Last week I described what I did during an average day when I worked as a leasing agent for a local landlord. That was the first half of my real estate agency career. Today we'll be doing the same thing but looking at the second half when I was working for a real estate brokerage as a Realtor focusing on rentals. Continue reading A Day in the Life of a Rental-Focused Chicago Realtor
I spent 10 years in the multifamily industry before starting RentConfident. For the first half of that time I was employed directly by the owner of roughly 50 Class C and Class D vintage walkup buildings scattered across the north side of Chicago. For the second half I was a licensed real estate agent focusing primarily on representing tenants in rental transactions across the city and suburbs of Chicago.
It has occurred to me that throughout the history of this blog I've spent a lot of time talking about what I learned during those years and in the time since I quit agency, but I haven't really talked about what I did while I was working there. So for the next two weeks I'll be doing "day in the life" articles, one from my time working for a landlord and the other from my time working for tenants. Continue reading A Day in the Life of a Landlord’s Leasing Agent
Back in 2016, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a memo stating that criminal background checks should only be used by landlords with extreme caution, and that applicants with criminal histories should be considered on a case by case basis. This was issued in response to statistics showing that persons of color are disproportionately exposed to the criminal justice system across the nation.
In recent months, various Illinois legislative groups have taken steps to formalize protection of ex-cons in the housing market. Two new laws, one at the state level and one at the county level, will take effect between now and the start of 2020. Today we will review both of them and what they're likely to mean for renters. Continue reading New Protections for Renters with Criminal Records in Illinois and Cook County
The concept of regular apartment inspections by the landlord or property manager is a very old one that is seeing new popularity among property managers across the U.S. Some tenants are surprised the first time they encounter a landlord who wants to inspect their apartment on a regular basis. Some have been regularly inspected without knowing it. Others, especially those on government rent subsidies, are accustomed to it. Today we're going to go over the 6 W's (what, why, who, when, where and how to prepare/avoid) of the apartment inspection process so that renters can be ready to deal with these encounters and come out of them on top. Continue reading The 6 Ws of Apartment Inspections
