Tag: Renting
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Common tenant complaints – parking pirates
Pause a moment, as Chicago approaches the season of dibs, to consider that paying for a parking spot doesn't guarantee you one.
If you read apa [...]
Don’t act on agent-placed ads with no broker named in them
An individual by the name of Michael Gutierrez has been and is running multiple ads in the Housing Wanted section of Craigslist, claiming he's in need [...]
Beware of online lease applications
The image is a screenshot (click to enlarge) of the first page – of five – of the online application for a high-rise apartment building in downtown Ch [...]
Locating the heart of a neighborhood
When a real estate listing says a property is in the “heart” of a neighborhood, there’s a 50/50 chance that it's a) on the far edge of the neighbo [...]
Roommate tip – ask to see the lease
Most Chicago landlords have a “one roommate per bedroom” policy. And most Chicago tenants have never read their lease.
If you’re scanning Crai [...]
Does calling homebuyers dummies promote renting?
A hat tip to Curbed National for alerting us to this bizarre video from Rent.com.
According to a recent New York Times / CBS poll, nearly 9 in [...]
Chicago’s buy vs rent ratio close to favoring buying
The buy vs rent ratio is the cost of a typical home divided by the annual rent for a typical home.
The New York Times provides an updated list of t [...]