Category: Lighter Side

Did you know that the 4 oldest surviving buildings in North America are all apartment buildings? Well, they're not apartments in the modern sense, but they are all unified residential structures that housed multiple families. They are the pueblos of the southwestern united states, dating from the 8th century CE.

The oldest surviving structures in Chicago weren't built for over a thousand years after those dusty cliff dwellings, but to the modern Chicago renter even our oldest local buildings seem pretty darn ancient. Today we've crawled through the buildings preserved as Chicago Historical Landmarks to find some of the oldest surviving apartment buildings in the city.

All images from Google Streetview.

1061 W Madison and 1065 W Madison

Neighborhood: West Loop
Built: 1869 (1065 W Madison, right) and 1884 (1061 W Madison, left)
Style: 2nd Renaissance Revival (1065), Italianate (1061)
Note: 1065 W Madison is listed as 7 S. Aberdeen in online listings. It is the only pre-fire apartment building we've found so far.
Author's Comment: Roof deck and cell tower are not original to the building.
Last Known Rent Rate: 2 bed, 2 ba, $3400. Continue reading Ghosts of Old Chicago: Our Oldest Surviving Apartment Buildings

Before I start on this one I should warn you that this is going to be more of a thought piece than a statistical analysis. This is mostly because there is a dearth of statistical information on landlords as a group. While I will attempt to avoid any bleed through of my own personal biases I probably will not succeed entirely. I should also provide the standard disclaimer that I'm mostly speaking about the Chicago market here. Now with that out of the way, here we go.

It is a common assumption, almost a cliche, that landlords lean so far to the political right that they could tip over at any second. The old stereotype of the mustache twirling black hatted landlord who values money above all else and despises minorities, gays, and poor people is still very prominent. That's the image that's also been dogging the far right for years. It's a PR standby that's enforced by consistent media coverage. It's easy to make a connection between landlords and conservatives based on the public stories of notorious individuals who tick both boxes. After all, when a residential landlord makes it into the news they're usually in trouble for discrimination, or lobbying against rent control, or chilling in the Oval Office.

However, I would argue that for Chicago landlords the mental image you may have of a conservative landlord is not necessarily true. In fact, it's my thought that your average Chicago landlord is probably a left-leaning independent. Continue reading The Elephant in the Room

There is a well-known classic pop song called "The Night Chicago Died." It tells the sordid tale of a prohibition-era shootout between mobsters and cops. It was done by a band called Paper Lace and hit #1 in the US in 1974. Now, it was written by a bunch of British guys who can be pardoned for not knowing the geography of our city. They can even be forgiven for (gasp) possibly confusing us with New York City. But any Chicagoan worth their Vienna Beef Red Hots will chuckle when they hear the opening line, "Daddy was a cop / On the East Side of Chicago." There are no people living on Chicago's east side. There are no cops on the east side. The entire "east side" of Chicago lies underneath Lake Michigan. There is, in fact, a neighborhood in the city called the "East Side," but it's very, very far south, almost to the border of Indiana, and certainly nowhere near where Al Capone and his pals liked to hang out.

For some reason we've got a lot of fiction authors who read this blog. We know that dropping your hero in a coldwater flat on the south side is a quick way to imply that they're an impoverished, unfortunate and hard-working sort of character. But we hate to see little immersion-breaking errors like the one from the song pop up to mar an otherwise good work of fiction. In the service of better fiction today we have a quiz for you, and for every tenant who has been on the apartment hunt for a very, very long time.

[slickquiz id=4]

Are you a writer who would like to verify the accuracy of a Chicago apartment setting? Are you a tenant that's been in the market for a long time and worried that you might be hunting unicorns? Drop us a comment and we'll be happy to assist.

While the huge number of new of apartments downtown is going to lead to fewer competing applications for the same apartments this year, competition will still exist in trendy neighborhoods outside of the central business district. Some renters think that landlords make knee-jerk decisions on which applicants to choose for apartments based on very simple differences such as who offers more money, who wants to stay longer, or who wants to move in first. Others may think landlords choose their tenants based on illegal data such as race, age or occupation.

The purely financial differences, when they exist, do make it easier to decide between applicants. The latter differences, which are must be excluded from a landlord's choice per fair housing law, can actually make it much more difficult to decide. The fear of lawsuits (and it is usually the fear of a lawsuit rather than any legitimate support of fair housing practices) may cause landlords to ignore details that would otherwise be critical red flags for high risk renters. Frequently though, the choice depends on neither financial nor protected factors.

To shed a little light on the thought processes a landlord might go through in choosing between multiple applicants, today we have for you four different scenarios. In each scenario you will have two applicants to choose from. Let us know in the comments (either here or on Facebook) which ones you would choose if you were the landlord - there is no right or wrong answer, and in fact the real right answer might be to reject both applicants and wait for someone else.

For all scenarios, assume all factors other than the ones stated are equal. Just to make things more interesting we have included some extra details about some applicants to make things a little more realistic.

Scenario 1: Cramped Quarters

The apartment: Vintage 2 bedroom/1 bath in Avondale. 2nd floor walkup. $1500.
Application #1: Single mother with 4 children ages 2 to 10. Monthly income: $4500. Credit score: 690.
Application #2: Self-employed single web developer, works from home. Monthly income: ranges from $0 - $15,000. Credit score: 700. Continue reading Which Tenant Would You Choose?