Chicago Property Management Blog

Over the past few months, we’ve covered some crucial topics for landlords and investors in the Chicago area. From navigating eviction laws and avoiding rental scams to understanding new regulations, these blogs are packed with insights that can help you stay ahead of the challenges and opportunities in the market. Explore each one below to strengthen your knowledge and protect your investments.Everything You Don’t Know about...

Transitioning from one career to another can be daunting, especially when you’ve spent years in a highly specialized field like professional baseball. But for Shea Murray, former baseball player turned real estate professional, the move from the dugout to property deals was a calculated and purposeful journey. In this podcast, Shea reflects on his path, discussing how his athletic career laid the foundation for success in real est...

Real estate investors may be a little skittish about property taxes in Chicago and Cook County, and I can understand why. The media covers the administration's dysfunction. News stories talk about pension funds being upside down and getting worse. Many say taxpayers will pay the price for the city's financial mistakes over the last six decades. They say that as commercial property vacancies stack up and the prices for comme...

listen to what he shares….What Is Value-Add Real Estate Investing?At its core, value-add investing involves purchasing a property that isn’t currently at its full potential—whether it needs renovations, improvements, or simply a strategic overhaul—and increasing its value through upgrades or better management. You might do this during a BRRRR strategy (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat), a flip, or by sim...

In a recent podcast, we sat down with Luke Blahnik, a real estate expert, to dive into a major ordinance that will affect property owners in Chicago. The Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance, which went into effect on October 9, seeks to preserve and expand the availability of affordable housing.This newly expanded anti-gentrification ordinance has significant implications for rental property owners, particularly those in areas...

If you own Chicago investment property (and in many other parts of the nation), squatters have become a serious problem. There are many different flavors of squatters. Most often, we deal with people who just move on into vacant properties without consulting anyone. It gets a little trickier with another flavor of squatter who claims they thought they had a valid lease but have been scammed by someone else. We sat down with George McCle...

Happy anniversary to us! After four years and 300 episodes later, the Straight up Chicago Investing is still going strong.  To celebrate our 300th episode, we took to social media to ask our community what questions they wanted us to answer. And you delivered! We received dozens. Unfortunately, we couldn’t answer them all in one episode, but we’ll make sure we do answer them somehow.So without further ado, let’s...

Chicago is one of the ripest markets in the U.S. for real estate investors, and that's no secret. According to research from RentCafe, 54% of Chicago's households are renter-occupied. For comparison, the national ratio is 34% of households occupied by renters. That's a whole lot of rental property!Don't start drooling just yet though. Whether you're new to the real estate investment game or have been around the block...

Remember that old saying that truth is stranger than fiction? Our friend and Straight Up Chicago Investor podcast guest, Joseph Pochinskas, found himself in the landlord twilight zone with his first investment property. A Southside Chicago native, Joseph fell in love with the Bridgeport/Canaryville area and decided that’s where he’d try his hand at house hacking. After a lot of research and walking properties, he settle...

Chicago real estate investors have long heralded the importance of cash flow from rental properties. Unfortunately, too many landlords focus just on the cash flow aspect alone. This can cause them to snap up properties that look like great cash cows but end up having problems that require paying out of pocket to solve. Others sit on the sidelines waiting the unicorn cash flowing purchases to fall into their laps. Both groups end up...