Tag: Tips
YoChicago’s at-a-glance apartment lists just got better
Are you looking for an apartment in the Loop, West Loop or South Loop? Do you have a deep craving for painful, time-wasting, risk-fraught experien [...]
How to stage your guest suites and models
Home stagers face a lot of challenges when decorating models and guest suites for apartment owners and real estate developers.
They need to del [...]
Why condo prices can fall harder than house prices
Earlier this week, I wrote about three neighborhoods -- Rogers Park, Humboldt Park, and Irving Park -- whose condominium markets have been pummele [...]
Tales from an apartment hunt – unreliable prices, disreputable brokers
One of my correspondents, a veteran renter, has been sending me periodic updates on his experiences in searching for his next apartment. Here's hi [...]
Tales from an apartment hunt – brokers vs rental services
One of my correspondents, a veteran renter, has been sending me periodic updates on his experiences in searching for his next apartment. Here's th [...]
Chicago’s best apartment website gets better
Several months ago we opined that Apartments.com, a national site owned by a group of major newspapers, was the stand-out choice for renters searc [...]
Are you the reason your rent is too damn high?
Jimmy McMillan, the 2010 gubernatorial candidate of New York's Rent Is Too Damn High Party, achieved some notoriety thanks to the many YouTube rem [...]
YoChicago’s YouTube channel passes the two million view mark
Videos at YoChicago's primary YouTube channel have been viewed more than two million times.
To put that number in some perspective, YoChicago [...]
Chicago rental services closing offices, rebranding, testing new business models
As Chicago's rental market strengthens and vacancies decrease, a number of landlords have been cutting back on their use of apartment rental servi [...]
Is a phony Yelp review a felony?
Last Saturday we called attention to a pattern of suspicious reviews of Reside Living buildings at Yelp.
The first positive review of Reside a [...]
Today’s first real estate deal of the century
Every day, it seems, confronts me with at least one new once-in-a-lifetime opportunity or deal of the century.
Today's first deal of the centur [...]
The first step in your Chicago apartment search
Chicago's neighborhoods vary widely in livability, ranging from close to paradise to barely survivable to scary as hell.
Long before you begin [...]
What to expect when renting a condo
If you've never rented a condo before you might be in for a series of rude shocks: unexpected delays, hefty fees, gotcha pet policies and page aft [...]
Typical Chicago apartment rental policies
First-time Chicago renters are often clueless about what to expect in the way of fees and policies when they set out to rent an apartment. Their c [...]
How to research homes for sale in Cook County
If there's one thing I've learned from reading 10s of 1,000s of comments on real estate websites, it's this: few people know where to find public [...]
Saturday night apartment funnies and Yelp’s review filter
The first Yelp review of Reside at Belmont Harbor, 426 W Belmont Ave, dated 12/18/11, was written by a first-time Yelper and flagged as suspicious [...]
Do you know where your neighborhood school is?
If you're a single person or a childless couple you may not much care where your neighborhood school is located, or what its reputation or attenda [...]
Does your real estate agent need a yardstick?
Or just a larger measure of common sense?
Real estate agents these days seem to assume that every kitchen has 42-inch upper cabinets, and that [...]
Good luck with that new construction search
Searching for new construction through real broker sites can be frustrating. Real estate agents are wildly inconsistent in how they code data abou [...]
Outrageous claims about the ABR credential
We've previously called attention, on more than one occasion, to the frequency with which the ABR (Accredited Buyer's Representative) credential i [...]