Category: Original Research

Licensing of Leasing Agents Across the United States

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Most states have a couple of different licensing tiers for real estate agents. In most cases there's a license for sales agents and a separate one for their managing brokers. These two license tiers require different amounts of pre-licensing education and continuing education to obtain and maintain, with the managers understandably needing more training than their subordinates.

In Illinois we have a two additional tiers at the bottom of the totem pole for leasing agents and leasing agent students. Today we'll be looking at the requirements for these rental-only licenses and comparing them against the licensing requirements for those who perform similar roles in other states across the country. Continue reading Licensing of Leasing Agents Across the United States

Published by

Kay Cleaves

Twitter’s Opinion of Chicago Apartment Hunting

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In February of 2016 I ran an article where I searched through Twitter to see the adjectives that people used to describe their landlords. As it's been a while I figured it might be good to go back and see what Twitter has to say about another topic. I've actually had this geographically restricted search running for a while now, sitting in my Tweetdeck and building up. The Chicago area Twitterverse has quite a lot to say about apartment hunting, and most of it isn't good.

Here are the adjectives that were used in posts that mentioned apartment hunting over the course of roughly twelve months, filtered to exclude posts from property managers, agents and landlords.

Appearing Multiple Times
Stressful (5 times)
Difficult (Twice)
Frustrating (Twice)
My least favorite part about living in Chicago (Twice)
Overwhelming (Twice)
The worst (Twice) Continue reading Twitter’s Opinion of Chicago Apartment Hunting

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Kay Cleaves

Condemned to Repeat? Chicago’s New Five Year Housing Plan: 2019-2023

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This is part two of our analysis of Chicago's new five year housing plan covering 2019 through 2023. You should probably start with part one, which ran last week. We've already assessed how well the city achieved its goals over the past five years. Now we're going to use what we learned to analyze the new plan. As with our prior article we will be focusing on the plan for the rental market only, ignoring initiatives that support only single family homes. Continue reading Condemned to Repeat? Chicago’s New Five Year Housing Plan: 2019-2023

Published by

Kay Cleaves

Accountability Check: Chicago’s 2014-2018 Housing Plan

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In our January newsletter I said that we were going to cover the city's new five year housing plan for 2019-2023, which was approved by the city council towards the end of last year. In last week's article (which you guys seemed to like, thanks!) I said that we would be covering it today, and we are to an extent, but not directly. We'll cover it directly next week. Because as I reviewed it, it became apparent that it is a promise and a plan, and like any promise its worth depends on the reputation of the person who makes it.

There are certain times when promises and proposals are so exciting that we don't think about how trustworthy the source might be. When someone proposes marriage, we're often swept off our feet with relief and joy without thinking about how many times our partner has been divorced. When a landlord offers us an apartment after getting denied a few times by others, we might leap to accept it without reading the lease.

The new five year plan was breathlessly covered by media outlets, mostly because of its leap from introduction to approval by the city council in less than a month. As it has been approved we will look at it. But my personal motto is “remember where you came from.”

This is not the first five year plan for housing that Chicago has had. It is the sixth consecutive five year plan, which means we're now entering our 26th straight year of municipal five year housing plans. So first let's take a look at how Chicago did in keeping its promises from the old one, which was in effect from January 2014 through December 2018. Continue reading Accountability Check: Chicago’s 2014-2018 Housing Plan

Published by

Kay Cleaves

Chicago Deserves Better Than Rent Control.

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I'm going to admit right off the bat that I am absolutely terrified of writing this article. The topic of rent control in Chicago has been on my to-do list since it hit the news in early 2018 and every time since then that I've looked at that line item I've flinched and avoided it. We covered it a little in our newsletter back in March when it was on the primary ballot. It's never been mentioned in depth in the blog. But nothing going forward in this blog can really be addressed without taking on the matter, and I did recently promise one of my industry colleagues that I would finally go on the record about it, so here we are.

Meet This Article's Cities

For this article we will be comparing the rental data for a selection of cities and neighborhoods within those cities, each chosen for a specific purpose. We will, of course, be looking at Chicago, which has its own Residential Landlord-Tenant Ordinance.

We will be looking at San Francisco and New York City, which both have RLTOs but also have rent control. Yes, I could have also included Los Angeles and DC. I could have included a lot of cities. I am one person and this article is already long enough as it is. If you want to take this data and run with an expansion that's totally fine with me. Continue reading Chicago Deserves Better Than Rent Control.

Published by

Kay Cleaves