CHICAGO — How much can living one "L" stop further away from Downtown save you? Nearly $400 in rent every month.
The site RentHop conducted a study comparing rents of listed one-bedroom apartments across Chicago that were near a CTA "L" station.
Unsurprisingly, rents closer to Downtown were higher, with median listings topping out near the Merchandise Mart station at $2,302 a month.
"On most lines, there is that steep cutoff two or three miles outside of the loop," said Shane Leese, a Chicago native and data scientist for the New York-based company.
But in some cases, the change in rent from stop to stop is steep. While median rent near the Grand stop is $2,129.92, the median rent one stop north around the Chicago Red Line stop is about $1,739.70.
Go north from Downtown on the Red Line, and the median rent doesn't drop under $1,000 until you hit the Loyola stop. The southern stretch of the Red Line is considerably lower, with the lowest rents near 95th/Dan Ryan where the median price is $679.70 a month.
The study examined a portion of the site's more than 20,000 listings in the Chicago area, selecting those within 500 meters of an "L" station. In some cases, the study went beyond 500 meters to make sure each stop had at least 50 units to compare with.
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