The Chicago Reader is still going, but not like it was, not like near every train totally free, socialism in the front, cool bands in the middle, weird ads in the back. Lots of people found their apartments from that physical paper’s classified.
Buy derelict buildings in terrible neighborhoods, fix em up real nice, give away the apartments for free
i've lived in apartments for most of my life now and one thing i really miss from is having a porch to put a carved pumpkin on. i grew up in an area where the houses all had big porches and people went fucking ham for halloween
Plottage by blackmail. I'd buy expensive SFHs on contiguous lots in places like Clarendon, then seek approval to raze and build apartments. If my applications didn't get approved then I'd turn them into homes for chronically homeless people. Then do it again and again. A win either way.
Over time this gives me enough money to upgrade pieces of the tenement. Alas, there are a lot of pieces and every upgrade is expensive in both contracting fees and material costs, all of which I have to shoulder. But better apartments attract better tenants.
So in one of the apartments i lived in, outside the kitchen window there was a dime sized hole in the overhang leading into the roof. There was audible buzzing through the ceiling. When we finally got the apartment owners to send someone in, the nest they removed was the size of a person.
I felt like torturing myself today. So I went on Zillow and looked up apartments in different states. 🙃
Oh wow—I’m in the same situation. My house had been carved into apartments and I’ve spent a decade restoring it to a single family house. My kids didn’t want it and it’s too large for me, yet so many people here buy up houses to rent out or flip. I want it to go to a family. But how to ensure that?
1/2 Oh!!!!! My wife and I gamed out a whole idea set a while back! If sufficiently wealthy, I'd do both: 1) Start a real estate company that builds and operates apartments, rented at break-even on expected maintenance and taxes; no need to recoup construction costs if I'm sufficiently rich.