Illinois REALTORS® has launched a consumer awareness campaign to bring attention to efforts to increase real estate taxes to pay for transit reform. The campaign runs for the next four weeks in all five of the collar counties, as well as suburban Cook County.

The REALTORS®’ campaign draws attention to the last-minute legislative attempt to raise real estate transfer taxes to pay for Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) reform. A proposal, which included a 600 percent increase in suburban transfer taxes, was included in the CTA reform package that wasn’t made public until less than 48 hours before the end of this Spring’s legislative session. The Illinois Senate voted to approve the tax increase, and now legislators are meeting throughout the summer to continue negotiating the final details of the reform bill.

Under the current proposal, transfer taxes in the collar counties alone would increase by upwards of $75 million per year. Meanwhile, the state is facing a historic housing shortage and affordability crisis. The northeast part of Illinois ranks second to last in the country in housing inventory recovery since before the pandemic. The state trails all of its Midwest neighbors in new housing starts and now needs to build over 225,000 new homes in the next five years just to meet demand.

“The proposed real estate transfer tax increase ignores the glaring reality of the state’s housing economy,” said Illinois REALTORS® CEO Jeff Baker. “This would add thousands of dollars of closing costs to every residential and commercial transaction in the Chicagoland area, slowing our real estate economy even more.”

According to Baker, the state’s housing supply and affordability crisis has slowed the market beyond the crawling pace that immediately followed the Great Recession. “Policy makers should understand that our housing economy represents nearly one-fifth of the state’s economic output,” Baker said. “Raising real estate taxes – just like refusing to curb restrictive land use policies or contain sprawl, and just like rejecting moderate increases in density – robs our towns and cities of economic growth.”

As negotiations over transit reform continue this summer, the REALTORS® campaign asks consumers to tell their legislators to reject new real estate taxes.