Real estate news & trends
Latest news from YoChicago
Renting
On any given day you can find 1,000s of apartment and help wanted ads placed by rental services that don’t disclose their name in the ad. These “blind ads” are all in violation of the Illinois Real Estate License Act, whether placed by a licensed rental service or one of piratical unlicensed ones. You have ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 20, 2013
BJB Properties, one of our sponsors, owns and manages dozens of newer and recently-renovated vintage apartment buildings in prime Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Lake View and Rogers Park locations. BJB recently invited its residents to submit photos of their apartments to a prize competition. You can see some of the many submissions at BJB’s Facebook ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 6, 2013
The Illinois Real Estate License Act requires people who refer or assist in referring apartment rental prospects for compensation to be licensed. Acting in such a capacity without a license is a Class A misdemeanor. Section 5-20 (10) of the Act provides a limited exemption from the license requirement for resident referral programs: Any resident ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 1, 2013
The worst mistake Chicago apartment hunters make is not getting a solid fix on where they want to live and satisfying themselves that acceptable apartments are available in their target area and price range. If you’re too flexible on location you won’t be able to focus enough to find the best deals in your preferred ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on May 1, 2013
Yesterday’s email from a real estate broker included a link to ApartmentList.com, a site I hadn’t previously seen, along with the following summary of the site: Completely inaccurate listing information randomly assigning agents to various listings. Bizarre. I am getting 20 calls a day. My correspondent hadn’t signed up for the site. “I’m just on ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 23, 2013
Yesterday I stepped out onto the balcony of an 18th floor northwest corner unit at Astoria Tower, 40 E 9th St in the South Loop, to capture the above view. At the left center of the view you can see two cranes pounding caissons into the ground for two new mid-rise apartment buildings. From the ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 17, 2013
We recently received the following inquiry concerning summer housing: Hi my name is [redacted] and I am a twenty two year old student from Dublin Ireland. I was luckily enough to get the opportunity to work in Chicago last Summer and as a result have decided to return with a few of my college friends ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 10, 2013
As the rental season heats up, a lot of Chicago newcomers, and long-time residents alike, are encountering unfamiliar neighborhood names, and are uncertain of their location and exact boundaries. A neighborhood name encapsulates a great deal of information and is emblematic of the lifestyle, and to some extent the people, encompassed within its boundaries. Chicagoans ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on April 8, 2013
A major property owner recently gave rental services, via its non-exclusive brokerage agreement, sweeping written authorization to advertise its properties. I’m unaware of any other large company that gives rental services blanket authority to advertise its Chicago properties. According to the company’s brokerage agreement, rental service ads for its properties a) must be accurate and ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on March 28, 2013
On Friday Curbed Chicago featured Luxury Living Chicago’s Aaron Galvin as downtown Chicago’s “top rental broker,” touted his “expertise” and invited its readers to submit questions to Galvin. At Curbed Galvin hypes rental service brokers as “an invaluable resource and your advocate when working with a landlord and/or property management company.” YoChicago readers are familiar ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on March 25, 2013
On February 14 the Illinois Real Estate Administration and Disciplinary Board voted to impose a $100,000 fine on James Tarr and Exchange Apartment Finders. According to the minutes of the Board’s meeting (PDF), Tarr’s known aliases include Jim Tarr, William S. Tarr, John Deals, J.T. Tarr, Jim Jarr, William James Tarr, Jay Tarr, Bob Smirt ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on March 22, 2013
Anyone who wants to make an intelligent case for the “death of the suburbs” needs to confront the fact that more people, including young people, prefer suburban to city living, and act in accordance with their preferences. According to a study by Frank N. Magid Associates, 43 percent of Millennials describe suburbs as their “ideal ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 26, 2013
Not long ago I heard from one of Chicago’s newer high-rises that people were arriving at the building believing they had reservations for short-term stays. They presented print-outs of their reservations to the building staff, who informed them that they were the victims of a scam. Several days ago I received an email from an ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 22, 2013
Unannounced and short-notice showings are one of the most common complaints that tenants have about landlords and the rental services they employ to rent apartments. A landlord’s right to show an apartment to prospective tenants is limited by the Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance (CRLTO). A landlord can only show a unit to prospective tenants ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 20, 2013
It’s common for Chicago rental services to report their leasing agents as independent contractors for tax purposes, but control their day-to-day activities to the extent that they should have been classified as employees. The rental service recruiting ad, above, only hints at the high degree of control that rental services often exercise over how leasing ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 15, 2013
A Trulia consumer survey reveals that 62% of unmarried adults “prefer to date someone who lives alone,” according to a recent Trulia blog post. Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, set out to identify the neighborhoods in different cities with the highest female-to-male and male-to-female ratios for adults 65 and under who live alone. The study’s ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 13, 2013
Jose L recently posted a 5-star Yelp review of iMove Chicago in which he used the C word – twice – to describe a Yelper who had negatively reviewed iMove on July 10 of last year. You can see Jose L’s ugly review in the screen cap, along with his deranged Yelp review of YoChicago. ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 6, 2013
It’s only the first week of February, but Chicago landlords are already beginning to post May 1 vacancies on their websites. Early next month landlords will know how many additional apartments they’ll have available for May 1 occupancy. The most desirable apartments typically rent quickly, and renters who wait until the last minute to look ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 6, 2013
We’ve written about iMoveChicago several times, put it on our Craigslist’s Dirtiest Dozen rental services roster, and wondered why any renter or landlord would do business with the company. Yelper Simone T recently had what she considered a bad experience with iMove Chicago, and posted a negative review at Yelp. She supplemented her review with ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on February 4, 2013
The above ad appeared on Craigslist yesterday, and it tells you everything you need to know about why you should never believe a Yelp review – positive or negative – of a Chicago rental service. If you’re naïve, you might think you can simply disregard comments by new Yelpers with few reviews and trust reviews ...
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Posted by Joe Zekas on January 31, 2013
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