Category: Renting Safely

Tips and alerts to help renters find and keep safe housing.

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.

Published by

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

Published by

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

Published by

Kay Cleaves

Low Cost Ways to Secure Your Apartment Before You Travel

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For many renters the Thanksgiving holiday is the first time after move-in they will leave their apartments for an extended period of time. AAA predicts that about 48.7 Million Americans will travel this year for Thanksgiving and usually it's the renters who do the traveling to visit relatives with bigger budgets and bigger kitchens.

But the Thanksgiving holiday is followed by the biggest shopping day of the year, and not every shopper visits local businesses for their Christmas loot. Burglaries and thefts from cars and homes increase during the holiday season every year due to a combination of absent homeowners and people who include your belongings as their Christmas wish list.

Security is not about turning your home into a fortress. It also doesn't have to be expensive. It's about making it less attractive for a thief than other nearby homes. If you're planning to travel this week or at any point, here are some precautions you should take to help ensure your apartment still has all of its contents when you return. Continue reading Low Cost Ways to Secure Your Apartment Before You Travel

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Kay Cleaves

Discriminatory Red Flags in Apartment Hunting

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There's not a lot of statistics out there on discrimination in housing for a lot of reasons. There's no centralized tracking system for housing discrimination cases. Tenants may be afraid to report discrimination or may feel that their credit or criminal history prevents them from renting someplace better. Those who do have the courage to report it may not have the resources to pursue the matter through the court system.

There's also a whole lot of renters out there who may not realize that they are experiencing discrimination when it happens to them. It's obvious of course if a landlord says "We don't rent to [your protected class]." But other situations might not be so cut-and-dried. Today I wanted to cover a few subtle but important red flag situations that you may find yourself in while apartment hunting. If any of these topics come up you need to be ready to walk away.

For the record, all of the good and bad quotes I provide below as examples are things I heard from landlords and their agents while showing apartments.

1. Your appearance. Comments about your body, your clothing, whether or not you look attractive, whether or not you look healthy can be meant innocently but can also telegraph a warning that the landlord is prone to harassing their tenants. No appearance-related subjects should ever be brought up during a showing. There are plenty of other neutral introductory topics.

Good: "How are you today?"
Good: "Did you see [celebrity name] on [TV show] last night?"
Bad: "Wow, what's going on with your leg?"
Bad: "You look totally hot in that dress."
Bad: "You must be really warm in that suit/hat/hijab." Continue reading Discriminatory Red Flags in Apartment Hunting

Published by

Kay Cleaves