New apartments in Chicago are smaller than national average

It's not your imagination. Apartments are getting smaller.

Why it matters: New apartment layouts are shrinking nationally, a reversal in the rental market that saw units get bigger during the early part of the work-from-home era, reports Axios's Sami Sparber and Kavya Beheraj.

By the numbers: The average size of newer Chicago apartments is only 797 square feet, 10.1% smaller than the 2022 national average of 887 square feet, per a new report from listing service RentCafe.

The big picture: Nationwide, newly built apartments shed 30 square feet on average compared with 2021, per the report.

• That sharp decrease was fueled in part by more studios and one-bedroom apartments entering the market, researchers found, analyzing the 100 metro areas with the most high-density units.

Flashback: In 2020 and 2021, demand for more space resulted in larger unit configurations, RentCafe analyst Adina Dragos tells Axios.

• "Fast forward to 2022, the demand for more apartments prompted developers to accommodate more units in their projects," Dragos says.

Case in point: 57% of apartments completed nationwide last year were small units.

Of note: At the local level, researchers considered new apartments those units built between 2013 and 2022.

What we're watching: Apartments under construction. As the market keeps fluctuating post-pandemic, their size could signal whether the trend of smaller rentals will stick.