Things are looking up in the Windy City, with Chicago being added to the NAHB’s prestigious Improving Markets Index.

The National Association of Homebuilders’ Improving Markets Index increased to 263 markets in June, and one of the newest cities added to the index was none other than Chicago!

The City of the Big Shoulders was one of 29 new inductees to the Improving Markets Index, which tracks metropolitan areas across the country and adds markets with rising housing permits, employment and home prices for at least six straight months. Other Illinois cities in the index include Champaign, Kankakee and Peoria.

A Widespread Housing Recovery

Though the earliest stages of the housing recovery were only felt in specific sections of the U.S., the widespread nature of the Improving Markets Index – entrants from 49 states were featured in June, comprising 70 percent of all U.S. metros – show that more and more swaths of the country are joining the recovering markets.

And though seasonable sways in the market did knock 24 markets off the index in June, NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe emphasized how far the index has come since June 2012.

“As market conditions improve across most of the country, some metros have moved onto the IMI list while marginal seasonal fluctuations have nudged others off of it,” Crowe said. “This is to be expected as the recovery expands. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the number of improving markets is now more than three times what it was in June 2012.”

What does a three-fold increase look like? Check out our infographic below for a better perspective on how far the Improving Markets Index has progressed: