Illinois’ largest real estate trade group had a policy reform plan to spur more affordable housing, ready to roll out in January. Then the governor unveiled his own, larger housing package, and the group put its plan on hold to help him fight for it.
Now that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Building Up Illinois Developments plan has stalled in the legislature, Illinois REALTORS is dusting off its own approach and taking it directly to local governments.
Illinois’ housing shortage is severe enough to rank it among the weakest in new-home development in the country. States from California to Florida have already moved to force more building by overriding local zoning control, and Illinois REALTORS wants its own answer in place before Springfield tries again.
The Illinois Housing Supply Accelerator Program asks local officials, builders, lenders and community leaders to form working groups. Their job: find and fix local barriers to building homes faster.
CEO Jeff Baker told HousingWire TBD that the program’s roots run deeper than this year’s legislative fight.
“Illinois’ housing supply crisis is not a 2026 problem,” Baker said. “We have noted it even as far back as the beginning of COVID, when interest rates were still low.”
The problem it’s trying to fix
Illinois builds fewer new homes per capita than almost any other state, trailing even its smaller, more rural neighbors. When the program was first pitched, Census data showed the state authorized just 1.60 new housing units per 1,000 residents in 2024, compared with 3.85 in Indiana and 3.87 in Iowa, despite having the nation’s fifth-largest state economy.
The state has an existing shortage of 142,000 housing units and must add roughly 227,000 homes by 2030 to keep pace with demand, a 2024 study by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
That works out to more than doubling the roughly 19,000 homes permitted annually in Illinois over the past five years. Active listings fell 64% over that span, and new construction permits dropped 13%, the study found.
The shortfall has pushed prices up sharply. Researchers linked the trends to a 37% rise in Illinois home values since 2019, and by May 2026, Chicago’s median sale price topped $399,000, 35% higher than before the pandemic. Even smaller markets felt it: Carbondale’s median sale price rose 48% over the same period, topping $175,000 by May.
California, Texas, and Florida have all passed laws to speed up homebuilding, preempting municipal zoning authority. A similar bill stalled in New York’s legislature this year, and Chicago has pursued its own reforms locally, updating its zoning code rather than waiting on Springfield.
Years in the making
Illinois REALTORS began flagging the state’s housing supply problem as far back as 2021, Baker said, when COVID-era demand was already squeezing inventory. The group first pursued tax incentives for builders through the state legislature in 2022 and 2023.
The strategy shifted in 2024, when the American Planning Association and National League of Cities released a National Housing Supply Accelerator framework. The two groups later launched a related Housing Supply Accelerator Challenge, accepting up to 30 communities a year for coaching and technical assistance as they adopt the framework. Illinois REALTORS saw an opening to adapt the framework locally, Baker said.
A committee spent all of 2025 reworking the national playbook to fit Illinois. The group announced it to members at its winter conference in January 2026, unaware Pritzker was about to introduce his own plan.
Setting it aside for BUILD
Word of Pritzker’s plan came shortly after that January announcement. Baker said Illinois REALTORS chose to spend the Spring legislative session pushing for BUILD instead, “with the accelerator kind of off to the side.”
Some elements of BUILD overlapped with changes the group had sought for years, Baker said, while others came from different stakeholders. Data center regulation, an AI bill and the Chicago Bears relocation fight further crowded the spring session, and only the budget and the AI bill reached their goal line before the session adjourned.
Housing advocates celebrated a $250 million budget win for site preparation, middle housing development and first-time homebuyer assistance.
When BUILD stalled, Baker said the group didn’t lose ground so much as lose time.
“We just had kind of lost a few months,” he said, before deciding to restart the accelerator rollout that summer.
Baker argues the BUILD fight wasn’t wasted, even in defeat. The debate forced local officials to publicly acknowledge a housing shortage, including some who ultimately opposed the bill’s zoning mandates. Local government officials who testified against BUILD still laid out specific local needs, giving Illinois REALTORS an opening to follow up.
“It did force the conversation to be front-burner for local officials,” Baker said.
Local cover, not local control
Baker described a recurring theme among Illinois mayors: they know housing supply is a problem but lack staff or expertise to act. The accelerator provides a “roadmap,” he said, from forming a working group to producing a solution, while letting each community adapt it.
The program launched publicly on Aug. 11, offering a structured local alternative to statewide zoning mandates like those in Pritzker’s BUILD plan. Illinois REALTORS plans to send personal invitations to 60 mayors after speaking with more than two dozen while building the program.
The accelerator could serve as a test of local resolve.
“If our housing supply issue is not bettered over the next 10, 12, 15 months, and it doesn’t look like there’s a significant local effort to better it, then it doesn’t matter what Illinois REALTORS wants to do,” Baker said. “It is going to get to a point where there will be enough other voices to call for statewide action.”
Demand isn’t the problem
Baker pushed back on the narrative that Illinois’ housing troubles stem mainly from residents leaving the state. Demand is largely internal, he said, driven by college graduates, young adults leaving home and renters who want to buy but have nothing to purchase.
“We are not short on demand,” Baker said. “We are short on supply, and that is borne out by every other objective number we can look at.”