New York and Chicago are two of America’s great apartment cities.
Both have enormous rental markets, distinctive neighborhoods, historic buildings, modern towers and plenty of renters trying to answer the same basic question:
Where should I live?
But actually finding an apartment can feel very different in the two cities.
If you’re moving from Chicago to New York—or New York to Chicago—here are some of the biggest differences you’ll notice.
New York is often about the apartment. Chicago can be about the building.
In New York, the individual apartment can play an outsized role in the search.
Two units in the same building can have very different layouts, renovations, light, views and even leasing circumstances. Smaller multifamily properties and individually owned condos and co-ops also make up an important part of the housing landscape.
Chicago has plenty of that too, but its rental market includes a large collection of professionally managed apartment buildings where renters frequently recognize and compare the buildings themselves.
That’s one of the reasons we originally created ChicagoApartmentBuildings.com.
Instead of starting with today’s available apartments, we organized information around the buildings: where they are, what they offer and the basic facts someone might want when researching where to live.
We’re now applying that same building-first idea to New York.
Neighborhood choice is important in both cities—but geography works differently.
In Chicago, Lake Michigan provides an enormous geographic reference point. The lakefront, downtown and the city’s north/south street grid can make the city relatively intuitive once you’ve spent some time with it.
New York requires a different mental map.
You’re choosing not only a neighborhood but potentially a borough, subway lines and connections, and a particular relationship to where you work or spend your time.
A neighborhood that looks close on a map isn’t necessarily the most convenient choice for your daily routine.
For apartment hunters in either city, choosing the right neighborhood before choosing the right building can eliminate a tremendous amount of unnecessary searching.
Transportation can change the apartment decision.
New Yorkers routinely factor subway access into housing decisions.
Being a few blocks closer to the right station or having access to multiple lines can materially change a commute.
Chicago renters make similar calculations with the CTA, but the lakefront, express buses, the ‘L,’ Metra, driving and even walking or biking can create a different set of options depending on the neighborhood.
In both cities, the lesson is the same:
Don’t evaluate an apartment only by its street address.
Evaluate how that address connects to your actual life.
Space can feel different.
New York has earned its reputation for making renters think carefully about every square foot.
Apartment size, storage, closet space and layout efficiency can become major considerations, particularly in Manhattan and other high-demand areas.
Chicago renters can often find larger layouts at comparable positions within their local market, although pricing and space vary enormously by neighborhood, building age and property type.
That difference can surprise someone moving between the cities.
A floor plan that seems normal in one market may feel unusually large—or unusually small—in the other.
Amenities aren’t necessarily valued the same way.
Large Chicago apartment towers often compete heavily on amenities.
Pools, fitness centers, coworking areas, rooftop decks, resident lounges, dog runs, package rooms and outdoor spaces can be significant parts of the building experience.
New York certainly has highly amenitized buildings, particularly newer luxury properties, but the enormous diversity of its housing stock means amenities vary dramatically.
For some New York renters, the ultimate amenity may simply be the location.
A smaller apartment with fewer building amenities can still be extremely desirable if it’s on the right block and close to the right subway line.
The pace can be different.
Apartment hunting in either city can move quickly when demand is strong.
New York, however, has a particularly strong reputation for apartments appearing and disappearing rapidly. That can make preparation important: understanding your budget, documentation requirements and preferred neighborhoods before finding a specific apartment.
The more decisions you can make before looking at individual availability, the easier it becomes to act when the right opportunity appears.
That’s another reason we like researching buildings first.
Listings tell you what’s available. Buildings tell you where you might want to live.
That’s the distinction behind both of our apartment-building projects.
An available listing answers:
“What can I rent right now?”
Building research answers a different question:
“Where would I actually want to live?”
Those aren’t the same thing.
ChicagoApartmentBuildings.com began as an attempt to make the second question easier to answer in Chicago.
Now we’re building NewYorkApartmentBuildings.com around the same idea for New York.
The two cities are very different.
The apartment hunt should reflect that.
Related reading
- Moving from New York to Miami: what renters should know — The other direction — geography, cars, amenities and seasonal pricing.
- How New York City is divided into neighborhoods — Five boroughs, 262 Neighborhood Tabulation Areas, and the map brokers actually use.
- What New York landlords require: income, guarantors and documents — The 40x rule, guarantors at 80x, the FARE Act, and the folder to have ready.
- Every building in the index, A to Z — New York apartment buildings with addresses, unit counts, year built, floors and management.