Author: Kay Cleaves

Is Your Apartment Suitable for Hosting Guests?

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A few weeks back in preparation for the holidays we ran an article on how to secure your apartment before you travel. However, not everyone goes away for the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays. Some of you may be looking at hosting visitors in your apartment instead. But before you agree to have your friends or family stay with you over the holidays you need to give some thought to whether or not your apartment is really a good place for guests. If it isn't, for the sake of everyone's sanity, it's probably best to consider taking advantage of overnight hospitality options in your city, such as hotels, AirBNB or even furnished apartments provided on site by your landlord.

The following list serves two purposes. It can be a checklist for apartment hunters who want to find a place where they can host visitors regularly, and it can also serve as a pre-holiday self check before you sign on to host visitors at your place. Continue reading Is Your Apartment Suitable for Hosting Guests?

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Kay Cleaves

Naughty and Nice Real Estate Agents of 2016

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Last year we ran a list of the Naughtiest and Nicest Landlords of 2015. It became our most read post this past year. So, we thought we'd follow up with not only a 2016 version, which will follow later this week, but also a list of the other major players in the apartment search process - real estate agents.

Ethical violations committed by members of the National Association of Realtors are often sent out of the court system for the association to handle in-house. This means that a lot of minor offenses are dealt with off-the-record in a non-transparent way. However, agents are not always required to be Realtors, and major crimes are still handled by the justice system.

The murky nature of real estate justice aside though, here are our picks for the best and worst agents who got in hot water over the course of the past 12 months. Most of the ones on the "Naughty" list were pulled from the disciplinary records of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

As for the "Nice" list - many agencies offer charitable activities for their agents so that they can have something to use at the center of press campaigns. The ones we have chosen go above and beyond this normal sort of office activity.

The Naughty:

Agent: Todd Kohlhepp, South Carolina
Crime: Serial homicide of 7 people. Kidnapping a housekeeper he hired to clean his vacant listings and keeping her chained up in a cage in a storage container on his land. May have also robbed a bank. Learn more.
Status: Arrested, charged with seven counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping and three counts of weapons possession.

Agent: Geraldine Blair, Chicago, IL
Crime: Allowed prospective tenants to view a property without being present herself. The tenants took the opportunity to move most of their furniture into the vacant apartment before they were caught. Learn more. (PDF)
Status: Reprimanded and fined $1000 by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR)

Agent: Lauren Houston, Los Angeles, CA
Crime: Posted numerous racist comments about Blacks and Mexicans on Instagram. Learn more
Status: Dismissed by her brokerage. May have moved on to another brokerage.

Agent: Jamie Detwiler, Bloomingdale, IL
Crime: Used her MLS access to get lockbox codes for fake showings in properties throughout DuPage county. Stole jewelry from five different homes. Learn More
Status: Arrested, charges pending. License suspended by IDFPER.

Agent: Jack Shaw, Chicago, IL | Paul King, Evanston IL | Rosita Tsiklauri, Queens, NY.
Crime: Ran a business that claimed to find apartments for people with bad credit and criminal records. Took up front cash as processing fees from clients and failed to deliver rental listings or return the money. Learn more. Shaw was not alone in getting disciplined for taking money without providing service. Paul King of Evanston got into hot water for doing similar things to home buyers. Rosita Tsiklauri of New York was arrested and charged with larceny for defrauding 19 prospective tenants out of $77k in processing fees over the course of 12 months.
Status: Shaw's license was suspended for 3 years and he was fined $18k by IDFPR. King's license was revoked permanently. Tsiklauri's case is ongoing.

The Nice:

Agent: Bobbi Mathues, Simsbury CT
Good Deed: Created the "Hero Homeownership Project" which gives 10% of their commission towards closing costs and other discounts to veterans, active military, first responders, non-profit employees and government workers. Learn more

Agent: Kim Pacini-Hauch, Sacramento, CA
Good Deed: Agreed to foot the bill for all pet adoptions from the Front Street Animal Shelter for six weeks, starting November 16 and running through the end of the year. Adoptions normally cost $65 to $85. On the day the promotion was launched a crowd of people gathered out front of the shelter to take advantage of the offer and all cats in-house were adopted. Learn More

Agent: The New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors
Good Deed: Provided $15,000 to the New Orleans Police to fund the purchase of high definition security cameras.

Agent: Christian Howard, Orlando FL
Good Deed: Created "The Heart that Gives" program, wherein he will donate half of his commission to a charity of this clients choice. Many other agents also offer similar programs, but Howard was also a frequent visitor to Pulse Nightclub, he also helped find emergency housing for victims and their families after the mass homicide in June. Learn more

Agent: Leroy Valentín Fernández, Orlando FL
Good Deed: Leasing agent for a Florida apartment complex. Singer, Hairdresser and choreographer. Well-loved drag performer. Killed in the Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando.

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Kay Cleaves

Preparing your Apartment for Sub-Zero Temperatures

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This weekend saw Chicago's first major snowfall of the year. For those renters who are spending their first winter in one of the city's many vintage apartments, it's their first introduction to some of the more obvious flaws of pre-World War I construction. While it's nice to think that your landlord will take care of everything to make sure your apartment stays warm and dry all winter, there are definitely some things that only you can do inside your apartment to make life a lot more comfortable throughout the next few months. Continue reading Preparing your Apartment for Sub-Zero Temperatures

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Kay Cleaves

Surveillance, Security and Apartment Showings in Chicago: A Primer

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Note: This article applies to Chicago only and should not be interpreted as legal advice.

In the modern age most of us have become accustomed to there being cameras everywhere. We carry the means to make video and audio recordings in our pockets and purses. We expect people to have home security systems installed and consider CCTV in public areas of apartment buildings to be a good thing. However, when an occupied apartment goes on the market the lines between what is a public or private space get blurred.

It's quite normal for apartment hunters to want to take photos of each place they see so that they can remember it later or share it with absent roommates. But given eavesdropping laws and the modern culture of suspicion regarding surveillance and privacy it's worth giving some thought to what is and isn't legal when it comes to cameras, audio recordings and showings. Today we'll cover the basics for the Chicago area.

The official Illinois law states that you must have permission to record conversations if other parties have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." It doesn't define what is reasonable, leaving the responsibility of defining the boundaries to the court system on a case by case basis.

Continue reading Surveillance, Security and Apartment Showings in Chicago: A Primer

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Kay Cleaves

Dear RentConfident: Why are my Landlord’s letters so rude?

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Every once in a while we get questions from our readers about the finer details of renting. Some are from tenants, others from landlords, and still others from parents, attorneys and agents. Today we thought we’d answer some of those questions in our first advice column! If you have a question you’d like us to answer in a future installment of Dear RentConfident, leave it in a comment below, or send us a message through our contact form.

Dear RentConfident: We live in a building with property managers who are very sweet to us when we run into them in person. However, every time we make a request of them in person we get a nasty letter from them afterwards telling us that we're causing harm to their property. I've spoken with my neighbors and they're in agreement with me that the management is totally rude in their letters to us. We have done nothing to violate the terms of our lease. Why are their letters to us so harsh? - The Ink is Bleeding, South Loop Continue reading Dear RentConfident: Why are my Landlord’s letters so rude?

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Kay Cleaves