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Bedbugs
Today’s Chicago Tribune has an informative article about apartment-hunting strategies in what’s currently a landlord’s market. It’s generally good advice – as far it goes. As the Trib notes, apartments are renting very quickly. It’s always been the case that rental services could and would show renters only a limited selection of apartments. That selection ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 13, 2012
Help wanted ads for the apartment rental industry – the folks we refer to as bedbugs and place on a do-not-call list – routinely tout high-paying career-potential jobs. Here’s a typical Craigslist ad, trawling for suckers: The Apartment People, Chicago’s leading apartment finding service and winner of the Chicago Reader “Best Of” for 2010 and ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 10, 2012
There’s no single website that’s best for Chicago apartment searches of all types. There is, however, one that stands out if you’re limiting your search to larger apartment complexes along the lakefront. You’ll find the most complete coverage of this type of property at Apartments.com, a national site owned by a group of major newspapers. ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 9, 2011
You’re all probably highly aware of this phenomenon by now, but a reminder never hurts. When you’re looking at reviews of apartment rental services – we call them bedbugs – at Yelp, be highly skeptical of positive reviews. The majority of them strike me, quite simply, as unbelievable fiction. Take the reviews of a Lincoln ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on December 7, 2011
I’ve frequently cautioned renters about the pitfalls of working with the rental services that I call bedbugs based on their toxic behavior toward renters. I met City Ranch Real Estate‘s David Nadler in the course of shooting a sponsored video at a luxury townhome he’d been hired to rent for an employee of a business ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 17, 2011
Waterton Residential is stepping up the incentive offerings at Mondial in River West after reaching more than 80% occupancy since it began its rental program. The project currently, according to an email and accompanying pricing sheet sent to rental agents, has 2-bedroom, 2-bath units available, renting from $2,486 to $2,927 per month. A 3-bedroom, 3 ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 3, 2011
Chicago Apartment Seekers, one of the rental services that we call bedbugs and place on a do-not-call list, runs fictitious addresses in a number of its ads at Trulia, e.g. 700 N Dearborn when advertising Asbury Plaza, 750 N Dearborn. In the course of researching a post, I chanced upon ugly rants about Jason Liebman ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on November 1, 2011
We’ve previously wondered about Exchange Apartment Finders (EAF), which appeared to be doing business as a real estate broker / apartment finder without the required state license. An anonymous commenter has suggested that the company is now doing business as Apartment Locators with the same phone number as EAF, and that appears to be the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on September 30, 2011
I’ve recently spoken to landlords who have either cut back on their use of the apartment rental services that we call bedbugs, eliminated them entirely, or cut the commission they’re offering to rental services. That’s good news for renters who, whether they realize it or not, pay substantially more for their apartments due to the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on September 12, 2011
You never know who you’re getting in the car with when you work with one of the apartment rental services that we call bedbugs. A number of the rental services on our do-not-call list routinely employ unlicensed agents. And others apparently don’t hesitate to employ agents who have prior criminal convictions. The June 2011 disciplinary ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 30, 2011
We’ve written about Rent Smart Chicago several times – calling attention to its owner’s criminal record and its claim to be “Chicago’s largest and most professional apartment and home rental broker.” I focused on the company again after seeing a Craigslist ad from one of its agents saying Rent Smart is “desperately” in need of ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 24, 2011
If you’re not, stay far, far away. The Craigslist ad you see pictured above does not, as Illinois law requires, disclose the name of the broker who placed it. If you Google the phone number in the ad you find the site pictured below, which claims “we strictly follow the law.” Sure. Shaw Real Estate ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 8, 2011
We recently wrote about Trulia’s doomed efforts to cut back on apartment rental scams in its listings. The scams continue, as they always will wherever the slimy rental services we routinely refer to as bedbugs are allowed to have a presence. We have yet to find a rental service that operates its business in an ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on August 3, 2011
A recent post at TruliaBlog boasted that: As online rentals fraud is becoming an industry-wide problem, Trulia is committed to keeping our rental listings scam-free and accurate. While tackling this problem and keeping up with fraudsters is an ongoing task, we have taken a few initial steps to reduce fraud and protect our valued customers. ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on July 31, 2011
Don’t let the bedbugs bite, says the ProtectABed.com billboard at Roosevelt Rd and Clinton St. When YoChicago talks about bedbugs we’re generally referring to a different and potentially more costly kind of parasite – apartment rental services. The Protect a Bed billboard just happens to be positioned directly above one of the companies on our ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on July 6, 2011
Six-figure earning potential. No experience required. Great support, training, technology and career-oriented services available from a leading company. Etc. Etc. Etc. That’s the sort of come-on you’ll see in a number of Craigslist ads for the rental services we call bedbugs. They’re stepping up their advertising after the round of young hopefuls who fell for ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on June 27, 2011
The biggest mistake apartment searchers make is failing to focus on a small number of ideal and affordable neighborhoods. The second biggest mistake is waiting too long to begin searching. The third biggest mistake that apartment hunters make is searching only online and often in the wrong places. The fourth biggest mistake is ignoring warning ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on June 15, 2011
The biggest mistake apartment searchers make is failing to focus on a small number of ideal and affordable neighborhoods. The second biggest mistake is waiting too long to begin searching. The third biggest mistake that apartment hunters make is searching only online and often in the wrong places. When you begin your search you should ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 30, 2011
The following is an excerpt from an e-mail exchange forwarded to me last night. I’ve removed identifying information: Ok, it will show up as [name of licensed person] because I am waiting on my MLS application to go through. I just was licensed recently, so if you can just confirm with me that would be ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 27, 2011
Today’s e-mail brings the following news release from RentJuice : RentJuice, the online platform developed by real estate insiders that connects prospective renters, brokers and property managers to each other in real-time, today unveiled an unparalleled, dynamic social media widget called Lease Locator for Facebook. Lease Locator allows potential renters to search real-time property listings ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 19, 2011
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