Illinois Preempted Rent Control, and Wrote It to Reach Chicago
Program and regulatory figures verified September 15, 2026. Details change; confirm your scenario with us.
A DSCR loan is underwritten on rent, so the question that matters about any state is whether a city can cap that rent later. Illinois answered it in 1997, and answered it in a way that specifically reaches its largest city.
What the statute says
The Rent Control Preemption Act is short. Section 5(a) provides that a unit of local government "shall not enact, maintain, or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential or commercial property." Section 5(b) preserves a local government's ability to manage residential property in which it has a property interest, which is the only carve-out.
The part that makes it unusual
Plenty of states preempt rent control. Illinois wrote a separate section aimed at home rule units, which in Illinois are the municipalities with the broadest independent authority. Section 10 says a home rule unit "may not regulate or control the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential or commercial property," and then states that the section "is a denial and limitation of home rule powers and functions" under the Illinois Constitution.
Chicago is a home rule unit. That sentence is the reason a sustained municipal campaign has produced no Chicago rent control.
It has not been repealed
Bills to lift the preemption are filed in most sessions and get written about as though they had passed. Every section of the Act still carries the same source note it was enacted with, Public Act 90-313, effective August 1, 1997, with no later amending Act and no sunset. Verified 2026-09-22. This is a live political question, so we date the claim rather than stating it as permanent, and we re-check it each time we refresh this page.
What it means for an underwrite
It means the rent you are underwriting is exposed to the market rather than to a future ordinance. That is not a promise about what rents will do, and it does not touch the obligations a landlord has in Chicago, which are real and are somebody else's specialty. It is one input into whether the income supporting the loan is durable. The other inputs are the tax line and the rent to price of the market you are buying in.
Mike Certo · NMLS #260555 · Cornerstone First Mortgage NMLS #173855 · Equal Housing Lender. Educational content, not a loan commitment and not legal or tax advice. Assessment levels, the state equalization factor, county tax rates and city rental ordinances change, and the figures here carry the date we verified them. Confirm current requirements with the county assessor, the county clerk, your CPA, or an Illinois real estate attorney before you buy. Loans are subject to buyer and property qualification.