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We make it really easy to find Chicago-owned property, and thanks to new data provided by the city, it's easier than ever to identify which department or agency is a particular property's manager. 

Browse Chicago-owned property by itself

Look up any Place Snapshot and scroll down to Chicago-owned properties. Here you can see all of the Chicago-owned property in that area and filter by status (whether it's still owned by the city) or by managing organization (housing, planning, fleet & facility management, CDOT, etc.).

Screenshot: You can now filter by "managing organization". The particular properties shown were sold via the Chicago Department of Planning & Development's Large Lots program, which sells vacant lots to neighboring property owners for $1.

Find Chicago-owned property that meets specific criteria

The second way to find Chicago-owned property is to use Property Finder in a Place Snapshot. This way you can add filters like current zoning and proximity to transit.

Once you've selected a Place Snapshot, click on the "Property Finder" button, then look for "Chicago-owned properties" in the "Special filters" list. This filter will be combined with the other filters you choose. 

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We published two enhancements to our existing Property Sales section, and it's live for both Place Snapshots (areas) and Address Snapshots (addresses and parcels). Our Property Sales data is based on all transactions reported to the Illinois Department of Revenue per the Real Estate Transfer Tax filing rules. This means we have all residential, commercial, and industrial transactions in one place, while most other real estate platforms focus on a single sector. 

The first enhancement shows summary statistics for all of the property sales in view: the average and the median sale price. Change the filters or show more sales at a time and the two stats will update instantly. 

Screenshot caption: At the bottom of the Property Sales table are the average and median summary statistics. For this particular Address Snapshot, the median sale price for all properties within 250 feet from January to March 2021 was $445,000 (for properties with a sale price greater than $0).

The second enhancement counts the number of property sales for each buyer and seller in a Place Snapshot or within 1/2 mile of an Address Snapshot. This way you can see who's buying and selling the most properties. Not only can this be used to find potential buyers and sellers of your own properties, it's also a way for people to monitor potentially predatory real estate practices in their neighborhoods.   

Screenshot caption: When you load Property Sales, there's a new Property Sales summary table below it that shows the names of buyers and sellers in the selected period. For this particular Place Snapshot, there were 1,031 buyers and sellers who bought and sold 555 properties in the Albany Park community area in 2020.

We've made some improvements to Address Snapshots on Chicago Cityscape, as well as the "additional snapshots" that come with membership. These changes are also available to anyone who's purchased an Address Snapshot à la carte. This is another example of how we're constantly improving the value of our service. 

Changes within Address Snapshot include (changes apply to Chicago properties only unless otherwise noted): 

1. Whether the property is eligible to have an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU)
2. Whether property has unused zoning capacity and could add housing without a zoning change
3. Chicago's 2021 updates to the Affordable Requirements Ordinance are now part of Zoning Assessment
4. Fair Market Rents (as calculated by HUD) for the local ZIP Code (applies in all of Illinois)
5. Whether the property is in one of the new "predominance of the block" areas near the 606/Bloomingdale Trail and in part of Pilsen
6. Property sales data has been updated through March 30, 2021 (applies in all of Cook County)

Changes in the "additional snapshots":

1. Environmental Snapshot: Energy usage data for buildings required to participate now has 2019 data, and shows new data (water usage, Chicago energy rating, and Energy Star score). 
2. Land Use Snapshot: Minor improvements here in speed and design.
3. Transportation Snapshot: Major improvements, to show all nearby transit options, Divvy bike stations, and links to analysis about the frequency of service at each transit stop. Plus, information about where people who live nearby go to work, and where people who work nearby go home after work. 
4. Lending & Investment Snapshot: We added new demographics (including income) as well as maps of three publicly-funded project categories (TIF, SBIF, and NOF). 

When you re-load the Address Snapshot you purchased, look for the "additional snapshots" section. Find your purchases here.

If you want continuous access to this information about any property in Chicago and Cook County, consider subscribing to a Cityscape Real Estate Pro membership. Use coupon code kezLeXsx to save 10% for new memberships for up to 12 months. 

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City Council adopted revisions to the ARO, or Affordable Requirements Ordinance, a law that mandates housing developers set aside some of their units and rent them affordably. It does away with pilot areas and organizes the city into 5 geographies, which are now on Cityscape.

Read a summary of the changes on Elrod Friedman's (a law firm) website

We've annotated the screenshot below to highlight these changes.

Look up ARO information with Address Snapshot, scroll down to "Zoning Assessment" and click the "Expand ARO" button (the next screenshot shows what that looks like).

The map below shows the five geographies. 

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