Chicago Business Property Statistics 2026: What It Costs to Buy Your Own Building in Cook County
Your landlord raised the rent again. You have been paying somebody else's mortgage for eleven years, and you start wondering what it would take to buy the place.
There is a specific answer, and almost nobody publishes it. The SBA 504 program funds businesses buying the property they operate from, and the SBA releases every loan it guarantees. Filter that to Cook County and you get 1,505 real purchases.
On this site and elsewhere, a commercial mortgage usually means a loan on property you rent out to other people, which is a non-owner-occupied investment loan. A 504 is the reverse: it funds property your own business occupies. If you are buying a rental building, nothing on this page applies to you.
The median Cook County business bought its building with a $1,030,000 stack of bank and SBA money. A bank writes the first mortgage, a Certified Development Company writes an SBA-backed second, and you put in equity. The SBA piece is only 43.1 percent of the recorded total. Two CDCs write 92.4 percent of the county. And 16.3 percent of Cook approvals are cancelled before they fund, against 10.2 percent in the collar counties.
Key Takeaways
- 1,505 Cook County businesses bought their building with SBA 504 money between fiscal 2010 and June 30, 2026. (SBA 504 FOIA data, computed by this firm)
- Median stack $1,030,000, with a quarter under $588,000 and a quarter above $1,979,500.
- The SBA is the small piece. Across all Cook approvals the stack was $3,974,370,156: $2,259,762,156 of bank first mortgages against $1,714,608,000 of SBA-backed seconds, so SBA is 43.1 percent.
- Two CDCs write 92.4 percent of the county. The same deals involve 180 different banks, the busiest holding 11.3 percent.
- 16.3 percent of Cook approvals never fund, against 10.2 percent across the collar counties.
- Restaurants buy buildings more than anyone. 125 full-service restaurants, 49 limited-service, 39 bars.
- 14,227 jobs reported against the funded purchases.
Bank First, CDC Second, You Third
A 504 is not one loan. It is three pieces of money stacked on one building, and the buyer usually meets only the middle one before signing.
| Piece | Share of the Cook County stack | Who holds it |
|---|---|---|
| First mortgage | 56.9% | A bank, 180 of them in this data |
| Second, SBA backed | 43.1% | A Certified Development Company |
| Equity injection | not recorded | You |
Shares computed from $3,974,370,156 of Cook County approvals. The borrower's equity is not published in the SBA file, which is why the third row is blank rather than estimated.
What the Stack Costs
The distribution is wide. These are not uniform deals, and the middle of the range is a modest building rather than a landmark.
Every figure here is the bank first mortgage plus the SBA-backed second. Your own equity injection is not in the SBA file at all. So read $1,030,000 as a floor on what the median Cook County business spent on its building, never as the price. Grossing it up by an assumed down payment would be a calculation, not a measurement, and this page does not do that.
Cook County, Year by Year
Refinances are excluded throughout. The 504 program ran a commercial real estate refinance window in 2011 and 2012 that briefly doubled the apparent volume, and counting it would show a Chicago buying boom that never happened.
| Fiscal year | Approvals | Median stack |
|---|---|---|
| FY2010 | 147 | $910,705 |
| FY2011 | 126 | $872,250 |
| FY2012 | 117 | $891,500 |
| FY2013 | 157 | $1,116,000 |
| FY2014 | 125 | $1,188,000 |
| FY2015 | 97 | $1,069,620 |
| FY2016 | 112 | $997,536 |
| FY2017 | 96 | $1,023,398 |
| FY2018 | 109 | $1,032,000 |
| FY2019 | 104 | $1,120,466 |
| FY2020 | 107 | $862,000 |
| FY2021 | 130 | $1,030,500 |
| FY2022 | 169 | $1,269,000 |
| FY2023 | 107 | $1,121,000 |
| FY2024 | 101 | $1,639,000 |
| FY2025 | 101 | $1,165,960 |
| FY2026 (to June 30) | 66 | $1,209,250 |
Source: SBA 504 FOIA release through 2026-06-30, filtered to Cook County, Illinois, refinances removed. Computed by Abdilla and Associates. Fiscal 2026 covers three quarters only.
Two Companies Write the County
Every 504 needs a Certified Development Company. In Cook County there are effectively two.
9 CDCs appear in the Cook County data. The top two hold 92.4 percent. (SBA 504 FOIA data, computed by this firm)
The Banks Are Not the Acquisition Banks
This is the finding that only appears when you hold both halves of the SBA file at once.
| Bank | First mortgages | Share |
|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan Chase Bank | 169 | 11.3% |
| Old National Bank | 95 | 6.3% |
| Fifth Third Bank | 92 | 6.1% |
| Byline Bank | 72 | 4.8% |
| Wintrust Bank | 66 | 4.4% |
| Michigan State University Federal Credit Union | 53 | 3.5% |
Which Businesses Buy Their Building
349 distinct industries appear across the funded purchases. Food dominates the count, and heavier operations dominate the size.
| Industry | Purchases | Median stack |
|---|---|---|
| Full-Service Restaurants | 125 | $1,207,706 |
| Limited-Service Restaurants | 49 | $1,154,000 |
| Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) | 39 | $1,164,500 |
| General Automotive Repair | 35 | $761,350 |
| Child Day Care Services | 33 | $654,500 |
| General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload | 28 | $2,434,250 |
| Offices of Physicians (except Mental Health Specialists) | 28 | $843,500 |
| Car Washes | 27 | $2,519,398 |
| Offices of Dentists | 22 | $667,500 |
| Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels | 20 | $3,976,916 |
| General Freight Trucking, Local | 19 | $879,000 |
| Offices of Chiropractors | 18 | $466,875 |
Industries are merged across the 2017 and 2022 NAICS revisions, where the same industry was renumbered or renamed. (SBA 504 FOIA data, computed by this firm)
The Rest of Chicagoland
| County | Purchases | Median stack |
|---|---|---|
| Cook | 1,505 | $1,030,000 |
| DuPage | 579 | $1,055,500 |
| Lake | 291 | $1,201,500 |
| Will | 300 | $1,095,500 |
| Kane | 354 | $1,050,000 |
| McHenry | 174 | $883,000 |
3,203 funded purchases across the six-county region. (SBA 504 FOIA data, computed by this firm)
What Falls Apart
Two different failures matter here, and only one of them can be measured properly.
358 of 2,192 Cook County approvals were cancelled before funding, or 16.3 percent. Across the five collar counties it is 10.2 percent. The gap is large, it is statistically solid, and it holds whichever way the loans are counted. What the data does not show is why, so this page does not offer a reason.
When You Should Not Buy
A 504 debenture runs for decades and turns the least liquid thing you could own into the anchor of your balance sheet. If you might sell or move within five years, if the space is purpose built for one use, or if the cash is worth more inside the business than in a down payment, keep leasing. Buying earns its place when the location genuinely is part of the business and you intend to be there a long time.
What Nobody Publishes
These were each checked against the actual sources before being listed. Where something does exist but does not answer the question, that is said rather than glossed.
- No share of Chicago business property purchases financed by 504 against conventional or cash. This is the cleanest absence of the set. Banks report owner-occupied commercial loans to the FDIC, but as outstanding balances, mixing refinances and seasoned loans. The denominator does not exist in purchase terms, so the ratio cannot be built by anyone.
- No median sale price for owner-occupied commercial property in Cook County. The industry standard transaction database has historically carried a $2.5 million price floor, and the median deal here is well under it. This segment is structurally invisible to the source everyone else cites.
- No metro-level CDC market share. The SBA publishes it by state and there are national CDC rankings, but nobody publishes it for a county or a metro.
- No time from contract to closing for small commercial purchases, at any geography. Every figure in circulation is a rule of thumb from a brokerage or a title company with no data behind it.
- No count of Chicago businesses that own against lease their premises. The Federal Reserve asks this nationally, and reports 17 percent owning and 59 percent renting. It publishes a Chicago metro chartbook. The question is not in it.
Methodology and Source Notes
Everything local here is computed from the SBA's own 504 FOIA release, one row per guaranteed loan, filtered to a project state of Illinois and a project county in the six-county region. Nothing is sampled or estimated. The computation is tools/sba-cook-504.py in this firm's repository, and an automated check fails if this page drifts from a fresh run of it.
Seven limits travel with every number above.
- Approvals are not purchases. Of 2,192 Cook approvals, 358 were cancelled and 145 are approved but not yet disbursed. The headline base is funded purchases.
- Refinances are not purchases. 221 Cook loans are 504 refinances and are excluded everywhere on this page.
- The stack is a floor. Bank plus SBA only. Borrower equity is not in the file.
- The denominator is stated wherever a median appears, because the figure moves with the base.
- Charge-off rates are never compared between slices. There are too few events.
- Fiscal 2026 is a part year, three quarters to 2026-06-30.
- The term in the file is the debenture term, not the bank's. The bank's rate and term are not published here, so this page quotes neither.
Program rules are not in the data. The 504 occupancy requirement, the equity injection tiers, the debenture terms and the job or public policy tests all come from federal regulation rather than from this file. Specific thresholds are being verified against the codified text before they appear here. [ATTORNEY REVIEW]
Update policy
The SBA refreshes the FOIA file quarterly, about a month after each quarter ends. This page is recomputed on each release and the counts move when it does.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost a Chicago business to buy its own building?
Across 1,505 funded SBA 504 purchases in Cook County between fiscal 2010 and June 2026, the median bank-plus-SBA stack was $1,030,000. A quarter were under $588,000 and a quarter above $1,979,500. That figure is a floor on the project cost, not the price. It counts the bank first mortgage and the SBA-backed second, and the borrower's own equity injection is not recorded in the data.
What is an SBA 504 loan, in plain terms?
It is three pieces of money for one building. A bank lends the first mortgage, a Certified Development Company lends a second backed by an SBA debenture, and the buyer puts in equity. Across Cook County the SBA piece was only 43.1 percent of the recorded stack. The bank carries more of the deal than most buyers expect.
Is a 504 loan the same as a commercial mortgage?
No, and the words point in opposite directions. A commercial mortgage usually means a loan on property you rent out to somebody else. A 504 funds property your own business occupies and operates from. If you are buying a rental building, 504 is the wrong program.
Who actually lends on these deals in Chicago?
Two Certified Development Companies write almost the whole county. Small Business Growth Corporation and SomerCor 504 together did 92.4 percent of funded Cook County purchases. The bank side is the opposite: 180 different banks appear on the first mortgages, and the busiest, JPMorgan Chase, holds only 11.3 percent.
Which Chicago businesses buy their own buildings?
Restaurants, by a wide margin. Full-service restaurants account for 125 of the funded Cook County purchases, limited-service restaurants 49, and bars 39. After food comes auto repair, child day care and physicians' offices. Trucking and car washes are fewer but much larger, with median stacks above $2.4 million.
How often do these deals fall apart before closing?
More often in Cook County than around it. 358 of 2,192 Cook approvals were cancelled, which is 16.3 percent, against 10.2 percent across the five collar counties. The gap is large and statistically solid, and it holds on every way of counting we tried. The data shows that it happens. It does not show why.
How many SBA 504 loans in Chicago end in default?
22 charge-offs among 638 Cook County loans that reached a final status. That is roughly 3 percent. It is one aggregate figure and it cannot responsibly be split further: with that few events, a rate for a single industry, lender or year is noise rather than a finding.
Should I buy my building or keep leasing?
Often you should keep leasing. A 504 debenture runs for decades and the building becomes the least liquid thing the business owns. If you may sell or move within five years, if the space is special purpose, or if the capital is worth more inside the business than in a down payment, leasing wins. Buying pays off when the location is genuinely part of the business and you intend to stay.
Where to go next
- Chicago business acquisition statistics. 650 Cook County deals: what businesses sell for, and who lends.
- Chicago business sale statistics. How many businesses of each kind exist, and which are disappearing.
- What is my business actually worth? Including what owning your premises does to the number.
- Deeding a building into an LLC.
- Confirm the zoning permits your use before you commit.
- What a closing attorney handles.
- Selling a business that owns its real estate.
- The SBA's new acquisition rules, which govern the 7(a) side.
- Chicago real estate attorney.
Full Source List
- U.S. Small Business Administration, 504 loan FOIA data set, records through 2026-06-30. Filtered and computed by Abdilla and Associates.
- Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, 2025 Report on Employer Firms, for the national own against lease figures.
- Cook County Assessor township valuation reports, for the sale comparable and cap rate figures noted above.
- Abdilla and Associates, Chicago business acquisition statistics, for the 7(a) lender comparison.
The Cook County figures on this page are original computation and are not published anywhere else. Reuse is welcome with attribution and a link. Cite as: Abdilla and Associates, "Chicago Business Property Statistics 2026," thechicagolandlawyer.com, updated September 2026.