I really have to object to the idea that verbal leases are common in Chicago. I think if you set out to find an apartment, an attached house, a carriage house, or a freestanding house today, you'd have a very hard time finding one that didn't have a written lease attached to it.

But obviously this is a tangent. To whatever extent verbal leases are common or not, it's impossible to argue that formal written leases are uncommon. They are the norm.