Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker cemented a political alliance with the state’s real estate trade association — and spurned local government critics — on Tuesday when he praised the group’s housing policy activism during its annual lobbying event.

It was the first time Pritzker spoke at the Illinois Realtors’ annual Capitol Conference Realtor Day, a coup for the group that has pushed the same policies in Springfield for years. Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch also spoke at the gathering.

In front of about 800 real estate professionals in Springfield, Pritzker gave unequivocal support for the 50,000-member trade group as “indispensable partners” in a shared mission to expand housing supply in Illinois to combat rising expenses.

Illinois Realtors has made an aggressive push in recent years to convince policymakers to ease zoning rules and cut red tape as a solution to the state’s increasing housing costs. This year, many of those proposals showed up in Pritzker’s Building Up Illinois Development (BUILD) plan, which calls for eliminating single-family zoning on lots of a certain size statewide and legalizing accessory dwelling units across the state. Other pieces of the agenda include cutting building regulations, streamlining impact fees and allocating state funding to building projects.

Illinois Realtors CEO Jeff Baker noted the significance of Pritzker speaking to the conference on Tuesday as he introduced the governor, calling his plan the “culmination of years of Realtor advocacy.”

“We have our state elected leaders’ attention,” Baker said. “The solutions to this problem are all apparent to our leaders, and they are responding.”

Pritzker laid out the housing cost problem as a simple imbalance of supply and demand. The Illinois Economic Policy Institute in 2025 found the state is short 142,000 housing units based on current demand, and would need to build 227,000 units over the next five years to keep up with demand. 

Pritzker said local zoning rules, some rooted in historic housing discrimination, are a big impediment to building more homes.

“We have developers ready to build homes,” Pritzker said. “We have Realtors who are ready to sell those homes. And we have Illinoisans who need those homes. And it doesn’t get done because of these regulations, and it’s on all of us to help fix that problem.”

Pritzker said housing problems are present throughout Illinois and limit the state’s ability to attract and retain businesses and grow the economy. He pointed to the Bloomington-Normal area, where the state is having trouble recruiting businesses to a corporate park for parts manufacturers to supply the Rivian factory there because businesses have nowhere to house workers, he said.

Pritzker’s advocacy puts him at stark odds with the state’s cities and villages that see the plan as overreach by state government into local zoning rules. In his remarks on Tuesday, Pritzker didn’t offer much of a compromise.

“Don’t let anyone tell you this is some kind of radical removal of local zoning,” he said. “That is not what this is. It’s literally about just adding a few more homes everywhere in the state.”

The Illinois Municipal League, which represents local governments, is opposed to the plan. Illinois Municipal League CEO Brad Cole said in an email to The Real Deal that the group had invited Pritzker to its lobbying day on April 29, but he has not yet accepted.

“Our members — the local elected officials who see and hear from their constituents in person, every day, across the state — obviously have a different opinion on the proposal and remain opposed to the plan,” Cole said.

Welch, the Democratic state House speaker, also addressed the Realtors crowd in Springfield, putting the state’s housing shortage in economic terms. He said lack of available housing has cost Illinois more than $10 billion in the last five years. Research from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found the state lost about $16 billion in economic output because of the housing shortage from 2008 to 2025.

Welch said Illinois would need to triple home construction every year for five straight years just to approach closing that gap. He said addressing the shortage could generate 760,000 jobs and $11 billion in new tax revenue for the state.

Where Pritzker offered little concession to municipal critics, Welch suggested there is room for compromise. He said local officials’ concerns are valid and that they “deserve to be part of this conversation.” Still, he argued, the severity of the problem requires action.

“We need a BUILD plan that works with communities, not around them,” Welch said. “We need a BUILD plan that respects local voices while also recognizing that this crisis is bigger than any one town, any one county, and any one region.”