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Celebrity Tenants
Between my current career as a Realtor and my prior career as a stage manager, I’ve been lucky enough to deal with several celebrities during my time in Chicago. Like anyone else, they have to live...
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What’s Your Sign? (How to Tell if YOUR Housing Market Has Recovered)
If you’ve been following the housing market at all, you’ve probably seen articles about how the housing market is recovering, mortgage rates are slated to rise, and prices are climbing again. However,...
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Exploring the Taboo against Prices on “For Sale” Signs
Once Upon a Time Buyers agents as we know them in modern Illinois did not always exist. There was a time (and in some states it still exists) when agents were expected to represent both sides in home...
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Field Guide to Chicago Apartments: Studios
It’s been a while since we pulled out the old Field Guide for a humorous look at some of the different types of Chicago apartments. Last summer I gave you an overview of garden apartments and coach...
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Rental Site Review: Zillow
A couple of months ago, I posted a review of SearchChicago.com, the Sun-Times online classifieds page. I concocted a scoring method to rate rental websites on a 40 point scale based on diversity of...
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10 Mistakes Made by First Time Landlords
Last year I did two articles about mistakes made by first time renters and first time buyers. Today we’re going to look at errors made by first time landlords. 1. Setting Arbitrary Rent Rates The price...
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The First 10 Things You Should Do After Closing
So you’re about to close on your first house. Congratulations! You’ve come a long way and it’s probably been a big hassle to get here. Saving money, filling out paperwork, viewing house after house…...
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What Happens If Your Landlord Dies?
In previous articles I’ve addressed what a landlord should do if a tenant dies in the middle of a lease. However, I’ve not discussed the topic from the other side. So what happens to a tenant if the...
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Talking Trash
Chicago garbage pickup (or “scavenger service” as we Realtor wonks like to call it) is a bigger deal than you’d think for landlords. It tends to get overlooked by newer landlords, and even the...
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Quality Control Week #1: What Affects Building Quality?
You probably know that there are different grades of quality when it comes to food. The USDA has three different grades for poultry, eight for red meat, and hundreds for fruits and vegetables....
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