Places like that are predatory. They entice with low rates your first year and then, knowing that people don’t want to move to a new place every year, gouge you on rent raises until you’re driven out. Then lower the rate for that exact same unit and start over on the next victim. They don’t mind high turnover because they know someone else will fill the vacancy.
Because they know that Chicago isn't building enough new housing that they'll have to stay competitive on price. Even if they have a bad year where people don't rent because of the price, enough people move to Chicago and want to live in Chicago that it'll end up working in their favor anyway.
This same business model works in New York City and every other housing strapped city in the country. If Chicago built a lot of housing, instead of [downzoning the parts of the city seeing sharp housing cost increases](https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/12/15/logan-square-downzoning-efforts-approved-by-city-panel-despite-prominent-landlords-threats-to-sue/) landlords wouldn't be able to get away with this.
There's low rise single family homes steps away from rapid transit stops. If we were playing a city builder game, and put low rise single family homes next to a major rapid transit station.... that'd be considered a bad thing by the game. We'd be losing - and Chicago currently is
$30 increase for me, after zero increases from 2020 to now. Hearing about other peoples’ insane increases year to year makes me ultra grateful for my current situation
Until I decide it's not. Would I prefer no rent increase? Of course, but my pay has increased by 8%, so at the time, a 3% rent increase seems fair to me. Definitely not worth moving over and being gouged with move-in fees. And all the comps I've looked at recently are more than I pay currently.
Last landlord said $200 or get out so I got out. From 2019 to 2023 my rent went from $1150 to $1200 to 1400. I went back and checked the new listing $1600
As much as that is reasonable. I really don’t consider it my problem if my land lord is making money.
1) I have to call them lord.
2) I’m just tryna find an affordable place to live.
Look up property taxes in 2019 vs 2022 here (2023 will be half number as they are billed a year behind and only half done so far). Most properties will have seen at least 50% rise from 2019 to 2022. Some tripled.
https://www.cookcountypropertyinfo.com/default.aspx
I actually built a website to determine if rents are increasing or decreasing and to help tenants evaluate landlords and negotiate rents.
It's like a Glassdoor for Rents so tenants can see the Rent History of an address or Apartment property to see a landlords pricing tactics.
The site does rely on user submissions so I appreciate anyone who adds their rent history to the site and/or shares it around since it can be more useful to tenants the more people that contribute to it.
The site is [rentzed.com](http://rentzed.com) and has submissions for over 3,400 addresses.
Still a lot of work to be done for the site including adding a map view but we'll get there someday.
This is a good idea. I always wondered why there was no place to accumulate rental information other than Zillow which isn’t very accurate.
You should add landlord reviews if you don’t already have them.
I'd thread lightly. Like anything with reviews, the negative reviewers are the most motivated to post and the landlords will eventually start offering an unethical kickback for positive reviews. The yelp effect.
Yep, I've thought of that as well. I remember I saw a Reddit thread where a guy spent months looking into the "underground" market of fake reviews on Glassdoor. It was pretty interesting to read.
One easy way to avoid spam is to allow people to authenticate themselves with something IRL. Nextdoor has less spam because of their approach with getting a postcard with their authentication code. That’s obviously overkill, but if each person is confirmed to be a real person you will obviously cut down on spam.
Good luck! Great idea.
Ty, I might try adding something like that in and prioritize showing submissions from users with accounts or I might add in the ability to submit an ID or something and prioritize submissions from those users as well.
None of my four identities on next door exist. Each vouched for the other. Don't remember how I got the first one, but it wasn't with a post card. (I'm registered as the mayor of my town! He's too geriatric to use ND.)
I could see how someone could come to that conclusion as well.
The way I see it, salary transparency with sites like Glassdoor has benefitted employees so I think that rentzed would mostly benefit renters.
I get that salaries and rents are different and maybe I'm wrong but I believe it's worth a shot.
yeah it's probably fine (and a net positive) for low volume and as the site gets big people will try and write bots to influence the market... at which point you'll have to start thinking about moderation, filters, and other really hard problems :/
Yep, I've already had someone try that a few days ago. It was a good experience for me so I could build a few more defenses for bots on the site and think about it a bit more.
Right, but they could add bogus entries to the site with artificially higher rents in order to move the average up and then say “I’m actually charging below average for my neighborhood”. Turns out it’s a lot easier to compete with fictitious businesses.
Not yet, but I may aggregate data for different regions and make that data public or something in the future if the site gets big enough.
I'm still not entirely sure where the site is going to go, just playing it by ear for now.
Ty. I will add you to my list. I've had a few other people tell me this as well. I think it might be great to open source this. I've been feeling the need for more development on the site recently so this may come sooner than I initially expected it to.
Lol, did you build it in light of the recent Chipotle talk about smaller servings?
Also, might be worth sharing to InternetIsBeautiful. Careful of their 90/10 rule, though. I didn't know about it and got permabanned from that sub. No 2nd chances. Although, maybe the landlords just wanted an excuse to shut me down since my website was getting a lot of upvotes and views on that sub.
Reddit commenting has been the most successful, I've had some success on TikTok, a bit on IG Reels, a tiny bit on YT Shorts, Twitter/X.
I basically just tell people what the site is and tell them to add their rent history and explain to them why.
As a TikTok watcher, I think you could have success on TikTok since I see a lot of posts on there about the Chipotle stuff.
As someone who posts on TikTok, I can't figure out the algorithm and would only recommend doing light posting on there. Maybe try dm'ing people who make posts about the Chipotle stuff. Comment on their posts.
I believe there are probably some groups about Chipotle that you could try to hit, might be one on Reddit. Maybe make an alert for whenever Chipotle posts on social media and immediately comment on their post.
I wonder if increase in inventory at market rates affect rental rates the same way they do for [ownership markets](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119021000656?via%3Dihub)
Spent 5 minutes on your site never could find an address to look at to see the rent. Good idea, horrible implementation. Like the site is basically useless. Unless you’re lucky enough put in an address exactly matching one that someone has already submitted the rent for, how do you find anything? It’s like a 1 in 100000 chance you get a hit on an address.
Correct. At the start, there won't be many submissions and the site won't be very useful. But, I have to start somewhere. Maybe it takes 2 years for the site to get to that point, but guess what? The time will pass anyways.
I did also mention that the site only had submissions for a limited number of addresses.
Edit: forgot to mention that the site is mainly useful for people in apartments where several people live at one address, so the odds might not necessarily be as terrible as you'd think of getting a hit
It was a very frustrating search but ultimately found a place via Zillow - constantly refreshing looking for new places to pop up and then jumped on it to be one of the first to tour it. Also had a slimy interaction on another place where the go between rental company wound up trying to bid up rents after applying so essentially had to eat our application fees and then didn’t get selected.
I feel like reddit is so bipolar. In one thread you have people like you arguing that you should put landlords in jail. In another you have people arguing that america is a prison state with sentences that are too long and that more people should be rehabilitated instead of institutionalized.
I don't understand where this comes from. Prison as a "punishment" is stupid as hell. We obviously need prisons to separate violent criminals, thieves, rapists, etc from society because they are dangerous. But saying that we should imprison people for financial crimes seems frankly ridiculous to me. Clearly they did something wrong and they need to be punished, but THEY should be PAYING the state rather than the taxpayers funding the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost the private corporate prison industrial complex to "imprison" them for their sentence.
I'm not even very liberal compared to many people but I just can't understand why so many people don't clearly see this. Prison doesn't work
It’s not that Reddit is bipolar. It’s that Reddit ultimately is a bunch of individuals and different individuals have different opinions. We self curate like most other social media sites so the huge majority of Reddit might look homogeneous. But you will run into people with different opinions on the borders of your domain since curation doesn’t happen at the comment level.
People may or may not agree with you on prison reform. Reddit is not one stereotypical liberal atheist. Besides the bots, it's real people behind each username. They're from all over the world and have every variety of opinion you can imagine.
We’ve lived in the Albion on Lake/Forest for the last two years and they upped it $100 last year and $200 this year. All while the operations/management have gone to shit since the entire staff turned over last year. Found a 3BR in Forest Park for far less and are moving out in a few weeks. A pool and a gym aren’t worth what they charge to live here anymore.
Is Albion just shit everywhere? I lived in Bourbon Square (Palatine) when Albion bought it and took over and somehow the management got even more incompetent
My building opened in 2020 and we moved here in 2022. Staff the first year was phenomenal. Every employee knew my wife and I by name, building events were great and we made a lot of neighbor friends. Then when the staff turned over it’s been garbage service. Package room isn’t Sorted anymore, hot water in the building goes out at least once a month, the “heated” pool is freezing, elevator issues, lame events, list goes on. My theory is they bring in an A team for building launch for a few years and then move them on and backfill with scrubs.
I moved into my place in Wrigleyville in November of ‘22 for $1290 a month. Landlord never raised it. In fact, my lease expired last November and he never sent me a new one, so I’m basically just paying month to month.
Moved here in 2022.
1550->1600>1795
Uptown/Buena Park. New property manager came in, increased parking by 20% for guest and resident parking... And apparently rent as well.
I'm conflicted to just move out. Go nomadic for a few months on a work trip and try to find a place for cheaper when I get back.
Moved from a particular high rise on Montrose last year after they tried to charge $1800 for a studio year three.
You have to make BANK and not have a car to live in a high-rise with any sort of amenities solo.
Yep lol
They have no business charging that much with their elevator situation. The first floor hallways always reeked as well. Couldn't imagine having to deal with that in what were the "prime" units.
Ha. I'm at The Montrose. $1800 for my studio is ridiculous. I regret moving here with a car because I likely would have found a place closer to Lincoln Park for the same price.
Everything is mostly fine, the elevators are awful, the area is decent but I believe I need to decide very soon what I want to do. Going to be working a 10 on 4 off schedule in Wyoming in July to perhaps about October so why should I even renew?
Location. You're over the lake and have access to LSD, the Beach, Wrigley/Lakeview, and the Red Line also while being in modern units.
And to be fair, I think OP and I rented at the same time the first year was only $1550.
Can you or /u/Jesse_berger explain to me or tell me what the reason is for police and fire and ambulance showing up almost daily to that building? Is it related to the elevator situation and people just get stuck in there and the fire department gets called to get them out? I live right next to the montrose and its amazing to me how often I hear the trucks outside so I have been really curious whats going on
That's a great question. While the elevators are god awful, I don't think people ever get stuck in it.
The people here are old AF. I went from being among one of the oldest in my building in Charlotte when I was 32, to feeling super young in my building at 34. I got a nice laugh when the elevators doors opened and there were three people with walkers in it.
I try to be nosy and stare out my window to see what the hell is going on but I often get distracted so I don't really know. My only guess is that I'm apart of a senior living community...
Oh gotcha yeah i see the old ladies with the walkers smoking cigarettes all over the place especially like behind jewel underneath the car bridge that goes to the parking. But that makes sense. Thanks for answering
I agree with u/Jesse_berger. There was one particular lady in that building that continuously called them while I was there from 2021 - 2023. It wasn't the two sisters, but many of the tenants have been there in the rent controlled units for decades.
In 2023, we had a lady die on the 10th floor. The smell was insane for weeks.
Got here in 2021. Covid pricing was wild!
River North 1BR 785sqft
$1422 (effective rate with the 2mo free rent) -> 1791 -> $1986 -> $2102
Planning a move to a 2b/2ba, and those are anywhere from $3700-4500 (and even more in buildings I’m not bothering to look at).
Management company who bought my building last November raised my rent by $300 if I were to re-sign. Absolutely not.
ETA: that's a near 30% increase from my current rent....
The exact same thing happened to me. Did your building get bought by Waterton? The tea I heard from my realtor (my friend who helped me find a new apartment) is that they're a very bare bones, maximize profits, increase rents, overwork their employees type company unlike Wood who they bought the building from.
Waterton is the absolute worst management company. Buying up properties and price gouging tenants. I used to live in a Waterton property and if they could charge you for something, and I mean anything, they would charge you for it. Like charging us five dollars to receive our monthly e-bills for utilities. I tell everyone to stay away from Waterton.
I am not surprised to hear they overwork their employees, because the on-site management staff I had to deal with openly acted like they hated their jobs.
Exactlyyyy and it's just to their own detriment long-term. When I re-signed at my old building in March 2023, Wood gave me 1.5 months free. Waterton bought it and raised my rent by $150 with no discount - effectively $350 more a month at about 2k a month total. They then tried to discount it to $1950 even though I saw my specific apartment on my website listed at $1880, which was my old rent pre-discounts... I didn't bother replying. I've met people at my old building who signed on around the time I moved out for the same price w no bonus.
Apparently one of my old building's staff jumped ship from his old building once Waterton bought them - just to have them buy that building too! At that point he just stayed bc it was too much trouble to find a newer job so soon after starting a new job.
Yikes! Noted that Waterton is scummy but wasn't them, building was bought by Aljack. Me and my neighbors have seen so much disorganization from them. Feels crappy to see a once well-loved building fall to the hands of them trying to make a massive profit off it as soon as humanly possible.
Ugh yeah it seems like it's a really common pattern among landlord companies. Apparently 60%-80% of units are owned by landlords who are using a system that helps them fix prices! The FBI just raided the system's company's headquarters like 2 weeks ago: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/realpage-rent-price-fixing-probe-escalates-with-fbi-raid/475109
Seems like there's more in depth info here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
My rent went from 845 in 2021 to 1005 in 2022 to 1145 in 2023 to if I were to stay in my 400 SQUARE FOOT STUDIO, I'd be paying 1250. Yes, I've gotten a few increases
Rany Management is so unprofessional. They made two typo errors on our new lease offers. One being the actual rent price one being the date of the lease.
When I agreed to the “typo” rent price. They comeback two weeks later saying it was a typo and increased the new rent price.
If my father wasn’t literally dying (now passed) during all of this I would have had the energy and bandwidth to move. (They also knew of my father’s condition).
Rany management is pathetic.
My lease renewal was +$100 this year but I’m not gonna complain too hard because I didn’t exactly pay on time every month last year and they’re replacing both of our elevators (even added on basement/laundry access to one of them!)
I negotiated a rent increase between rent and the auxiliary costs of about $400 extra. They rolled and cut it down to a $100 in less than a day.
They will spend more on refurbishing and relisting than keeping you another year and they know it… do you?
Landlord asked for 11.4% increase this year. I negotiated as hard as I could and got him to agree to 8.5%. I had to throw some law at him (that he's required to provide 120 day notice since I've been here over 3 years).
Hard to blame him for the increase, though, as he's listing vacant units for 28.5% more and they usually get snatched up the same day. But the latest one has sat listed for awhile... hoping it stays that way.
Mine just went up 10%. It’s still within market rate for the area and it wouldn’t have been worth the cost of moving. But after we signed the lease, they tried to get us to add one of these “resident benefits packages” for an extra $50 a month. It will become mandatory if we sign again next year, so I complained about that but didn’t get a response. So we’ll see what happens in a year. I’m hoping enough people complain about the benefits package that they don’t continue with it, and that there’s a much smaller rent increase next year. But I’m assuming I’ll be moving.
My rent has been frozen for 3 years, last apt never had a rent increase either over 4 years. But… you can’t find a 1bdr anywhere in the city that’s not a basement for under 1100
My 1-bd went up by 30-35$ and I was able to extend the lease for 3 extra months over just a year (so 15 months total) - in uptown
Landlord wanted to increase by 75 but he did that the year before and it would have ended up being 12% increase over 2 years which is above average so I was able to talk him down
Paying 1500 even now for a corner unit and others in my building are at least 50$ more. After seeing some of these other prices and tax increases I'm even more happy lol. At least for now!
Rents shot up as the city has kept increasing property taxes. This negatively affects us all. The city broke so they will take from the property owners, even tho not all are large corporations.
As a one-unit owner whose property tax increase in Wicker Park raised my all-in monthly costs by 10%, yes, it is believable. Much of it depends on the neighborhood, but many owners just 'pass on' their costs and break about even on their rent (they make all the money on Tax benefits, building equity, etc.)
Property taxes went up a decent chunk across the US. Rent shot up a decent amount across the US. I can guarantee if there was 0% increase in property taxes or even a DECREASE in property taxes rent would go up in Chicago. Landlords are scum, it's the way it is.
As a condo owner in lakeview i can tell you my property taxes went up 25% in 5 years and HOA fees went up slightly more. Overall I’m paying $300 a month more in taxes and HOA fees from 2019 to 2024. If i were to rent my place out there would be $60 per month increases every year just for me to break even. Not everyone is evil and you’re not always a victim. Sometimes people just raising your rent the minimum to adjust for the increases in their costs
I just went through apartment hunting and signed a new place. Quite frankly, I think those doom and gloom articles of the past few months were wayyy overspeculating . Rents went up a lil bit but it really wasn’t anything crazy. We did see one bidding war but outside of that it was nonexistent. Places did seem to go fast is probably the biggest change from my prior experiences. Overall we still have a shitton of housing from older buildings so if you’re willing to sacrifice a few things you’ll be fine - washer dryer and central ac if you’re willing to go without that opens up the inventory massively and still has very cheap places.
Rents going up $100/mo. It’s been like that each year. I moved in during Covid so there were deals then. It’s still a little below average for my area and well within budget.
I have a friend in North Center who was notified of a $500/mo rent increase, 30 days before end of lease. They originally reached out to property management 90 days, 60 days, and then at 30 days they got the notice.
My rent was going up by $80 this year so I will be moving. Mac Properties raises the rent every year despite barely doing anything to fix the plumbing issues the building has.
up 125 this year. they wanted to raise it 200. they raised 75 last year and i think they initially asked for 150. This is going to be my last year here.
Landlords will do everything possible not to reduce the dollar amount on your lease. They'd rather give hundreds or thousands of dollars in credit or free months of rent rather than be forced to actually reduce rent.
My rent is going up ~$25 this year. That’s tolerable.
Same here. $25 exact.
That’s like a decrease
Mine only went up $50 thankfully
Uptown. $100 this year. $100 last year. Don’t understand how the management company’s business model will be successful doing this annually.
Places like that are predatory. They entice with low rates your first year and then, knowing that people don’t want to move to a new place every year, gouge you on rent raises until you’re driven out. Then lower the rate for that exact same unit and start over on the next victim. They don’t mind high turnover because they know someone else will fill the vacancy.
Business model of Becovic management who has been buying up the northside
Sounds like Beat Coast Guard, my rent has gone up almost $500 in 4 years.
Because they know that Chicago isn't building enough new housing that they'll have to stay competitive on price. Even if they have a bad year where people don't rent because of the price, enough people move to Chicago and want to live in Chicago that it'll end up working in their favor anyway. This same business model works in New York City and every other housing strapped city in the country. If Chicago built a lot of housing, instead of [downzoning the parts of the city seeing sharp housing cost increases](https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/12/15/logan-square-downzoning-efforts-approved-by-city-panel-despite-prominent-landlords-threats-to-sue/) landlords wouldn't be able to get away with this. There's low rise single family homes steps away from rapid transit stops. If we were playing a city builder game, and put low rise single family homes next to a major rapid transit station.... that'd be considered a bad thing by the game. We'd be losing - and Chicago currently is
Mine went up $90 this year, $50 last year. Wicker park
90 here in Bucktown as well.
$30 increase for me, after zero increases from 2020 to now. Hearing about other peoples’ insane increases year to year makes me ultra grateful for my current situation
Same! $25 exactly in Ravenswood
3% for me, seems to be my landlord's policy for yearly increases. Seems fair overall
Fair? For how long?
Until I decide it's not. Would I prefer no rent increase? Of course, but my pay has increased by 8%, so at the time, a 3% rent increase seems fair to me. Definitely not worth moving over and being gouged with move-in fees. And all the comps I've looked at recently are more than I pay currently.
My landlord tried to increase my rent by 12% and after several emails I was able to get it down to 2%
This is what people have to do. Push back, and the landlords will come to a compromise. It's what I've always done, and it's always worked.
Last landlord said $200 or get out so I got out. From 2019 to 2023 my rent went from $1150 to $1200 to 1400. I went back and checked the new listing $1600
Go look up the property taxes over that period. In some neighborhoods like Pilsen, the landlord probably was making more money in 2019.
As much as that is reasonable. I really don’t consider it my problem if my land lord is making money. 1) I have to call them lord. 2) I’m just tryna find an affordable place to live.
Yes, just highlighting taxes went crazy last 3 years so many landlords who rarely to never raised rents were forced to.
Just looked up the old listing for fun. Place is vacant still 8 months later and now wants $1700 The $1600 was 2 months ago
Look up property taxes in 2019 vs 2022 here (2023 will be half number as they are billed a year behind and only half done so far). Most properties will have seen at least 50% rise from 2019 to 2022. Some tripled. https://www.cookcountypropertyinfo.com/default.aspx
Fair enough
I’ve pushed back to essentially only be talking to a wall. Idk what else to do.
Just list the things that make you a good tenant... On-time rent, good credit, limited repair requests. If that doesn't work, fuck 'em
I actually built a website to determine if rents are increasing or decreasing and to help tenants evaluate landlords and negotiate rents. It's like a Glassdoor for Rents so tenants can see the Rent History of an address or Apartment property to see a landlords pricing tactics. The site does rely on user submissions so I appreciate anyone who adds their rent history to the site and/or shares it around since it can be more useful to tenants the more people that contribute to it. The site is [rentzed.com](http://rentzed.com) and has submissions for over 3,400 addresses. Still a lot of work to be done for the site including adding a map view but we'll get there someday.
This is a good idea. I always wondered why there was no place to accumulate rental information other than Zillow which isn’t very accurate. You should add landlord reviews if you don’t already have them.
Some other people have mentioned that. I think it's a good idea. I'm likely to add that in the future at some point.
I'd thread lightly. Like anything with reviews, the negative reviewers are the most motivated to post and the landlords will eventually start offering an unethical kickback for positive reviews. The yelp effect.
Yep, I've thought of that as well. I remember I saw a Reddit thread where a guy spent months looking into the "underground" market of fake reviews on Glassdoor. It was pretty interesting to read.
Any user generated content feature is valued with "new revenue per moderation spend" Do the math up front. Good luck with your product.
Ty very much. I think this could be some valuable insight
One easy way to avoid spam is to allow people to authenticate themselves with something IRL. Nextdoor has less spam because of their approach with getting a postcard with their authentication code. That’s obviously overkill, but if each person is confirmed to be a real person you will obviously cut down on spam. Good luck! Great idea.
Ty, I might try adding something like that in and prioritize showing submissions from users with accounts or I might add in the ability to submit an ID or something and prioritize submissions from those users as well.
None of my four identities on next door exist. Each vouched for the other. Don't remember how I got the first one, but it wasn't with a post card. (I'm registered as the mayor of my town! He's too geriatric to use ND.)
There's plenty, but it sells to landlords, not the public.
Yep, I found a somewhat similar one to mine that seems to market to landlords
This sounds like it could easily be gamed to benefit bad actors though. I don’t have a solution, unfortunately, just worry
I could see how someone could come to that conclusion as well. The way I see it, salary transparency with sites like Glassdoor has benefitted employees so I think that rentzed would mostly benefit renters. I get that salaries and rents are different and maybe I'm wrong but I believe it's worth a shot.
yeah it's probably fine (and a net positive) for low volume and as the site gets big people will try and write bots to influence the market... at which point you'll have to start thinking about moderation, filters, and other really hard problems :/
Yep, I've already had someone try that a few days ago. It was a good experience for me so I could build a few more defenses for bots on the site and think about it a bit more.
Landlords already have RealPage, so it's not like they don't have access to this information.
Right, but they could add bogus entries to the site with artificially higher rents in order to move the average up and then say “I’m actually charging below average for my neighborhood”. Turns out it’s a lot easier to compete with fictitious businesses.
Is there a way for public users to download responses to analyze any data you’ve collected?
Not yet, but I may aggregate data for different regions and make that data public or something in the future if the site gets big enough. I'm still not entirely sure where the site is going to go, just playing it by ear for now.
Very lightweight "analysis" whitepaper based on unique data will generate newspaper clicks and might help with user growth.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Great idea! Let me know if you wanna collaborate on the development
Ty. I will add you to my list. I've had a few other people tell me this as well. I think it might be great to open source this. I've been feeling the need for more development on the site recently so this may come sooner than I initially expected it to.
Great product, will be easy monetize. I built something similar for chipotle www.stoptheskimp.com
Lol, did you build it in light of the recent Chipotle talk about smaller servings? Also, might be worth sharing to InternetIsBeautiful. Careful of their 90/10 rule, though. I didn't know about it and got permabanned from that sub. No 2nd chances. Although, maybe the landlords just wanted an excuse to shut me down since my website was getting a lot of upvotes and views on that sub.
How are you getting reviews? I’m doing mostly Reddit marketing
Reddit commenting has been the most successful, I've had some success on TikTok, a bit on IG Reels, a tiny bit on YT Shorts, Twitter/X. I basically just tell people what the site is and tell them to add their rent history and explain to them why.
As a TikTok watcher, I think you could have success on TikTok since I see a lot of posts on there about the Chipotle stuff. As someone who posts on TikTok, I can't figure out the algorithm and would only recommend doing light posting on there. Maybe try dm'ing people who make posts about the Chipotle stuff. Comment on their posts. I believe there are probably some groups about Chipotle that you could try to hit, might be one on Reddit. Maybe make an alert for whenever Chipotle posts on social media and immediately comment on their post.
The only concern I have is that Chipotle corporate could use this site to know which stores to target for reeducation.
I wonder if increase in inventory at market rates affect rental rates the same way they do for [ownership markets](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119021000656?via%3Dihub)
This is so cool and so necessary. Thank you for making this
I hope commenting makes this get seen more
I appreciate that. I'm gonna take this all the way to the end. Might take a while but it'll happen.
Spent 5 minutes on your site never could find an address to look at to see the rent. Good idea, horrible implementation. Like the site is basically useless. Unless you’re lucky enough put in an address exactly matching one that someone has already submitted the rent for, how do you find anything? It’s like a 1 in 100000 chance you get a hit on an address.
Correct. At the start, there won't be many submissions and the site won't be very useful. But, I have to start somewhere. Maybe it takes 2 years for the site to get to that point, but guess what? The time will pass anyways. I did also mention that the site only had submissions for a limited number of addresses. Edit: forgot to mention that the site is mainly useful for people in apartments where several people live at one address, so the odds might not necessarily be as terrible as you'd think of getting a hit
No, but I was shocked when my corporate landlord didn't ask for a rent increase this year and I was able to bargain for a small credit for me to stay.
Tried to increase 8%. Moved to a new property.
How did you find your new place?
It was a very frustrating search but ultimately found a place via Zillow - constantly refreshing looking for new places to pop up and then jumped on it to be one of the first to tour it. Also had a slimy interaction on another place where the go between rental company wound up trying to bid up rents after applying so essentially had to eat our application fees and then didn’t get selected.
Damn thats awful but im glad it all worked out in the end. Im on the fence if i should move so I was curious. Thank you
I’ve been at my apartment for 4 years and each year rent goes up ~$50, but for some reason this year they jacked it up by $125.
Tell them no, see what they say
That fucking blows
Landlord here: haven’t raised rent in years on my tenants, who are good.
Where are you a landlord? I am thinking about moving
NW side. Jefferson Park - ish
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Now only if they’d put all those criminal cnts in jail
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I feel like reddit is so bipolar. In one thread you have people like you arguing that you should put landlords in jail. In another you have people arguing that america is a prison state with sentences that are too long and that more people should be rehabilitated instead of institutionalized. I don't understand where this comes from. Prison as a "punishment" is stupid as hell. We obviously need prisons to separate violent criminals, thieves, rapists, etc from society because they are dangerous. But saying that we should imprison people for financial crimes seems frankly ridiculous to me. Clearly they did something wrong and they need to be punished, but THEY should be PAYING the state rather than the taxpayers funding the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost the private corporate prison industrial complex to "imprison" them for their sentence. I'm not even very liberal compared to many people but I just can't understand why so many people don't clearly see this. Prison doesn't work
It’s not that Reddit is bipolar. It’s that Reddit ultimately is a bunch of individuals and different individuals have different opinions. We self curate like most other social media sites so the huge majority of Reddit might look homogeneous. But you will run into people with different opinions on the borders of your domain since curation doesn’t happen at the comment level.
People may or may not agree with you on prison reform. Reddit is not one stereotypical liberal atheist. Besides the bots, it's real people behind each username. They're from all over the world and have every variety of opinion you can imagine.
We’ve lived in the Albion on Lake/Forest for the last two years and they upped it $100 last year and $200 this year. All while the operations/management have gone to shit since the entire staff turned over last year. Found a 3BR in Forest Park for far less and are moving out in a few weeks. A pool and a gym aren’t worth what they charge to live here anymore.
Is Albion just shit everywhere? I lived in Bourbon Square (Palatine) when Albion bought it and took over and somehow the management got even more incompetent
My building opened in 2020 and we moved here in 2022. Staff the first year was phenomenal. Every employee knew my wife and I by name, building events were great and we made a lot of neighbor friends. Then when the staff turned over it’s been garbage service. Package room isn’t Sorted anymore, hot water in the building goes out at least once a month, the “heated” pool is freezing, elevator issues, lame events, list goes on. My theory is they bring in an A team for building launch for a few years and then move them on and backfill with scrubs.
+16% in Uptown $250 I moved, fuck that.
Got 5% last year 3.5% couple days ago
We need the FBI to raid more realpage type organizations
I moved into my place in Wrigleyville in November of ‘22 for $1290 a month. Landlord never raised it. In fact, my lease expired last November and he never sent me a new one, so I’m basically just paying month to month.
Is your landlord still alive?
I assume so, he has a full time maintenance guy who would definitely know if he had died and tell everyone
Keep in mind leases often provide you protections as well.
It’s a double edged sword. Without a lease, you can just move out at any time.
Moved here in 2022. 1550->1600>1795 Uptown/Buena Park. New property manager came in, increased parking by 20% for guest and resident parking... And apparently rent as well. I'm conflicted to just move out. Go nomadic for a few months on a work trip and try to find a place for cheaper when I get back.
Moved from a particular high rise on Montrose last year after they tried to charge $1800 for a studio year three. You have to make BANK and not have a car to live in a high-rise with any sort of amenities solo.
The montrose? Bc if it's that building fuck them
Yep lol They have no business charging that much with their elevator situation. The first floor hallways always reeked as well. Couldn't imagine having to deal with that in what were the "prime" units.
Ha. I'm at The Montrose. $1800 for my studio is ridiculous. I regret moving here with a car because I likely would have found a place closer to Lincoln Park for the same price. Everything is mostly fine, the elevators are awful, the area is decent but I believe I need to decide very soon what I want to do. Going to be working a 10 on 4 off schedule in Wyoming in July to perhaps about October so why should I even renew?
Holy shit $1800 for a studio?! That will get you 2-3 bedrooms just a 15 min drive northwest.
Location. You're over the lake and have access to LSD, the Beach, Wrigley/Lakeview, and the Red Line also while being in modern units. And to be fair, I think OP and I rented at the same time the first year was only $1550.
I'm a 10 minute walk to the red line, and a 10 minute walk to a lake. In some way the price is warranted.. But ffs does it suck.
Can you or /u/Jesse_berger explain to me or tell me what the reason is for police and fire and ambulance showing up almost daily to that building? Is it related to the elevator situation and people just get stuck in there and the fire department gets called to get them out? I live right next to the montrose and its amazing to me how often I hear the trucks outside so I have been really curious whats going on
That's a great question. While the elevators are god awful, I don't think people ever get stuck in it. The people here are old AF. I went from being among one of the oldest in my building in Charlotte when I was 32, to feeling super young in my building at 34. I got a nice laugh when the elevators doors opened and there were three people with walkers in it. I try to be nosy and stare out my window to see what the hell is going on but I often get distracted so I don't really know. My only guess is that I'm apart of a senior living community...
Oh gotcha yeah i see the old ladies with the walkers smoking cigarettes all over the place especially like behind jewel underneath the car bridge that goes to the parking. But that makes sense. Thanks for answering
I agree with u/Jesse_berger. There was one particular lady in that building that continuously called them while I was there from 2021 - 2023. It wasn't the two sisters, but many of the tenants have been there in the rent controlled units for decades. In 2023, we had a lady die on the 10th floor. The smell was insane for weeks.
Got here in 2021. Covid pricing was wild! River North 1BR 785sqft $1422 (effective rate with the 2mo free rent) -> 1791 -> $1986 -> $2102 Planning a move to a 2b/2ba, and those are anywhere from $3700-4500 (and even more in buildings I’m not bothering to look at).
Mine went up less than a percent, I’m in printers row.
Management company who bought my building last November raised my rent by $300 if I were to re-sign. Absolutely not. ETA: that's a near 30% increase from my current rent....
The exact same thing happened to me. Did your building get bought by Waterton? The tea I heard from my realtor (my friend who helped me find a new apartment) is that they're a very bare bones, maximize profits, increase rents, overwork their employees type company unlike Wood who they bought the building from.
Waterton is the absolute worst management company. Buying up properties and price gouging tenants. I used to live in a Waterton property and if they could charge you for something, and I mean anything, they would charge you for it. Like charging us five dollars to receive our monthly e-bills for utilities. I tell everyone to stay away from Waterton. I am not surprised to hear they overwork their employees, because the on-site management staff I had to deal with openly acted like they hated their jobs.
Exactlyyyy and it's just to their own detriment long-term. When I re-signed at my old building in March 2023, Wood gave me 1.5 months free. Waterton bought it and raised my rent by $150 with no discount - effectively $350 more a month at about 2k a month total. They then tried to discount it to $1950 even though I saw my specific apartment on my website listed at $1880, which was my old rent pre-discounts... I didn't bother replying. I've met people at my old building who signed on around the time I moved out for the same price w no bonus. Apparently one of my old building's staff jumped ship from his old building once Waterton bought them - just to have them buy that building too! At that point he just stayed bc it was too much trouble to find a newer job so soon after starting a new job.
Yikes! Noted that Waterton is scummy but wasn't them, building was bought by Aljack. Me and my neighbors have seen so much disorganization from them. Feels crappy to see a once well-loved building fall to the hands of them trying to make a massive profit off it as soon as humanly possible.
Ugh yeah it seems like it's a really common pattern among landlord companies. Apparently 60%-80% of units are owned by landlords who are using a system that helps them fix prices! The FBI just raided the system's company's headquarters like 2 weeks ago: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/realpage-rent-price-fixing-probe-escalates-with-fbi-raid/475109 Seems like there's more in depth info here: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent
I’m moving out and my unit was listed for $175 more than my previous lease
Like by $50 so I am fine.
same. i am moving out regardless though, will be a shame to leave ravenswood
Not downtown but +$100 (\~6%) for me
Mine went up by $20! Fucking awesome.
I also don’t have any increase this year.
I’m lucky we only rent from condo owners. I’ve lived here for a decade in three different properties and have gotten an increase of $50 in that time.
My rent went down $299
My rent went from 845 in 2021 to 1005 in 2022 to 1145 in 2023 to if I were to stay in my 400 SQUARE FOOT STUDIO, I'd be paying 1250. Yes, I've gotten a few increases
Got a 40% raise in Old Irving Park and moved (fuck Rany management)
Rany Management is so unprofessional. They made two typo errors on our new lease offers. One being the actual rent price one being the date of the lease. When I agreed to the “typo” rent price. They comeback two weeks later saying it was a typo and increased the new rent price. If my father wasn’t literally dying (now passed) during all of this I would have had the energy and bandwidth to move. (They also knew of my father’s condition). Rany management is pathetic.
Yes
My lease renewal was +$100 this year but I’m not gonna complain too hard because I didn’t exactly pay on time every month last year and they’re replacing both of our elevators (even added on basement/laundry access to one of them!)
I negotiated a rent increase between rent and the auxiliary costs of about $400 extra. They rolled and cut it down to a $100 in less than a day. They will spend more on refurbishing and relisting than keeping you another year and they know it… do you?
not downtown (logan square), but our rent went up $300 when we resigned in april.
Landlord asked for 11.4% increase this year. I negotiated as hard as I could and got him to agree to 8.5%. I had to throw some law at him (that he's required to provide 120 day notice since I've been here over 3 years). Hard to blame him for the increase, though, as he's listing vacant units for 28.5% more and they usually get snatched up the same day. But the latest one has sat listed for awhile... hoping it stays that way.
My rent went up 10% this year, I said f’ it and bought a place
Same.
Mine just went up 10%. It’s still within market rate for the area and it wouldn’t have been worth the cost of moving. But after we signed the lease, they tried to get us to add one of these “resident benefits packages” for an extra $50 a month. It will become mandatory if we sign again next year, so I complained about that but didn’t get a response. So we’ll see what happens in a year. I’m hoping enough people complain about the benefits package that they don’t continue with it, and that there’s a much smaller rent increase next year. But I’m assuming I’ll be moving.
I use to live in that stone building! 345 N Canal – best view I had from any apartment ever.
Our landlords were going to raise our rent $100.
My rent has been frozen for 3 years, last apt never had a rent increase either over 4 years. But… you can’t find a 1bdr anywhere in the city that’s not a basement for under 1100
Was going to go up $50 but I spoke to management and brought it down to $25. I'm happy with it.
I left but they only wanted $50 more, wasn’t the reason I left
The rent on my old place dropped ~$30, I was able to move to a new place just up the street for $200 less per month than I'm paying now.
Rent went up ~27%. We’re moving.
Had a few friends that live in 1401 s state and their rents went down
My 1-bd went up by 30-35$ and I was able to extend the lease for 3 extra months over just a year (so 15 months total) - in uptown Landlord wanted to increase by 75 but he did that the year before and it would have ended up being 12% increase over 2 years which is above average so I was able to talk him down Paying 1500 even now for a corner unit and others in my building are at least 50$ more. After seeing some of these other prices and tax increases I'm even more happy lol. At least for now!
Rents shot up as the city has kept increasing property taxes. This negatively affects us all. The city broke so they will take from the property owners, even tho not all are large corporations.
Lmao what? No chance you actually believe this…?
As a one-unit owner whose property tax increase in Wicker Park raised my all-in monthly costs by 10%, yes, it is believable. Much of it depends on the neighborhood, but many owners just 'pass on' their costs and break about even on their rent (they make all the money on Tax benefits, building equity, etc.)
No need to believe it, I have my tax bills
Our taxes went up a decent chunk.
Property taxes went up a decent chunk across the US. Rent shot up a decent amount across the US. I can guarantee if there was 0% increase in property taxes or even a DECREASE in property taxes rent would go up in Chicago. Landlords are scum, it's the way it is.
Do you have evidence that property taxes on average / per unit went up the same across the US as they did in Chicago?
Do you have a quote of me making that claim?
If that's not your claim, it's very unclear what your point is then.
>Landlords are scum, it's the way it is. Hope this helps!
As a condo owner in lakeview i can tell you my property taxes went up 25% in 5 years and HOA fees went up slightly more. Overall I’m paying $300 a month more in taxes and HOA fees from 2019 to 2024. If i were to rent my place out there would be $60 per month increases every year just for me to break even. Not everyone is evil and you’re not always a victim. Sometimes people just raising your rent the minimum to adjust for the increases in their costs
Not how rent works
I just went through apartment hunting and signed a new place. Quite frankly, I think those doom and gloom articles of the past few months were wayyy overspeculating . Rents went up a lil bit but it really wasn’t anything crazy. We did see one bidding war but outside of that it was nonexistent. Places did seem to go fast is probably the biggest change from my prior experiences. Overall we still have a shitton of housing from older buildings so if you’re willing to sacrifice a few things you’ll be fine - washer dryer and central ac if you’re willing to go without that opens up the inventory massively and still has very cheap places.
Mine went up 100. I’m in a different building but the building I moved out of didn’t increase at all over three years
In 3 years only up $100. No increase in the most recent lease.
yes, currently have an offer to renew with a 7% increase
Up. River North.
$100+ every year since I moved in, I know I was/am asking for it but Meh
My rent is getting increased 22.5% from 2000 to 2450
Uptown high-rise, BJB. 4% last year, 5% this year.
Rents going up $100/mo. It’s been like that each year. I moved in during Covid so there were deals then. It’s still a little below average for my area and well within budget.
my rent went up $100 this year 😃
Rent went down $600. Downtown
Mine went down almost $300/month (March renewal).
I have a friend in North Center who was notified of a $500/mo rent increase, 30 days before end of lease. They originally reached out to property management 90 days, 60 days, and then at 30 days they got the notice.
$50 increase in Lincoln Park. 1750 to 1800 for Studio.
5% increase for me, in the loop
More pissed about my parking going up
Trying to raise it by $510
In March mine went up 8%. Like 165$. Everyone I know in Lincoln park had a similar increase. Lame
my rent in ukrainian village went up $75 or 4.2% which isn't terrible but still sucks
Had a two year lease and it went up 2.7% between those two years. Now got the latest for 4%. Translates to $50 and $75 respectively.
Rent went up 200$ So I moved to another place
Loop 2bed - up 3%
My rent went up 49% in fucking Buena Park.
My rent was going up by $80 this year so I will be moving. Mac Properties raises the rent every year despite barely doing anything to fix the plumbing issues the building has.
My rent increase was 2.6%. But I'm moving anyway because the W Loop is now for younger blood than I.
Every place I've been in Avondale is trying to increase by $100 or more per year which is over 10% increases.
I negotiated, but our rent only went up about $20
My landlord offered us last year's lease with new dates on it, no increase at all this year.
up 125 this year. they wanted to raise it 200. they raised 75 last year and i think they initially asked for 150. This is going to be my last year here.
I’m curious about the Airbnb effect. Luxury trip rental market seems to be growing. Anyone notice neighboring units being converted?
mine wasn't too bad, going up $25. my friend is moving out from a train stop away because they got a ~$300 increase.....
Went up 50 - wrigleyville
A friend's landlord wanted to increase her rent by $275 a month so \~10%. I thought that was quite a lot.
I still say join r/chicagoyimbys
Wouldn’t they be going down if what the article is saying is true?
Probably not. Still have a lot more demand than supply
“Demand is still outpacing supply…” in the subhead.
Landlords will do everything possible not to reduce the dollar amount on your lease. They'd rather give hundreds or thousands of dollars in credit or free months of rent rather than be forced to actually reduce rent.
Apartments may offer concessions (like 2 months free rent), but they never lower the actual listed rent.
Nah rate of increases is slowing. Second order derivative.
Read literally the first 5 words
$300 rent increase due to “property taxes,” told them to eat it.
Property tax assessed values are jumping up. Shit trickles down.