15.8 billion worth of property value in Cook County was unavailable for governments to tax in 2021 because of those breaks, their research found.

That translates into about $1.6 billion in tax revenue, which governments simply shift onto other property owners…

To respond to tax spikes or inflation, state lawmakers have expanded breaks over the past half century. They now include eight types of homestead exemptions: homeowners, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and those making improvements on their home. Exemptions typically cut down the taxable value of a home to provide relief.

The report noted the effects of these exemptions are not the same in every community. The tax base of the community matters:

Those unintended consequences also aren’t the case everywhere. The effects of homestead exemptions are negligible in cities and villages with a bigger industrial property base, like McCook and Bedford Park, with a concentration of more valuable properties like Winnetka or Kenilworth, or with a lower share of homeowners who qualify, like Chicago.

It sounds like this affects communities that do not have great tax bases to start with. Already behind, homeowner’s exemptions then contribute to a lack of community funds compared to other communities.

I would guess Cook County and Chicago area homeowners would point to the fact that they pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation. In a country that prizes homeownership, these exemptions help enable people to live in their homes. But, as the article notes, there are other ways to fund public goods and services. This reminds me of Prop 13 in California which since 1978 has limited property tax revenues. Without those local tax revenues, governments have sought out other means.

Deaths and COVID-19 by groups, communities in Cook County

Posted on by

COVID-19 is big in its effects but I am surprised we have not seen more coverage all over the place about who specifically is affected more within regions and big cities. WBEZ looks at recent data in Cook County, Illinois:

Photo by Griffin Wooldridge on Pexels.com

In the earliest weeks of the pandemic, Chicago’s Black residents were dying of COVID-19 at alarming rates. More recently, in the few weeks since the arrival of the omicron variant, Black Chicagoans are again dying at much higher rates than their Asian, Latino and white counterparts, shows a WBEZ analysis of data on COVID-19 related deaths from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Since Dec. 7, 2021, the date when the state’s first omicron case was found in Chicago, the city’s Black residents are dying at rates four times higher than Asians, three times higher than Latinos and nearly two times higher than white residents, according to WBEZ’s analysis. A total of 97 Black Chicagoans died of COVID-19 during the seven-day period ending Jan. 9, 2022 — more than at any point since May 11, 2020.

Black Chicagoans aren’t the only demographic that has been particularly vulnerable since the arrival of omicron. Older suburban Cook County residents have also seen their seven-day COVID-19 death totals reach levels not witnessed in more than a year. According to WBEZ’s analysis, a total of 181 suburban Cook County residents 60 years and older died from COVID-19 during the week ending Jan. 9, 2022. That’s the highest seven-day total for that group since Dec. 24, 2020…

While several communities on Chicago’s South and West sides have been hit hard by COVID-19, the pandemic’s death toll has also weighed heavily in various parts of suburban Cook County. WBEZ’s analysis finds some of the county’s highest COVID-19 death rates in parts of northwest suburban Niles, Norridge and Lincolnwood, southwest suburban Palos Heights, Chicago Ridge, Oak Lawn and Bridgeview; and south suburban Hazel Crest, Markham, Harvey, Robbins and Country Club Hills.

I am sure there are already and will continue to be many academic studies that examine these differences. Even as COVID-19 has impacted many, the impacts of COVID-19 are not distributed evenly. It arrived at a time of inequality, including in health outcomes and experiences, and it exacerbated issues.

At least in the Chicago area, data on this topic is available online. For example, I have tried to keep track of the disparate effects of COVID-19 in DuPage County where there are significant differences across racial and ethnic groups, age groups, and communities (earlier post here).

Measuring religious affiliation at the county level and the variation within counties

Posted on by

I was looking at the methodology for the “Where Should You Live?” interactive feature in the New York Times from November 2021 and noticed this section on religion and place:

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel on Pexels.com

Why isn’t there a checkbox for ____?

There are many metrics that we wanted to include but for which we couldn’t find data.

Religion was at the top of that list. The Public Religion Research Institute sent us breakdowns of religious affiliation by county. But some counties contain dozens of places. Cook County, for instance, includes Chicago and is home to a large number of Black Protestants. The county also includes Chicago’s northern suburbs, where very few Black people live. Assigning the same statistics to every place within Cook County would have been misleading.

(We did use county- or metropolitan-level statistics for a handful of metrics — but only when we thought values were unlikely to vary significantly within those areas.)

This explanation makes some sense given the data available. Counties can have significant variation within them, particularly when they are large counties and/or have a lot of different municipalities. The example of Cook County illustrates the possible variation within one county: not only does the county contain Chicago, there are scores of other suburbs with a variety of histories and demographics.

On the other hand, it is a shame to not be able to include any measure of religion. People do not necessarily gather with similar religious adherents in their own community. People regularly travel for religious worship and community. There are Black Protestant congregations in Cook County outside of Chicago even as they may not be evenly distributed across the county. Because this religion data is at the county level, perhaps it could be weighted less in the selection of places to live and still included as a potential factor.

This also speaks to a need for more systematic data on religious affiliation on a smaller scale than counties. This requires a tremendous amount of work and data but it would be a useful research tool.

Using the Forest Preserve to protect thousands of acres

Posted on by

The Chicago Tribune highlights the proactive efforts of the Cook County Forest Preserve to protect land:

Why does Cook County have a bigger, better-distributed array of preserves than does any other U.S. metropolis?

In part because indefatigable visionaries (1) projected metro Chicago to someday grow to 10 million people, (2) figured that property development would devour unprotected plots of land, and (3) staged their own land grab so greenery forever would punctuate urban sprawl. As public health pioneer Dr. John Rauch said after the Civil War in his much-cited push for a Chicago parks district, “we want not alone a place for business, but also one in which we can live.”

But the key stroke of brilliance came in 1904 from architect Dwight H. Perkins and landscape architect Jens Jensen. They studied Cook County’s still open lands and concluded: “Instead of acquiring space only, the opportunity exists for preserving country naturally beautiful. … Another reason for acquiring these outer areas is the necessity of providing for future generations …” The upshot was a state law that created the district and its mission statement — overwhelmingly tipped toward preserving and protecting lands, plants and animals rather than toward ball fields, playgrounds and other park-like recreation…

In January a blue-ribbon panel of outsiders set that 25-year agenda, including: Acquire another 20,000 prime acres selected by naturalists, rehab 30,000 acres overrun by invasive plants, and build a huge network of volunteers and members of a new Civilian Conservation Corps. We’re counting on a new policy council of volunteers with excellent conservation cred to ride herd on the plan. Distinguished groups such as Openlands and Metropolis Strategies also are on the case.

For those concerned about sprawl, efforts like those of the Cook County Forest Preserve, the DuPage County Forest Preserve, and other bodies have helped retain some open land amidst 9+ million residents in the Chicago region. These spaces are often more “natural” than sculpted parks even if I’ve heard hundreds of jokes about the lack of nature in northeastern Illinois (nature seems to equal hills or mountains for many). Chicago may be a world leader in regards to its lakefront parks but the collection of Forest Preserves across the region is also pretty unique.

On the other hand, it would be interesting to note how many Chicago area residents utilize these Forest Preserves that are within an easy drive for many. I drive past several DuPage Forest Preserve properties each day and yet I don’t think I visited any during this calendar year. (In contrast, I’ve used the Prairie Path dozens of times. This trail was started by citizens and today is maintained by a number of groups.) The Forest Preservers are supported with tax dollars so if people want a return on that money, they should utilize these spaces. (However, if everyone did, I suspect these places wouldn’t seem very natural.)

Big differences in life expectancy across American counties due to income differences

Posted on by

Here is an update on the “longevity gap,” the differences in life expectancy, by county in the United States:

Fairfax County, Va., and McDowell County, W.Va., are separated by 350 miles, about a half-day’s drive. Traveling west from Fairfax County, the gated communities and bland architecture of military contractors give way to exurbs, then to farmland and eventually to McDowell’s coal mines and the forested slopes of the Appalachians. Perhaps the greatest distance between the two counties is this: Fairfax is a place of the haves, and McDowell of the have-nots. Just outside of Washington, fat government contracts and a growing technology sector buoy the median household income in Fairfax County up to $107,000, one of the highest in the nation. McDowell, with the decline of coal, has little in the way of industry. Unemployment is high. Drug abuse is rampant. Median household income is about one-fifth that of Fairfax.

One of the starkest consequences of that divide is seen in the life expectancies of the people there. Residents of Fairfax County are among the longest-lived in the country: Men have an average life expectancy of 82 years and women, 85, about the same as in Sweden. In McDowell, the averages are 64 and 73, about the same as in Iraq…

Since the 1980s, “socioeconomic status has become an even more important indicator of life expectancy.” That was the finding of a 2008 report by the Congressional Budget Office. But dollars in a bank account have never added a day to anyone’s life, researchers stress. Instead, those dollars are at work in a thousand daily-life decisions — about jobs, medical care, housing, food and exercise — with a cumulative effect on longevity.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/15/business/higher-income-longer-lives.html

This is part of a growing body of research that links demographics and social forces, including social spaces, to different health outcomes. Wealthier counties can offer a wide range of health and social services as well as have more higher class residents while poorer counties have different social structures.

While the county level data is interesting, I would assume there would also be some wide differences in life expectancy within counties. Fairfax County, Virginia is one of the wealthiest U.S. counties but income levels there are not uniform. Cook County, Illinois could include some of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago as well as Kenilworth, Illinois, one of the wealthiest suburbs with a median household income of over $247,000. Check out these maps from VCU’s Center on Society and Health on life expectancy in metro areas. Here is what they found in Chicago:

So the contrast between a county in Virginia versus one in West Virginia might be notable but one doesn’t have to travel that far to find big differences in life expectancy.

County forest preserves benefit from economic downturn as they purchase cheaper land

Posted on by

The reduction in land values has not been bad for everyone: the Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago area forest preserves have bought up more land than anticipated in the past few years. Among the findings:

Flush with $185 million from a 2008 bond sale, the [Lake County] district went on a buying spree, gobbling up some 3,400 acres of land. The second-largest forest preserve system in the state at 29,300 acres, the 53-year old district has grown by nearly 12 percent since the onset of the recession.

“We spent down the money quicker than we had anticipated, mainly because there were so many good buying opportunities for us in 2009 and 2010, especially,” Hahn said…

Founded in 1971, the McHenry County Conservation District has essentially doubled over the last decade to just less than 25,000 acres…

Though the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s biggest growth spurt was in the 1970s, the 25,000-acre district managed to add some 2,400 acres over the last decade…

Racing the clock against development in one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, the Forest Preserve District of Will County has added about 8,300 acres since 1999, increasing its holdings by about two-thirds to nearly 21,000 acres…

The timing has been more fortuitous in Kane County, where the Forest Preserve District has added nearly 12,000 acres since 1999, increasing its holdings by 170 percent.

The only county forest preserve that didn’t add a significant amount of land was Cook County which likely has little available land. There hasn’t been too much news about these acquisitions in the Chicago area, even as these land purchases have been funded by bond sales approved by the public.

Overall, this has presented these districts with an opportunity to purchase land they might not have been able to purchase in better times. Particularly in some of the booming counties, such as Will or McHenry, this opportunity may have been the last one before suburban growth took up too much land.

This does lead to another question: how much land should Forest Preserves aim to have? I know there are recommendations about how much parkland or open space there should be for a set amount of people. Is most of this newly acquired land going to be open space/natural settings or more developed parks and recreation areas? Would there be a point where the Forest Preserves will stop purchasing or will they keep acquiring land forever?