The hottest real estate market in the country isn’t one of the usual suspects such as Miami, Los Angeles nor one of those pricey suburbs along Chicago’s North Shore.
First, the Rust Belt bust of the early 1980s hammered its manufacturing base. Then came the housing bust of 2008-09, which turned the city into ground zero for underwater mortgages. Unemployment, crime, drug abuse and a lack of opportunity for the young made it a perennial underperformer even by the slow-growth standards of Illinois.
The word is getting out. On April 25, The Wall Street Journal declared Rockford to be America’s top housing market, celebrating its “improbable turnaround” in a ranking based on its WSJ/Realtor.com housing market index. The boosterish story went on to feature Rockford’s dynamic mayor, Tom McNamara, lauded the area’s health care, aerospace and logistics industries, and stated boldly that a direct train line to Chicago is “due to open in a few years.
For President Joe Biden, the Belvidere plant’s revival under his administration is a welcome success story. But the surge in Rockford real estate is flashing a warning sign for him and other incumbents as well.