Category: Renting Safely

I spend a lot of time reading landlord-tenant discussion boards online. When you run a business like RentConfident, it goes with the territory. These discussion boards are full of tenants complaining and being dramatic about their terrible landlords and sub-standard housing. They like to use the term "slumlord," which someone decided at some point should be the extremely offensive equivalent of the "n-word" for landlords. And in some cases the tenants are totally right for complaining.

But they also tend to claim that they're being “evicted” on dubious grounds. And a lot of them have indeed been asked to leave by their landlords. But a lot of the time they're using the word “evicted” incorrectly. And when they do, the readers with legit property management experience giggle behind their screens at the obvious ploy for sympathy.

Eviction is an emotionally loaded term, and renters like to use it every time they are forced to leave an apartment at a time other than one that they chose themselves. For landlords, eviction refers to a very specific process: a courtroom trial followed by a visit from the sheriff. It isn't an eviction until the county judicial system gets involved.

According to Dictionary.com, eviction has two definitions:

Here are some situations that are legal, but not evictions:

• You're on a month to month lease and the landlord gives you one month's notice to leave, and that notice is received on the same day that your rent is due. Continue reading Renters, Your Landlord Is Laughing At You for Using A Word Incorrectly.

It costs a lot of money to buy an apartment building. Most landlords need to borrow money from a bank to buy them. But banks have a scoring system that they use to figure out how much money they'll allow landlords to borrow. Running an apartment building is a lot like running any other business. Banks know that businesses are likely to fail. When a landlord fails, the bank gets ownership of the building. Banks will only lend money to high scoring buildings so that they know that they'll be able to find a new owner quickly.

The way the banks score buildings includes the age of the building, the style of management and the surrounding neighborhood. This is one of the major reasons why you only see a few types of buildings in each neighborhood. Downtown will only have new high rises. The edges of town will only have old creaky walkup buildings. It also affects who is likely to buy each type of building.

Today we'll take a look at the four main scores a building can have, and who is most likely to own them.

Class A

Class A buildings are brand new, usually less than 20 years old. They have a lot of units, and lots of community features like gyms, pools and party rooms. They have professional property management on site at all times. They're located in very popular neighborhoods. They're probably high rises with many eco-friendly features. They usually have a fancy name, like Aqua or K2. Continue reading What Class is your Apartment Building? (and what does it say about your landlord?)

The City of Chicago has many laws that landlords (and any owner of residential property) must follow when it comes to maintaining their buildings. Most tenants know that they need to report problems with their building to their landlord in writing. But many do not know what to do if the landlord doesn't respond. If the problem isn't fixed, tenants can report the problem to the city.

What happens when you report a problem?

The city will dispatch a building inspector to come take a look. Depending on the nature of the problem you may have to wait a few days or weeks for your appointment.

If the inspector finds a problem that breaks the city's laws, they will not send out the police to arrest your landlord. The landlord will be fined – like a parking ticket – and may have to attend a court hearing to prove that the problem has been fixed. Continue reading How to Rat Out a Bad Landlord to the City of Chicago

Texting and emails are great, but sometimes you just have to pick up the phone and call someone. The days of being able to remember a million phone numbers off the top of your head are long gone. If you're renting and something goes wrong, you may not be in a position to look up a phone number, so make sure to add the following 10 resources to your phone's contact list on the day you move in.

1. Landlord (or Property Manager)

If something breaks, you'll need to notify your landlord or their manager in writing. However, it's a good idea to have their phone number on hand too in case you need to verify that your rent was received, follow up with them about maintenance requests, or let them know about other problems like noise issues, overflowing dumpsters or graffiti.

2. Locksmith

You will probably lock yourself out at some point during your lease. It might even be during your move in, before you're in the habit of checking for your keys. If your landlord does not provide lock-out service 24 hours a day, you should always have the number of a 24 hour locksmith in your phone.
Continue reading 10 Phone Numbers Every Chicago Renter Should Have In their Phone

Housing affordability surveys are largely based on the assumption that no person in the US should spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Every year a lot of doom and gloom reports come out saying that housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable as more and more renters pay up to 50% of their income to their landlord. I'm not here to debate whether or not the rising rent rates are a good thing or bad thing. At this point they are unavoidable. There will probably come a time when you as a renter will have to decide whether you're willing to exceed that 30% limit. When that time comes, here are a few things to consider.

The 30% benchmark is an 80 year old arbitrary figure.

30% was a number set by the architects of the New Deal after the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was used to determine how much government support would be given to people who needed help with housing. Since then experts and government agencies have latched onto it as a set-in-stone number not to be exceeded for any reason.

30% is a suggestion. You need to do your own math.

It's your own responsibility to figure out how much you can really afford to pay in rent. For some of you it might be more than others. You need to look at your own current situation and decide what's best. A lot of financial planning sites will tell you to split your costs between the things you need and the things you want. I would say there's actually needs, wants and shoulds.

When you're making enough money to be comfortable, the shoulds become needs. When you're not earning enough to make ends meet the shoulds become wants. Continue reading Can we throw out the 30% rule of affordable housing already?