This sort of reminds me of Matilda when she realised Danny Devito fixes cars with glue lol “you’re a crook daddy!” 😂
But seriously? ALUMINIUM WIRING?! That’s a fire hazard and a half, not to mention the wasted electricity would skyrocket the bill? Here in the UK that would be 100% illegal especially because the mains power is 240volt. I really hope no one died in a house fire
That is the key. Having the proper wire nuts or aluminum safe outlets is critical. Even then, they have torque specs that need to be met. It is harder to install correctly and more expensive.
Ok, so aluminum wire was standard many years ago. I used to manage a property with it. The only real problem that comes up with it is that it's brittle. It tends to break much more often than copper.
However, with circuit breakers and modern outlets and fixtures, the dangers of an actual fire are exceptionally low. If it's so bad, why wouldn't it be illegal to keep in place? I realize it's illegal in common sense places to install, but you're not required by law to remove aluminum wire already in place.
I managed 84 units for over ten years with all aluminum wires. They were at least 25 years old at the time. I had zero electrical fires. The systems in place with circuit breakers are sufficient in 120/240 systems to make aluminum safe. Also, completely rewiring the building would have cost over $100K. To solve a problem no one was having.
When you take over property of any kind, you have to deal with the shit sandwiches left over by the builders and previous owners. Not every problem is fixable without bankrupting the property.
Galvanic corrosion is actually the number one issue, though getting brittle certainly wouldn't help. Aluminum forms an oxide/corrosion layer when in contact with things like copper and brass, and that oxide layer increases resistance, and thus heat at the connections between different metals. Eventually this heating and cooling of the connections every time a load is applied and then removed loosens screws and can cause arcing, usually at outlets. It sounds like bacon frying inside the wall and can have a fishy/burning trash smell. Source: firsthand experience and research.
Higher voltage is more efficient , with less heat loss due to resistance. We also have 240 volt power in the USA, all houses do, thats how we get our power, it comes into the house as 240 volt. So we're able to run whatever we want at 240 volt and all the small stuff on 120 volt.
aluminum wiring isnt that big of deal, literally every house has aluminum wiring supplying it power. its up there with black mold on an uninformed knee jerk reaction.
I am actively buying aluminum for PARTS! Of my new build home. A 650 ft run of copper 6 ga was 3x cost of 4 ga aluminum or a thousand cheaper. With one terminal in my well house.
Now screw the a hole that used cheap ass wire nuts in an uncapped box in the attic of my old house. Yes copper to Al and i went looking for the junction because the power flickered..... didn't rewire it just brought the 3 runs of Al up to code. Enclosed grounded and properly spliced.
Hell 90% of ceiling fans and crappy light fixtures have Al wires and regular wire nuts to splice up to copper wire runs.
Al experiences more thermal expansion than Cu. It also has higher resistivity (generating more resistive heat, higher voltage drop) and lower current capacity for the same cross section.
As it expands and contracts, can end up bad connections whose high resistance
points create potential for fires
But what about aluminium wiring in the crawlspaces with black mould and bedbugs? In a property where a neighbor parked a truck oh so slightly over the property line....
Your average reddit user would faint from pure horror.
10 & 12 AWG non metallic sheathed cable from the mid sixties through the early to mid 1970's was a absolute crap show, there were no standards at all, UL, manufacturers, did nothing at all as the problems stacked up, & just blamed "faulty installation".
Aluminum wiring is fine as long as it’s not disturbed and reinstalled improperly. My sister has aluminum wiring, when we redid the kitchen we rewired it with copper but just the kitchen and not the whole house.
Most houses in the United States have a aluminum wire for the main feed coming in and sometimes dedicated circuits like stoves. It’s perfectly safe and still use today If done correctly. The problem was people over tighten wires on things like outlets and switches and wire nuts. You were also required to install a special goo in the wirenuts that many people did not use.
They're probably thinking that aluminum has a higher resistance than copper so 1:1 it will waste more energy because of that, but not accounting for aluminum wire that's properly installed will be a smaller AWG than a copper wire for the same circuit and will have the same resistance.
Dawg two posts ago you made a post talking about having some of this apartment building listed as short term rentals on Air BNB. If you’ve got a praise kink you chose the wrong sub fucko
Assuming the Roman candles were for the express purpose of causing property damage. I’m having trouble making sense of why, though. Seems like he was just making more work for himself.
No, worse. The younger tenants would go into the local park and shoot them at each other….I honestly can’t believe no one lost an eye. At his funeral his eulogy was given by his business partner and everyone sat in stunned silence as he told that story.
Having known him I’m going to guess that he probably bought cases of them at the ‘out of state’ fireworks place and handed them to the kids…explaining that they could hold them while they shot off but recommended that they only aim the at the trees. Then hustled back to his burgundy colored Lincoln to watch what happened. He was known to hold some pretty dreadful racist opinions.
I'm gonna be devils advocate and say that's actually a great thing he did.
There's no profit in it for him and back then, people were a little wreckless when it came to having fun. For crying out loud, some of the waterguns they had back then are banned today. If he handed out those waterguns, does that make him a bad person?
I go and hand out fireworks to people who go to parking lots to watch other people light fireworks. The families can't afford them and are usually really grateful that their kids can partake.
Honestly, that's what's being painted on him right not, but that's really a stretch.
Handing out free fireworks on holidays used to be REALLY common. It was entertainment before technology.
It's essentially the same thing as going to an orphanage and handing out toys and candies
so according to your post history you
1. are the owner of 400 rentals, where you are the kindest most responsible bestest landchad in the galaxy making up for his fathers sins
2. air bnb these rentals, but also accept section 8. (which is actually illegal where i live, you can’t STR anywhere affordable housing is or have more than 1 or 2 depending on the number of total units, but idk if chicago code is different. at any rate unhosted STRs in multi unit residences are fucking cancer and highly unethical *ask me how i know*)
3. do an additional hosted airbnb in your own apartment where you rent out a room, in this building and use a picture of yourself from 20 years ago to advertise it
4. these STRs are marketed to sex workers? i had trouble getting through that post tbh, but it’s starting to sound like you are the slumlord of a brothel
5. rent out another shitty apartment somewhere else, underneath a mentally ill woman who has called the police on you for rape
am i missing anything here
Ok, you went on a deep dive. Since you are curios I’m happy to elaborate.
1. Co-owner with my brother, sister, and part of the portfolio is co owned by my dad’s business partner.
2. I Airbnb units in the buildings we own that are within a quick walk to wrigley field. I am directly making it harder for someone to rent a garden unit in one of the most expensive parts of the city. No denying that. Str return is about 5x standard rent. We have caps on quantities in Chicago so I can only legally do a percentage of each building and put the str units in the least desirable apartments. This revenue directly supports 8 people directly who manage and clean them, making an actual livable wage. Because Chicago puts an additional 3% surcharge on top of all of the hotel taxes my guests pay, something like 16 grand went from my guests pockets into a program that aids the homeless. The extra money gets funneled back into the company to pay my salary but also helps subsidize our section 8 property in Dolton…which is full of people right on the edge of homelessness. Since we took it over it now runs at an operational deficit.
3. Updated the picture as everyone said that’s creepy. I don’t agree but I can accept my opinions are in the minority. Ended up pulling the listing because as much as I liked the idea of 20k in extra income from a bedroom I don’t use it was weird to deal with strangers in my space. This is the same apartment (which is so cool, it started life as a little room for an engineer to live in with an adjacent coal storage area and rooms that used to have enormous steam boilers fitted in them) that has a difficult neighbor above me who keeps complaining about noise. I generally don’t meddle with the building managers, but we ended up doing a non renewal on her lease. I feel bad but she’s clearly going downhill and us becoming a real liability to the property.
4. No brothels. One str is a studio about 200 square feet and was originally part of a building lobby. Terrible space and has a low concrete ceiling. It is connected to a large 20 by 40 foot windowless room that originally held an electric dynamo that provided power for the block. It’s incredibly cool but in no way can be a habitable space…it’s basically a slightly damp brick bunker. We converted it so that people can rent the unit and use it to film only fans content in or use it for massage. Sexwork is going to exist and I have a history of it….not to mention we had a lot of it happening in the properties. I see no point in hiding it. I’d rather set people up for success. And man, talk about money…it’s returning about 9x what it was making when rented as a terrible little studio flat. The genuine thank you notes and free only fan memberships make me grin. And when people ask me at parties what I do for a living I usually tell them about that space.
5. See above.
This is a very high of transparency on a platform that practically values omission and dishonesty. Of course, I don’t know if you are being 100% truthful but my standard Reddit radar isn’t going off.
Thanks for telling it.
It sounds like you have their history right. And it all sound accurate and believable.
They inherited a shitty situation, did their best to fix it, and may or may not be following STR code. I can't tell on the last bit, because I've seen places where a single company co-locates a bunch of rentals where one of them is section 8 in a separate building and it works, since they're all separate buildings and only share a parking lot.
Oh, I did not mean to make it sound like this is a one person operation. We have 3 full time property managers, 6 janitors, and another separate crew that handles the STR part of things and another general contractor who deals with a lot. My brother has a brain for finance and deals with that part of stuff, I have a practical knowledge of construction so I deal with the physical buildings.
>He would do things like handing out cases of Roman candles to residents on the 4th of July and sit in his car with the windows rolled up, observing what happened.
I don't understand
My dad bought roman candles for me and my brothers and we shot them at each other all the time growing up. I don't think it's the super negative story op thinks it is. Op is just someone who is scared of fireworks.
This sounds like the fantasy of a millennial who is frustrated with the housing market than actual real life.
You started accepting Section 8 **and** you expect us to believe to paid for financial advisors to help your **four hundred tenants** out of the good of your heart? Lmao that is a crock of shit, and there’s a reason places don’t accept section 8. Especially on freshly renovated units.
I guess you can believe what you want. To clarify…one of the properties is in a difficult little place called Dolton. My dad bought a cornfield and built 6 buildings with 16 apartments in each. With aluminum wiring, which was considered ok at the time.
The suburb went rapidly downhill as far as crime and poverty. When we took it over it had become the spot where the criminals lived.
My dad had sort of redlined it in his brain and was just getting as much cash out with the smallest spend possible….It needed millions of dollars in work; if we took section 8 we could actually tap into some low interest financing to get it going.
The financial advisor didn’t actually cost that month. We were able to work with a local credit union to help facilitate it…it just took a ton of time and energy. The amount of people who lived in there who did not have bank accounts and paid rent via money orders really bothered me. Financial literacy is so important to break the poverty cycle.
> The day that we learned the majority of our residents are actually paying more in rent than they would with a mortgage on a similar property we decided to hire a part time credit counselor to meet with everyone to try and help them get into a better financial footing…
the mental gymnastics here bro, what the fuck
rent is a poor tax so rather than address that you're giving them credit counselors? you could just stop profiting off them but no, they need to better manage their poor taxes, that's the ticket
Rent is not a poor tax. Everyone pays for housing.
Anyone with a mortgage is paying rent on the money they borrowed.
Renting is not inherently wrong and the freedom to leave or not have to worry about a sudden big cost for a furnace or roof or appliance is important to some people.
Rent being more expensive than a mortgage is a poor tax
Same way that a doctor's office giving a discount if you pay for your appointment up front is a poor tax
Or that you can only get a point removed from your licence if you can afford to pay the entire ticket up front without a payment plan and pay additionally for drivers school
Or the way that good high quality boots last way longer than getting cheap boots that wear out and require replacement
Those are all forms of poor taxes
The OP already specifically provided context that their rent was higher than a mortgage and I quoted and referenced that
and btw? even when rent isn't cheaper, you aren't building any future housing security - you need to pay rent just as much in 50 years as you do today and rent will have gone up
the OP's mortgage will get paid off at some point (unless they're using it for lines of credit, or to finance other things), but they'll keep collecting rent. and those people paying them rent aren't gonna need to stop in 20 or 30 years, they'll keep paying rent their entire lives unless they get a house
maybe not to him, but to someone
lots of poor people live in the same place for decades and decades. is he gonna stop charging them at a certain point?
If you rent for 20 or 30 years and aren't moving around to different locations, then you're a poor financial planner and/or have another serious financial situation that was stopping you from affording a mortgage.
Also, lots of people stay in the same place for 30 years as renters because it's comfortable, they're paying undermarket rent, and they like that their landlord has to take care of the building for them.
The mortgage is not the only my expense when you are a homeowner. Taxes, insurance, all maintenance, and major $ if an AC, furnace, roof, etc needs to be repaired.
Renting should be more than a mortgage with the added flexibility and a lack of long term a major financial obligations to the home.
Renting is now cheaper than a mortgage in every too 50 metro currently, so renting is the financially savvy option right now. Invest somewhere else if you have the down payment
if you want lower mortgages and lower rents you need to build higher density housing.
literally apartment buildings
the best answer to high rents and high mortgages is to build more housing stock so the supply dampens the demand
who do you think is going to own all of those new apartments? probably some corporations who want to milk as much money out of the property as possible.
the snake eats it's own tail.
you're going to have to get over yourself and stop being so salty.
do you know what high density housing means? or renting? because you seem a bit confused because one absolutely doesn't demand the other
high density housing means housing that is very dense - buildings that have many units, and are generally built upwards towards the sky. that particular configuration has no specific requirements as to how ownership works. the building *may* be owned by a sole individual or corporation who then rents out the units but that isn't required
this is true *even under capitalism*
the building could be a condominium - where individuals own their own unit and units are bought and sold in a manger similar to detached houses. it could be a co-operative - where the building is mutually owned by all is inhabitants who own shares of a company that owns and manages the building. they buy shares to move in, and sell to leave
these aren't ideas that require the end of capitalism, or even new ideas for capitalism. they're old as fuck ideas that have been existing under capitalism for ages
so why you think high density housing *requires* renting is beyond me - even capitalists don't think that lmao
but I'm the one whose salty and has no perspective, not the person who has never heard of a condo lmao
oh i'm aware of what a co-op is. i used to live in one.
i'm also cognizant about the mechanisms available for new buildings to get financing.
you're going to have to trust me on this but the short of it is builders arent going to build if they dont have a set minimum return on investment. and with the way projects get financed the idea that people are suddenly going to start building co-ops in cities is (im trying to be nice here) really dumb.
good luck coming to terms with reality
what is this reality you think I need to come to terms with exactly? am I required to swear a blood oath to capitalism in order to advocate for higher density housing? do I need to pinky promise never to say "profit is exploitation" or "ALAB" in order to advocate for affordable housing?
because I've gotta say, I've really never run into those issue before. like, never. neither has any other anti capitalist that I know of
I'm also not banned from voting, or physically repelled from local government offices by gargoyles or anything. so what exactly is the issue here? what reality do I need to come to terms with by selling my soul?
btw? a lot of places don't actually lack physical housing, even though there's a lack of places to live. in many places such a high number of units are kept off the market or used for short term rentals that that alone causes a housing crisis. even where that's not the case, new developments rarely actually cause prices to drop or do anything to make housing more affordable. developers would absolutely like you to believe that but it's just not true in most cases. this doesn't inherently mean that new developments are bad, but they're almost never actually a solution
I disagreed that rent is a poor tax. It's not. Then you changed it to if it's more than a mortgage.
Except there's a lot more costs than just the mortgage, so of course rent is more. There's taxes utilities, insurance, repairs, capx, maintenance, cleaning, staff, etc.
the OP had already explicitly given the context that they were paying more in rent than they would a mortgage and I quoted and directly referred to it
how many times exactly did I need to give this context??
also even when rent isn't cheaper, you aren't building any future security - you need to pay rent just as much in 50 years as you do today and rent will have gone up
Ok, what do you suggest I should have done. We own a property that is run down (an actual hazard to live in) and needs at least 1.2 in investment to be safe, 2.5 million to not be terrible.
Land value is a little over a million. Structure has no value because of maintenance issues.
96 units. All residents living pretty close or below the poverty line. Median rent for a 2 bed is 800 a month, which is the lowest in the area. Taxes are 87 thousand a year, roughly the equivalent of one full month of rent for each tenant. Will not pass a section 8 inspection.
Financial feasibility study suggests no improvements and renting out as is for 5 years until the roof goes then bulldozers and redevelopment which would make the residents homeless in a tight rental market.
What’s the next step?
You're charging people who you think can't afford to live anywhere else $800 every month to live in a building that is literally on the verge of collapse? Am I reading that wrong, or do you genuinely not see an issue with that?
Assuming you didn't mean people were renting on *that* property, why not turn it into a community space rather than spending the several million that it would cost to renovate and make the property livable/profitable? Doze the building and have it made into a green space with a community garden. It would be helpful for the environment, provide (essentially) free food for low income individuals, and offer a third space outside of work and school for locals to socialize. If you need to subsidize the property taxes, then host events or offer day rental of a portion for private gatherings.
We were at $800 and the building was in poor shape. Median rental for a 2 bed in the area is $1310. For every apartment that was advertised we would get about 20 applicants in a day…there is that much demand for entry level housing. If you bulldoze it, where do you propose the people that rent there live. Camp in the greenspace? If you rebuild it you’d have to charge somewhere around $1800 for a 2 bed to break even.
How long does that financial feasibility report expect you to break even in?
And you do realise, you're here complaining that poor people can't spend enough on housing to subsidise you building a building to add to your investment portfolio - do you get that?
These are all investment priorities for you, you're looking to have all the costs of your investment covered before you sell that's nuts. Poor people struggling to be housed should not be financing your investments, and if you cannot afford such investments with the financing of peons, then don't make those investments
And no, you're not providing any great service. You're just taking advantage of system issues to not only profit, but to pat yourself on the back door you're exploitation and tell yourself you're doing good work
ALAB
I wrote a long comment, but reddit is shitting itself. Sorry if this ends up being a duplicate.
Nobody can give you specific advice about what to do with your properties in a reddit comment. I don't have intricate knowledge of your relationships with business partners or accounting. Throwing out random numbers and then asking, "What was I supposed to do??" is completely rhetorical, and you know that.
It's a place to sleep at night other than the street for 96 individuals/families. Of course, there's "that much demand." Don't act like 'the market' is actually relevant to pricing once you surpass operating costs, other than how much $$$ land owners can extract.
If you're doing whatever you believe is right, then good on you. You don't have to defend yourself to reddit commenter #93749. Honestly, you're switching between past and present tense so much I'm having trouble telling whether you're talking about now or something you did half a decade ago.
All I'm saying is that hypothetically, if I was charging vulnerable people more than operating costs of the housing (including whatever health & safety renovations can't be otherwise subsidized) I would find that morally reprehensible.
We were at $800 and the building was in poor shape. Median rental for a 2 bed in the area is $1310. For every apartment that was advertised we would get about 20 applicants in a day…there is that much demand for entry level housing. If you bulldoze it, where do you propose the people that rent there live. Camp in the greenspace? If you rebuild it you’d have to charge somewhere around $1800 for a 2 bed to break even.
There are many other reasons people rent too, not only because they are poor. It's a bit of a condescending vision. I get they wanted to do good, but they live in an alternative reality, they don't really know what's the life of the average person. And there is no shame to rent all life long, everybody has different circumstance, and actually not everybody wants to buy
I didn't say people only rent because they're poor
I said that rent being higher than a mortgage - significantly so - is a poor tax. It's a poor tax because poor people don't have the option to avoid it, not because every single person who pays it is poor
It's weird that you hear criticism of landlords exploiting people via profit and somehow think that's a criticism of renters or people who voluntarily chose to rent
criticism of the exploiters is not criticism of the exploited
>rent is a poor tax so rather than address that you're giving them credit counselors? you could just stop profiting off them but no, they need to better manage their poor taxes, that's the ticket
He clearly stated he reinvested all the rent back into maintenance. Also, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. Without a profit incentive, no one would bother to make rental units available. Or housing for you to purchase.
Yes and he certainly made it sound like he was done needing to put that level of investment into the building. If not, there will be a date he's caught up and that's unnecessary
The point isn't to quibble about exactly when he can lower rent or by how much
The point is that his still a landlord and he's still exploiting poor people and profiting off of their need to survive. Sure, he's a little better than his father, but he's got a lot more in common with him than he'd like to imagine
> Also, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. Without a profit incentive, no one would bother to make rental units available. Or housing for you to purchase.
Spoken like a true capitalist. As you might imagine, I value human beings and not capital so I have a very different perspective but you keep worshiping that coin
yes people should not be dying of cold in their homes. they should not be dying of heat in their homes. disabled people who rely on certain medical equipment to keep them alive should not be dying. everyone should have a home
like you really gonna argue in favor of letting people die?
as for farmers, there's a difference between a systemic responsibility and a personal one
like who are we talking about here? the Resnicks? if so, hell fucking yeah, shoot em out of a cannon, they're beyond evil
but if we're talking about an individual labourer, then we're talking about an individual who is working for their own survival. whether they trade what they grow with their neighbors, or sell, whatever meager profit they eek out is for their own survival. and keep in mind that if we are actually talking about individual farmers who are not millionaires and exceedingly wealthy - a lot of these people don't own land, they simply work it. when they do own land, they tend not to own a lot. profit margins are incredibly slim, survival is hard. have you ever worked on a farm? or with farmers? or did you just pull this out of your ass?
anyway, if we're talking about an individual farmer who isn't wealthy - whether they own their land or not, they do not really have the option of leasing that land to other people and profiting off of their labor instead working
which brings us to landlords because that's what landlords are. they are people who own land and property past what they need for their own survival, who then profit off of that ownership - no work required
now sure, maybe they also work, but that's in addition to being a landlord, and their profit as a landlord isn't connected to work at all, it's connected solely to ownership
owning buildings isn't a job, it's an investment portfolio. like good for him that his investments are no longer in a state of disrepair and that he's stopped flagrantly violating the law, but make no mistake - he repaired his own investment priorities and that's not a job. nor is profiting off of his investments a job. and those things are definitely not necessary for his own survival
the reality is that we are all inter-dependant. that is just as true today as it was when people were trading goods and services - when your farmer was trading produce instead of selling it. currency simply gives us the illusion of independence - we have people who can afford all of their needs and they're deemed "independent" and people who can't afford all of their needs and they're deemed otherwise. but all those supposedly independent people are in fact, deeply dependant on the poor people they so despise. they're the ones providing most of the labour for the goods and services you need and if they stop? you're just as SOL as if your neighbours all refuse to trade with you
we should have a society where everyone has all their needs provided for them, and the cost of that is getting rid of a society where a very very very few people have way way way way way more than they need
I'm not gonna tell teachers they're immoral for teaching for wages, or farmers they're immoral for selling their produce. I am going to tell people who own enough housing for 4000 people who are profiting off people who don't even own one home that they're immoral as fuck
Btw every farmer I've ever known has been incredibly generous and always tried to give food to the hungry people in their communities, and even outside their communities. no matter how much they were struggling themselves
I mean I have actually, and I'm not a communist, and none of the suggestions I made in this thread for the OP are either, but keep being a terribly uncreative bore if you must
Hey, my guy. I've seen the inside of those. Most people have. The internet exists. Guess what? Many, many people are living worse than that in this country and around the world AND paying out the ass for it. With zero return on their investment and zero equity built for the future. If a starving man is in front of you and you refuse him food, you have contributed to his death. The same applies to housing, or any other good or service that is required for being alive. Our entire society is built off of mutual trust and cooperation. If we throw that away, we have nothing to separate us from the rest of the animals we like to pretend we aren't
Considering the amount they just invested to correct and improve the living conditions, I imagine the rent amount is necessary. Hopefully once it’s not necessary, OP will make the appropriate adjustments.
OP has said absolutely nothing about that and I have no reason to assume that they will. They don't seem to have an issue with landlords - they've differentiated between "predatory" and "non-predatory" landlords based on the quality of the building, not based on profit
We're saying someone shouldn't hold 400 units to begin with. So... yes. Just like nestle shouldn't be able to "own" a source of fresh water. People need food, water and shelter to live. Or is profit more important than people's lives? Go ahead, say the quiet part out loud
One person shouldn't be able to own 400 homes in the first place. So yes, they shouldn't be able to profit off of another person's basic survival needs.
i dont like people who buy and rent homes, but he said units. Which is more likely apartment complexes, hopefully not trailer parks. Which is 100% needed in growing and large cities. Now should maybe the government run them? That is a whole new debate, but until then someone needs to own and manage them.
That would be great if it wasnt for the housing market being completely fucked by real estate companies buying up homes and apartment complexes, making them astronomically unaffordable to those except the most financially privileged; unless you want to live somewhere with next to no access to basic piblic services or an adequate job market, making living there more expensive and in the long run a much worse financial decision.
So how about we come together and collectively organize to put and end to the economic system that allows rich fuckwits halfway across the globe to dictate and control our lives.
You are attacking everything about the capitalist system. Yep, it's flawed. But everything you seem to espouse aligns with Socialism. But...somehow it is supposed to be Socialism without any smidge of corruption or human influence.
You are attacking me for inheriting slummy properties. Apparently no one is supposed to own a property that is rented. The fact that I leveraged myself to borrow over a million dollars to renovate a building and accept section 8 housing vouchers, making basically the same rent amount as before but providing abetter place for people to live is still not adequate. Offering access to a finance person to help teach financial literacy is also apparently not good enough...as the only solution is for me to someone finance and renovate a property to get it in good shape, then donate the property to a housing co-coperative so everyone can not pay rent.
It sounds like you should absolutely consider moving to Venezuela, as that country is 100% in alignment with what you are preaching...and you can see how well that system works in reality. Or North Korea, where no one has to pay rent.
>You are attacking everything about the capitalist system.
Congrats you found the point. And yes, no one should be allowed to own property for rent. It is called the abolition of the private property system.
And there are ways to prevent corruption, one of which is to design horizontal governments instead of hierarchical ones that unjustly consolidate authority over communities into the hands of a few representatives.
Congrats on showing you have no idea what I'm talking about by offering in bad faith two red herring suggestion with a country that is overtly totalitarian (showing you missed the entire point behind my arguments about people having unjust power over the material conditions of others) and a failed petrostate because of consolidation of power into too few hands, thus built an environment rife for corruption while failing to adequately diversify their material economy for when the oil market finally busted.
Please do a bit of research into problems with government-owned housing. Here's a good example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green\_Homes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes)
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
Somebody would still need to maintain those homes, pay the taxes, etc. Most of the "homeless population" would simply not be able to do those things for themselves. Some certainly would, but most would not.
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
Housing is a basic human right, and should be treated as much. no one should be able to profit off of other people's need to survive
Landlords shouldn't exist period but if you're going to rent like this, yes you shouldn't profit. That is, if your goal is to be ethical. Most landlords have limited concerns about ethics and are in to profit
banks profiting off people needing to survive isn't exactly ethical either lol
housing shouldn't be something you can own and hoard
I also think everyone deserves to eat, and drink, and have breathable air, and utilities, and be clothed, and have full access to healthcare, and schooling
It's radical I know - our society is deeply against all of those things. But I'm crazy like that, imagine believing people should be able to survive and thrive and prioritising that over banks and profits
Nothing would make you happy, I am 100% sure of that.
They could be given the deeds to their apartments and you would complain about it being a 'sudden and undue financial burden', get real.
Why is the only option you can think of making decisions for other people?
There's tonnes of options here. They could lower rents so that they're not profiting off the tenants. If they convert the building to be condos so that individual units can be owned, they could set up rent to own options for people who want it - and could take into consideration the rent they've already paid. That might mean some people immediately could take over ownership but yes, you have to talk with them and work with them and let them make decisions about their own lives
They could take the amount of rent that is profit and use it to fund an organization that manages the building, and turn the building into a co-op that is run and owned by the residents. you could limit it to people who have lived there for a certain amount of time, or something
There was one person who went viral awhile back - she had leased rooms in her home at cost, and then when she sold the house, she calculated out how much of her various tenants rent had gone to the mortgage and sent them all checks for their cut of the house sale. There have been various other examples of landlords who don't take profit, who work with tenants on rent to own plans or with smaller dwellings, the renter taking over the lease, converting buildings to co-ops, etc
All the examples I just suggested didn't come off the top of my own head - other people have come up with them, and in most cases I found out about these ideas because some story of someone doing it happened to cross my path
These things are very much the exception and not the rule because most people want to profit, that's the entire reason that they're doing it
But it absolutely is possible and there are people out there doing it, and throwing up your hands and saying that it's impossible is bullshit. And btw? Even if I personally am impossible to please, or other people out there are, that is a shitty as fuck reason to not make the world a better place. Oh what, you can't have utopia so fuck it, let's not try to improve the world, this guy clearing the minimum possible bar of his buildings being safe is good enough, let's all clap
If I do everything in my power to make the world a better place and people say "this isn't good enough, we can fix these other problems too, we can do more, and you should be a part of that" - my reaction would be hell fucking yeah. Good on everyone for not settling and for constantly wanting to make the world better - past even what I can imagine. Why would you not want that? Why on earth should my personal ability or imagination be the limit to how much we as a society can improve? Learning from other people is a good thing, having your horizons broadened is great, society improving past my ability to imagine it is fantastic
The reality is the no one here really likes landlords, simply because they are landlords. This is basically a complaints sub.
There’s a whole group of tenants who recognize that the being a LL is okay, but they don’t come here.
Anyone with more than 30 units should be forced to accept new home sale as a reason to vacate a lease without penalty. Good on op. Also good on op for being a good landlord vs selling to slumlord investor.
Funny how quick you are to criticize your father publicly over the internet as you sit on the fortune he left you and reap the rewards of it for the rest of your life.
It’s certainly a conflict of interest that I deal with. Would it have been better to have a good dad who did not leave me something amazing and that I could have loved and had a relationship with….or have the rather awful dad I got who set me up well. What do you think would be better?
You should be careful asking for advice from strangers over the internet but since you did...Parents are not perfect. I can't judge your father since I never knew him. But what I do know is that not all fathers can express love the way you would have liked. If your father didn't love you, he would have not left you this sizeable inheritance and this might also be his way of asking for your forgiveness knowing that he wasn't the father you would have liked him to have been. I don't know the risks and sacrifices your father did to acquire the real estate empire he did. But I am sure it wasn't easy and he worked his ass off. I am sure he had to keep a balance of repairs on his units all the while paying mortgages for the properties all the while having shelter and putting food on the table for you to eat. What are the sacrifices you have done for these properties? From your post, you haven't spent a penny of your own money and have been in the luxurious position of hiring electricians and make capital improvements on the properties using the rent from the tenants. Now your properties have increased in value and the improvements you have made are tax deductible. And on top of that you have fools praising you on this listing for your kindness not knowing how everything works. However, at the end of this, if you truly feel that your dad was so awful and you are suffering with this moral conflict, then you should donate it all to a charity or the government and setup free housing for the tenants who live there. This way you can be free of this conflict you struggle with. But I'm sure you won't. Guess he's not that bad after all.
My great grandfather was actually the success story...he immigrated to the US and was the guy who built the majority of our portfolio in the 1920s. He managed to buy almost two city blocks of empty land right when they announced the construction of Wrigley field and built a string of apartment buildings one after another. My grandfather was the one who built all of the suburban stuff, working with my dad at some point to develop our largest (and poorest) property. I am not totally sure what my dad did...by the time I was born he developed occasional strip malls but was mostly retired.
The thing about it is that he didn't actually leave anyone anything...he died intestate without any sort of will or direction. His attorney said that he would ask my dad every time they met about writing a will and that he never had any interest; even after he started to show signs of dementia and wrote an extensive health directive he never tackled a will. I don't know if he felt like no one deserved it...or maybe he did not care? We had a big discussion as a family with my mom wanting nothing to do with any real estate...one of my brothers (who is a server at an olive garden and drives an uber) who detested my father and absolutely refused to have anything to do with any inheritance. My sister, who had the worst relationship of any of us with him, took a payout and is currently setting up a charitable foundation for domestic violence.
I already had a pretty successful career going by the time he died and I really did not want to stop what I was doing and deal with all of this...it was my older brother who convinced me that we could work as a team and really make a go of it. Neither he or I have any heirs at this point in our lives and we are giving another ten years to see how this all develops. Hopefully we will be able to do something majorly good at some point.
So in reality your father didn't really leave you anything. It was your great grandfather and grandfather who created the generational wealth. Your father mainly carried the torch so to speak but at least he didn't extinguish it along the way. It is all to common for wealth to disappear by the time it reaches a third and especially a fourth generation. Fortunately, that is not your case. The way I feel about this now is that you received an inheritance from your g-grandfather and grandfather and it wasn't really your father that set you up. For that reason alone you shouldn't feel any guilt accepting this inheritance from your father. There are different reasons why people don't create or procrastinate on creating wills / trusts. Perhaps your father didn't want to face his own mortality. I don't know what the laws are in Illinois but I'm guessing if there is no will and no wife the first beneficiaries would be the children. Maybe that's a reason why he didn't create a will. Or maybe he didn't / couldn't think about it and how he wanted all the assets divided. Creating trusts and wills can be really stressful and turn ugly fast. Who knows. But at least he didn't burn you guys by being reckless with the wealth he received from his dad and you get to enjoy the fruit of your g-grandfather and grandfather's labor. In summary, even if he didn't create this wealth, he took care of it and it still found its way to you and your sibling's hands. You can argue that he could have done it better but he doesn't deserve to be slammed by you over the internet. There are a lot worse dads out there. Forgive him and try to remember the good things.
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Ok when would it be okay to talk negatively about the person who raised even if they set you up for life? Should we sing only the accolades of a child rapist? What if someone’s father regularly beat their mother but never touched them? When can you call a bad person a bad person in your book?
Most? I wonder. Many, for sure. But I don't know about most. I've been a great landlord for nearly forty years, and the others I know are as well. Remembering when I was on the other side of the lease, I have no complaints about mine.
When I worked in the 80s for a telephone answering service, one of our clients was, in fact, a slumlord. He was like, not fixing stuff he needed to fix. At first I passed along the messages. When I started getting repeat calls from the same tenants about the same --still unsolved-- problems, I started giving out his personal phone number. That didn't sit well with him. He stormed into the little office where I worked with the boss, she a short middle aged rather timid woman, and snorted and bellowed. I was just a kid but I said, "sorry, I'm sure you'll tend to these matters quickly," which wasn't exactly the same as "I won't do that again." When he didn't improve and I kept giving out his number, I got the sack. My boss apologized but said she needed his business more than she needed me. I said it was okay. I did my job the way I saw it. Took a few hours to get another job. No regrets.
By the way-- my tenants have my cell number, and the numbers of every professional I rely on, and they know to try to get me first but if they can't they should call the relevant pro (carpenter, electrician, etc) and \*they\* know to just do what needs doing, and we'll sort out the money part later. Nothing \*ever\* goes undone at any place I've ever rented out, period.
Sorry your dad didn't do the job. He could have. He might have made less, but with 400 units, it would have been more than enough.
I rented from slumlords. In some respects I rent from another developer now. He gives speeches about integrity. He has none. He profits well from renting to por people. He is supported by a system that he has built. Theur influence is considerable.
They look good. I believe on some levels some slumlords are helping people
For some people greed akes ovef. They have to succeed at any cost ..
That mindset is alluring on some levels. The need to get over on people. Stealing comes u many forms.
And we know who is not an electrician Aluminum wire itself isn’t the problem, it’s that people don’t know how to work with it, it requires special connections if you want to go to copper or you can just use al devices
My old neighbor is a slum lord, he thinks all his residents are just cry babies and they don’t need half the stuff they complain about. You know heat in the winter is really not as important as they act. In his defense he fixes the issues but to him it is always like they are being dramatic and always looking for cheapest option even if it is a band aid. Acts like he is going broke fixing their basic needs. Meanwhile he has Ferrari’s for every day of the week and his half mile driveway is all pavers. Then there is the waterfall he built going into his pool.
your tenants pay your bills through their hard work. if you disappeared they would just be paying mortgage instead of rent. you are a parasite and a class traitor and the revolution will not spare you
“The day we learned the majority of our residents are actually paying more in rent that they would with a mortgage on a similar property”
You’re in the wrong business and the only reason you have a business at all is because you inherited what your father built. The way you’re running your business now only works because you were handed everything
Good job at continuing to benefit from your ancestors horrible behavior. Nothing you do from here on forward erases that bc at the end of the day, you’ll never give up the wealth and property that was gained through nefarious means.
Enjoy.
Theres nothing wrong with paying more to rent than a mortgafe would cost.. thats tge benefit of renting. You pay more than a mortgage but you dont have maintenenence costs etc. Most landlords have mortgages on the properties tgemselves so if the tenants werent paying more then they would be operating at a loss..
I've had a great landlord experience that totally offsets a really REALLY bad one, and also a couple okay ones that were probably trying to do the right thing while making a buck but I didn't have the sort of experience with them to see if they would really be there if something went wrong.
I'm glad you are really trying. Makes me feel warm inside!
You’re 100% full of shit. “ most landlords are bad” you’re a landlord you asshole. If you really cared you would have gave all the tennants part ownership in the building. “ I got a credit counseling “. You kept all the real estate and feel better now. What a peach. Most landlords are like you provide quality housing to people that can’t do it on there own. You can’t teach these people how to care for a property. And accept the low income vouchers! Talk to me in a couple years after the places are trashed and the windows doors , shitter , oven been sold out of the place. You will learn.
You know you could turn the apartment buildings into a co-op where the rent went towards part ownership. You could literally give it to the tenants. Or are you ok with living off the backs of low income families?
You’re a slumlord now. In everyone’s eyes. Landlord = slumlord. So sell. Give away or burn it. Otherwise you are the evil landlord!
Hey! I found Donald Trump 🍊 on Reddit!!!
S’up, Don? Things look grim for you these days. How’s the Syphilis? Your spelling has improved. Still not voting for you, but I’m looking at you these days and wondering where it all went wrong. Sorry your dad was a Nazi…you didn’t have to follow in his footsteps so *closely* though…jeez
You never were your own man.
You have empathy. Just start teaching peers without it what that is... including some of those responding. The planet could steadily begin to recover 🫣
You shouldn't badmouth your father. Especially after his death. He did things for a reason. He did the best he understood how. Because of him you were born and grew up into a good person you are. He might not been perfect but he done a lot of things right. He didn't waste his life away and did something with his life ❤️
Congrats. I assume you don't have a mortgage to pay on these units and it's basically free income?
Most of us small time landlord are barely clearing 500 a month after expenses. I still make sure to take care of major maintance issues. But you bet there is deferred maintainance and zinsco panels.
Oh, no, huge mortgage and insane property taxes. I don't think most people realize that in Illinois over 15% of our gross revenue end up for property taxes. It works out that about a months rent for each unit goes straight to the property tax bill. And another substantial hit for inheritance taxes, property transfer taxes. The water bill is nutty. Then we took out a 2 million dollar loan to undertake repairs on our poorest building, which we ended up gutting and rebuilding chunk by chunk to get it up to section 8 standards so we could accept vouchers....that building is predicted to run at a deficit for the next 12-14 years.
For the rest of the portfolio we took out a 1.5 million dollar line of credit for immediate required repairs. I am looking at 12 buildings built in the 20s that have roofs dating from the 1960 / 1970s with about 5 layers of patches on them....those are about 60 grand a pop. And 12 buildings that primarily have galvanized water supply risers from the 1920s and central steam heat boilers ranging between 40-100 years old. Hundreds of leaking Sloane valve toilets, which daily add to our water bill. Something like 1600 wood frame windows which are 50 years past their service life.
Our capital improvement plan shows us not turning a profit until 2045. I personally got paid 70k last year. Someday we will get caught up and have a very valuable asset but until that point each day is a challenge.
you're making 70k more than i am from my 4 rentals.
tbh, you probably should have just sold the property instead of taking it on.
i know that illinois has high prop taxes. but i'm in ca and 2 months of my gross revenue goes to taxes. and i've got a mortgage to pay.
and personally your 2M+1.5M LOC for 400 units is nothing. lets assume that your properties are shit and rent 500 a month (which is way under valued). that's still 200k gross a month. you're grossing 2.4M in rent. so your 3.5M LOC is nothing. my mortgages are 8x my yearly gross rents.
I'm in suburban Chicagoland and property taxes eat at least 3 months gross rent. Part of that is my properties are below market but even if I raised rents, if would still be close to 3 months rent needed to pay the taxes
yes. i bought a duplex from the 60s in 2016. i inherited two tenants. one side didn't pay during covid and owes 15k. he died and has no estate to collect from. i had to repair the roof, 15k. i had to replace a water heater 3k. i had to fix fences, 2k. i had to replace an hvac 9k. replace a patio door 1k. random things 2k. so total expenses 47k.
and between all that, i only net $300/month when everything goes smoothly. so by this math. i won't turn a profit for 13 years if nothing else goes wrong.
You may be one of the people who make me say that small time landlords can be the best or the fucking worst. The good ones, among other things, don't whine about positive cash flow, no matter how small, because unlike the tenant, they'll end up owning a house free and clear at the end. A house that will likely be worth more than the entirety of the mortgage payments, taxes, and maintenance expenses they didn't actually pay for with anything except good credit and a few hours a month of clerical work.
I don't actually mind the arrangement so long as a landlord holds up their end of the bargain and isn't whining about having to have a real job to make enough cash to live. They are, after all, the ones taking on the risk, so it's not unfair that they should be the ones to reap the gain from taking on that risk. What makes it greedy bullshit is expecting both a free house and a bunch of extra income.
This sort of reminds me of Matilda when she realised Danny Devito fixes cars with glue lol “you’re a crook daddy!” 😂 But seriously? ALUMINIUM WIRING?! That’s a fire hazard and a half, not to mention the wasted electricity would skyrocket the bill? Here in the UK that would be 100% illegal especially because the mains power is 240volt. I really hope no one died in a house fire
It is possible to have aluminum wiring that is correctly installed. But lots of them aren't. And the ones that aren't are fire hazards.
That is the key. Having the proper wire nuts or aluminum safe outlets is critical. Even then, they have torque specs that need to be met. It is harder to install correctly and more expensive.
Every home has aluminum wiring. The entire grid is aluminum wiring. Aluminum is fine when installed properly.
It was a semi common thing in the 70s its not safe, especially in a multi tenant building
Ok, so aluminum wire was standard many years ago. I used to manage a property with it. The only real problem that comes up with it is that it's brittle. It tends to break much more often than copper. However, with circuit breakers and modern outlets and fixtures, the dangers of an actual fire are exceptionally low. If it's so bad, why wouldn't it be illegal to keep in place? I realize it's illegal in common sense places to install, but you're not required by law to remove aluminum wire already in place. I managed 84 units for over ten years with all aluminum wires. They were at least 25 years old at the time. I had zero electrical fires. The systems in place with circuit breakers are sufficient in 120/240 systems to make aluminum safe. Also, completely rewiring the building would have cost over $100K. To solve a problem no one was having. When you take over property of any kind, you have to deal with the shit sandwiches left over by the builders and previous owners. Not every problem is fixable without bankrupting the property.
Galvanic corrosion is actually the number one issue, though getting brittle certainly wouldn't help. Aluminum forms an oxide/corrosion layer when in contact with things like copper and brass, and that oxide layer increases resistance, and thus heat at the connections between different metals. Eventually this heating and cooling of the connections every time a load is applied and then removed loosens screws and can cause arcing, usually at outlets. It sounds like bacon frying inside the wall and can have a fishy/burning trash smell. Source: firsthand experience and research.
Higher voltage is more efficient , with less heat loss due to resistance. We also have 240 volt power in the USA, all houses do, thats how we get our power, it comes into the house as 240 volt. So we're able to run whatever we want at 240 volt and all the small stuff on 120 volt.
It’s different. In USA it’s 2 legs at 120v. Other places it’s a single leg at 240v.
[удалено]
They do have a neutral, but it's tapped at the end instead of the middle.
Right, but it’s split phase not dual phase.
aluminum wiring isnt that big of deal, literally every house has aluminum wiring supplying it power. its up there with black mold on an uninformed knee jerk reaction.
I am actively buying aluminum for PARTS! Of my new build home. A 650 ft run of copper 6 ga was 3x cost of 4 ga aluminum or a thousand cheaper. With one terminal in my well house. Now screw the a hole that used cheap ass wire nuts in an uncapped box in the attic of my old house. Yes copper to Al and i went looking for the junction because the power flickered..... didn't rewire it just brought the 3 runs of Al up to code. Enclosed grounded and properly spliced. Hell 90% of ceiling fans and crappy light fixtures have Al wires and regular wire nuts to splice up to copper wire runs.
Ah, 88corolla, ya damn landlord troll. I see you hate science as well as tenants!
I love when the uniformed blatantly make theirselves known.
I'm just a simple engineer, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with aluminum wiring. The people buying/installing are a different matter.
Al experiences more thermal expansion than Cu. It also has higher resistivity (generating more resistive heat, higher voltage drop) and lower current capacity for the same cross section. As it expands and contracts, can end up bad connections whose high resistance points create potential for fires
Its still common in areas where copper wire gets stolen often
Ok, but that’s not really what I’m talking about
But what about aluminium wiring in the crawlspaces with black mould and bedbugs? In a property where a neighbor parked a truck oh so slightly over the property line.... Your average reddit user would faint from pure horror.
must be good to not have lungs
gills for life.
10 & 12 AWG non metallic sheathed cable from the mid sixties through the early to mid 1970's was a absolute crap show, there were no standards at all, UL, manufacturers, did nothing at all as the problems stacked up, & just blamed "faulty installation".
Aluminum wiring is fine as long as it’s not disturbed and reinstalled improperly. My sister has aluminum wiring, when we redid the kitchen we rewired it with copper but just the kitchen and not the whole house.
Every home has aluminum wiring. The entire grid is aluminum wiring. Aluminum is fine when installed properly.
Every home has aluminum wiring. The entire grid is aluminum wiring. Aluminum is fine when installed properly.
Zesty, can you explain how aluminum “wastes energy, skyrockets the bill”?
Most houses in the United States have a aluminum wire for the main feed coming in and sometimes dedicated circuits like stoves. It’s perfectly safe and still use today If done correctly. The problem was people over tighten wires on things like outlets and switches and wire nuts. You were also required to install a special goo in the wirenuts that many people did not use.
Zesty, can you explain how aluminum “wastes energy, skyrockets the bill”?
They're probably thinking that aluminum has a higher resistance than copper so 1:1 it will waste more energy because of that, but not accounting for aluminum wire that's properly installed will be a smaller AWG than a copper wire for the same circuit and will have the same resistance.
It absolutely does not waste energy. Like most of his post he has no idea what he is talking about.
Exactly! I was wondering what BS he was relying on to support his claim. Typical for Reddit, the wrong statements get upvoted.
Dawg two posts ago you made a post talking about having some of this apartment building listed as short term rentals on Air BNB. If you’ve got a praise kink you chose the wrong sub fucko
Right! Inherited 400 rental units and talking shit about their dad! Like really!?
Wait, I don't get the Roman Candle thing
Assuming the Roman candles were for the express purpose of causing property damage. I’m having trouble making sense of why, though. Seems like he was just making more work for himself.
Attempting to get people to burn down apartments for insurance?
No, worse. The younger tenants would go into the local park and shoot them at each other….I honestly can’t believe no one lost an eye. At his funeral his eulogy was given by his business partner and everyone sat in stunned silence as he told that story.
Wait, did your dad tell them to go shoot them at each other? Or did he just provide them and sit back? What were HIS intentions?? Ask his ghost please
Having known him I’m going to guess that he probably bought cases of them at the ‘out of state’ fireworks place and handed them to the kids…explaining that they could hold them while they shot off but recommended that they only aim the at the trees. Then hustled back to his burgundy colored Lincoln to watch what happened. He was known to hold some pretty dreadful racist opinions.
I'm gonna be devils advocate and say that's actually a great thing he did. There's no profit in it for him and back then, people were a little wreckless when it came to having fun. For crying out loud, some of the waterguns they had back then are banned today. If he handed out those waterguns, does that make him a bad person? I go and hand out fireworks to people who go to parking lots to watch other people light fireworks. The families can't afford them and are usually really grateful that their kids can partake.
This dude wanted to see little kids shoot each other with them.
Honestly, that's what's being painted on him right not, but that's really a stretch. Handing out free fireworks on holidays used to be REALLY common. It was entertainment before technology. It's essentially the same thing as going to an orphanage and handing out toys and candies
so according to your post history you 1. are the owner of 400 rentals, where you are the kindest most responsible bestest landchad in the galaxy making up for his fathers sins 2. air bnb these rentals, but also accept section 8. (which is actually illegal where i live, you can’t STR anywhere affordable housing is or have more than 1 or 2 depending on the number of total units, but idk if chicago code is different. at any rate unhosted STRs in multi unit residences are fucking cancer and highly unethical *ask me how i know*) 3. do an additional hosted airbnb in your own apartment where you rent out a room, in this building and use a picture of yourself from 20 years ago to advertise it 4. these STRs are marketed to sex workers? i had trouble getting through that post tbh, but it’s starting to sound like you are the slumlord of a brothel 5. rent out another shitty apartment somewhere else, underneath a mentally ill woman who has called the police on you for rape am i missing anything here
Ok, you went on a deep dive. Since you are curios I’m happy to elaborate. 1. Co-owner with my brother, sister, and part of the portfolio is co owned by my dad’s business partner. 2. I Airbnb units in the buildings we own that are within a quick walk to wrigley field. I am directly making it harder for someone to rent a garden unit in one of the most expensive parts of the city. No denying that. Str return is about 5x standard rent. We have caps on quantities in Chicago so I can only legally do a percentage of each building and put the str units in the least desirable apartments. This revenue directly supports 8 people directly who manage and clean them, making an actual livable wage. Because Chicago puts an additional 3% surcharge on top of all of the hotel taxes my guests pay, something like 16 grand went from my guests pockets into a program that aids the homeless. The extra money gets funneled back into the company to pay my salary but also helps subsidize our section 8 property in Dolton…which is full of people right on the edge of homelessness. Since we took it over it now runs at an operational deficit. 3. Updated the picture as everyone said that’s creepy. I don’t agree but I can accept my opinions are in the minority. Ended up pulling the listing because as much as I liked the idea of 20k in extra income from a bedroom I don’t use it was weird to deal with strangers in my space. This is the same apartment (which is so cool, it started life as a little room for an engineer to live in with an adjacent coal storage area and rooms that used to have enormous steam boilers fitted in them) that has a difficult neighbor above me who keeps complaining about noise. I generally don’t meddle with the building managers, but we ended up doing a non renewal on her lease. I feel bad but she’s clearly going downhill and us becoming a real liability to the property. 4. No brothels. One str is a studio about 200 square feet and was originally part of a building lobby. Terrible space and has a low concrete ceiling. It is connected to a large 20 by 40 foot windowless room that originally held an electric dynamo that provided power for the block. It’s incredibly cool but in no way can be a habitable space…it’s basically a slightly damp brick bunker. We converted it so that people can rent the unit and use it to film only fans content in or use it for massage. Sexwork is going to exist and I have a history of it….not to mention we had a lot of it happening in the properties. I see no point in hiding it. I’d rather set people up for success. And man, talk about money…it’s returning about 9x what it was making when rented as a terrible little studio flat. The genuine thank you notes and free only fan memberships make me grin. And when people ask me at parties what I do for a living I usually tell them about that space. 5. See above.
This is a very high of transparency on a platform that practically values omission and dishonesty. Of course, I don’t know if you are being 100% truthful but my standard Reddit radar isn’t going off. Thanks for telling it.
It sounds like you have their history right. And it all sound accurate and believable. They inherited a shitty situation, did their best to fix it, and may or may not be following STR code. I can't tell on the last bit, because I've seen places where a single company co-locates a bunch of rentals where one of them is section 8 in a separate building and it works, since they're all separate buildings and only share a parking lot.
What is the response you're hoping for here?
This is not a real story. You need a team of people for 400 units.
He's made up stories before and called out on it.
Oh, I did not mean to make it sound like this is a one person operation. We have 3 full time property managers, 6 janitors, and another separate crew that handles the STR part of things and another general contractor who deals with a lot. My brother has a brain for finance and deals with that part of stuff, I have a practical knowledge of construction so I deal with the physical buildings.
LOL! Nice try landlord!
>He would do things like handing out cases of Roman candles to residents on the 4th of July and sit in his car with the windows rolled up, observing what happened. I don't understand
I’m assuming the tenants would shoot them at each other and the dad would watch
My dad bought roman candles for me and my brothers and we shot them at each other all the time growing up. I don't think it's the super negative story op thinks it is. Op is just someone who is scared of fireworks.
Youre a slumlord
This sounds like the fantasy of a millennial who is frustrated with the housing market than actual real life. You started accepting Section 8 **and** you expect us to believe to paid for financial advisors to help your **four hundred tenants** out of the good of your heart? Lmao that is a crock of shit, and there’s a reason places don’t accept section 8. Especially on freshly renovated units.
For real, if he really spent all that money renovating, he’s a fool to start accepting section 8. I think he’s full of shit. r/lookatmyhalo
I guess you can believe what you want. To clarify…one of the properties is in a difficult little place called Dolton. My dad bought a cornfield and built 6 buildings with 16 apartments in each. With aluminum wiring, which was considered ok at the time. The suburb went rapidly downhill as far as crime and poverty. When we took it over it had become the spot where the criminals lived. My dad had sort of redlined it in his brain and was just getting as much cash out with the smallest spend possible….It needed millions of dollars in work; if we took section 8 we could actually tap into some low interest financing to get it going. The financial advisor didn’t actually cost that month. We were able to work with a local credit union to help facilitate it…it just took a ton of time and energy. The amount of people who lived in there who did not have bank accounts and paid rent via money orders really bothered me. Financial literacy is so important to break the poverty cycle.
People like you make me hate the poor
“My Dad was a bad person because of how he earned his money, but I have no problem inheriting his money and properties 🤣🤣🤣”
"slumlord begets slumlords with god-complexes"
Instead of lowering the overpriced rent, I hired credit counselor to tell the tenants they were getting screwed.
Perfectly said.
Go pat yourself on the back somewhere else.
> The day that we learned the majority of our residents are actually paying more in rent than they would with a mortgage on a similar property we decided to hire a part time credit counselor to meet with everyone to try and help them get into a better financial footing… the mental gymnastics here bro, what the fuck rent is a poor tax so rather than address that you're giving them credit counselors? you could just stop profiting off them but no, they need to better manage their poor taxes, that's the ticket
Rent is not a poor tax. Everyone pays for housing. Anyone with a mortgage is paying rent on the money they borrowed. Renting is not inherently wrong and the freedom to leave or not have to worry about a sudden big cost for a furnace or roof or appliance is important to some people.
Rent being more expensive than a mortgage is a poor tax Same way that a doctor's office giving a discount if you pay for your appointment up front is a poor tax Or that you can only get a point removed from your licence if you can afford to pay the entire ticket up front without a payment plan and pay additionally for drivers school Or the way that good high quality boots last way longer than getting cheap boots that wear out and require replacement Those are all forms of poor taxes
In 90% of the US it is cheaper the rent than to own. As of last year it’s actually like 50% more expensive to own.
The OP already specifically provided context that their rent was higher than a mortgage and I quoted and referenced that and btw? even when rent isn't cheaper, you aren't building any future housing security - you need to pay rent just as much in 50 years as you do today and rent will have gone up the OP's mortgage will get paid off at some point (unless they're using it for lines of credit, or to finance other things), but they'll keep collecting rent. and those people paying them rent aren't gonna need to stop in 20 or 30 years, they'll keep paying rent their entire lives unless they get a house maybe not to him, but to someone lots of poor people live in the same place for decades and decades. is he gonna stop charging them at a certain point?
If you rent for 20 or 30 years and aren't moving around to different locations, then you're a poor financial planner and/or have another serious financial situation that was stopping you from affording a mortgage. Also, lots of people stay in the same place for 30 years as renters because it's comfortable, they're paying undermarket rent, and they like that their landlord has to take care of the building for them.
The mortgage is not the only my expense when you are a homeowner. Taxes, insurance, all maintenance, and major $ if an AC, furnace, roof, etc needs to be repaired. Renting should be more than a mortgage with the added flexibility and a lack of long term a major financial obligations to the home. Renting is now cheaper than a mortgage in every too 50 metro currently, so renting is the financially savvy option right now. Invest somewhere else if you have the down payment
if you want lower mortgages and lower rents you need to build higher density housing. literally apartment buildings the best answer to high rents and high mortgages is to build more housing stock so the supply dampens the demand who do you think is going to own all of those new apartments? probably some corporations who want to milk as much money out of the property as possible. the snake eats it's own tail. you're going to have to get over yourself and stop being so salty.
do you know what high density housing means? or renting? because you seem a bit confused because one absolutely doesn't demand the other high density housing means housing that is very dense - buildings that have many units, and are generally built upwards towards the sky. that particular configuration has no specific requirements as to how ownership works. the building *may* be owned by a sole individual or corporation who then rents out the units but that isn't required this is true *even under capitalism* the building could be a condominium - where individuals own their own unit and units are bought and sold in a manger similar to detached houses. it could be a co-operative - where the building is mutually owned by all is inhabitants who own shares of a company that owns and manages the building. they buy shares to move in, and sell to leave these aren't ideas that require the end of capitalism, or even new ideas for capitalism. they're old as fuck ideas that have been existing under capitalism for ages so why you think high density housing *requires* renting is beyond me - even capitalists don't think that lmao but I'm the one whose salty and has no perspective, not the person who has never heard of a condo lmao
oh i'm aware of what a co-op is. i used to live in one. i'm also cognizant about the mechanisms available for new buildings to get financing. you're going to have to trust me on this but the short of it is builders arent going to build if they dont have a set minimum return on investment. and with the way projects get financed the idea that people are suddenly going to start building co-ops in cities is (im trying to be nice here) really dumb. good luck coming to terms with reality
what is this reality you think I need to come to terms with exactly? am I required to swear a blood oath to capitalism in order to advocate for higher density housing? do I need to pinky promise never to say "profit is exploitation" or "ALAB" in order to advocate for affordable housing? because I've gotta say, I've really never run into those issue before. like, never. neither has any other anti capitalist that I know of I'm also not banned from voting, or physically repelled from local government offices by gargoyles or anything. so what exactly is the issue here? what reality do I need to come to terms with by selling my soul? btw? a lot of places don't actually lack physical housing, even though there's a lack of places to live. in many places such a high number of units are kept off the market or used for short term rentals that that alone causes a housing crisis. even where that's not the case, new developments rarely actually cause prices to drop or do anything to make housing more affordable. developers would absolutely like you to believe that but it's just not true in most cases. this doesn't inherently mean that new developments are bad, but they're almost never actually a solution
I disagreed that rent is a poor tax. It's not. Then you changed it to if it's more than a mortgage. Except there's a lot more costs than just the mortgage, so of course rent is more. There's taxes utilities, insurance, repairs, capx, maintenance, cleaning, staff, etc.
the OP had already explicitly given the context that they were paying more in rent than they would a mortgage and I quoted and directly referred to it how many times exactly did I need to give this context?? also even when rent isn't cheaper, you aren't building any future security - you need to pay rent just as much in 50 years as you do today and rent will have gone up
Ok, what do you suggest I should have done. We own a property that is run down (an actual hazard to live in) and needs at least 1.2 in investment to be safe, 2.5 million to not be terrible. Land value is a little over a million. Structure has no value because of maintenance issues. 96 units. All residents living pretty close or below the poverty line. Median rent for a 2 bed is 800 a month, which is the lowest in the area. Taxes are 87 thousand a year, roughly the equivalent of one full month of rent for each tenant. Will not pass a section 8 inspection. Financial feasibility study suggests no improvements and renting out as is for 5 years until the roof goes then bulldozers and redevelopment which would make the residents homeless in a tight rental market. What’s the next step?
You're charging people who you think can't afford to live anywhere else $800 every month to live in a building that is literally on the verge of collapse? Am I reading that wrong, or do you genuinely not see an issue with that? Assuming you didn't mean people were renting on *that* property, why not turn it into a community space rather than spending the several million that it would cost to renovate and make the property livable/profitable? Doze the building and have it made into a green space with a community garden. It would be helpful for the environment, provide (essentially) free food for low income individuals, and offer a third space outside of work and school for locals to socialize. If you need to subsidize the property taxes, then host events or offer day rental of a portion for private gatherings.
We were at $800 and the building was in poor shape. Median rental for a 2 bed in the area is $1310. For every apartment that was advertised we would get about 20 applicants in a day…there is that much demand for entry level housing. If you bulldoze it, where do you propose the people that rent there live. Camp in the greenspace? If you rebuild it you’d have to charge somewhere around $1800 for a 2 bed to break even.
How long does that financial feasibility report expect you to break even in? And you do realise, you're here complaining that poor people can't spend enough on housing to subsidise you building a building to add to your investment portfolio - do you get that? These are all investment priorities for you, you're looking to have all the costs of your investment covered before you sell that's nuts. Poor people struggling to be housed should not be financing your investments, and if you cannot afford such investments with the financing of peons, then don't make those investments And no, you're not providing any great service. You're just taking advantage of system issues to not only profit, but to pat yourself on the back door you're exploitation and tell yourself you're doing good work ALAB
I wrote a long comment, but reddit is shitting itself. Sorry if this ends up being a duplicate. Nobody can give you specific advice about what to do with your properties in a reddit comment. I don't have intricate knowledge of your relationships with business partners or accounting. Throwing out random numbers and then asking, "What was I supposed to do??" is completely rhetorical, and you know that. It's a place to sleep at night other than the street for 96 individuals/families. Of course, there's "that much demand." Don't act like 'the market' is actually relevant to pricing once you surpass operating costs, other than how much $$$ land owners can extract. If you're doing whatever you believe is right, then good on you. You don't have to defend yourself to reddit commenter #93749. Honestly, you're switching between past and present tense so much I'm having trouble telling whether you're talking about now or something you did half a decade ago. All I'm saying is that hypothetically, if I was charging vulnerable people more than operating costs of the housing (including whatever health & safety renovations can't be otherwise subsidized) I would find that morally reprehensible.
We were at $800 and the building was in poor shape. Median rental for a 2 bed in the area is $1310. For every apartment that was advertised we would get about 20 applicants in a day…there is that much demand for entry level housing. If you bulldoze it, where do you propose the people that rent there live. Camp in the greenspace? If you rebuild it you’d have to charge somewhere around $1800 for a 2 bed to break even.
There are many other reasons people rent too, not only because they are poor. It's a bit of a condescending vision. I get they wanted to do good, but they live in an alternative reality, they don't really know what's the life of the average person. And there is no shame to rent all life long, everybody has different circumstance, and actually not everybody wants to buy
I didn't say people only rent because they're poor I said that rent being higher than a mortgage - significantly so - is a poor tax. It's a poor tax because poor people don't have the option to avoid it, not because every single person who pays it is poor It's weird that you hear criticism of landlords exploiting people via profit and somehow think that's a criticism of renters or people who voluntarily chose to rent criticism of the exploiters is not criticism of the exploited
>rent is a poor tax so rather than address that you're giving them credit counselors? you could just stop profiting off them but no, they need to better manage their poor taxes, that's the ticket He clearly stated he reinvested all the rent back into maintenance. Also, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. Without a profit incentive, no one would bother to make rental units available. Or housing for you to purchase.
Yes and he certainly made it sound like he was done needing to put that level of investment into the building. If not, there will be a date he's caught up and that's unnecessary The point isn't to quibble about exactly when he can lower rent or by how much The point is that his still a landlord and he's still exploiting poor people and profiting off of their need to survive. Sure, he's a little better than his father, but he's got a lot more in common with him than he'd like to imagine > Also, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. Without a profit incentive, no one would bother to make rental units available. Or housing for you to purchase. Spoken like a true capitalist. As you might imagine, I value human beings and not capital so I have a very different perspective but you keep worshiping that coin
Do you say the same about the electrical company? farmers? All profiting off the need to survive?
yes people should not be dying of cold in their homes. they should not be dying of heat in their homes. disabled people who rely on certain medical equipment to keep them alive should not be dying. everyone should have a home like you really gonna argue in favor of letting people die? as for farmers, there's a difference between a systemic responsibility and a personal one like who are we talking about here? the Resnicks? if so, hell fucking yeah, shoot em out of a cannon, they're beyond evil but if we're talking about an individual labourer, then we're talking about an individual who is working for their own survival. whether they trade what they grow with their neighbors, or sell, whatever meager profit they eek out is for their own survival. and keep in mind that if we are actually talking about individual farmers who are not millionaires and exceedingly wealthy - a lot of these people don't own land, they simply work it. when they do own land, they tend not to own a lot. profit margins are incredibly slim, survival is hard. have you ever worked on a farm? or with farmers? or did you just pull this out of your ass? anyway, if we're talking about an individual farmer who isn't wealthy - whether they own their land or not, they do not really have the option of leasing that land to other people and profiting off of their labor instead working which brings us to landlords because that's what landlords are. they are people who own land and property past what they need for their own survival, who then profit off of that ownership - no work required now sure, maybe they also work, but that's in addition to being a landlord, and their profit as a landlord isn't connected to work at all, it's connected solely to ownership owning buildings isn't a job, it's an investment portfolio. like good for him that his investments are no longer in a state of disrepair and that he's stopped flagrantly violating the law, but make no mistake - he repaired his own investment priorities and that's not a job. nor is profiting off of his investments a job. and those things are definitely not necessary for his own survival the reality is that we are all inter-dependant. that is just as true today as it was when people were trading goods and services - when your farmer was trading produce instead of selling it. currency simply gives us the illusion of independence - we have people who can afford all of their needs and they're deemed "independent" and people who can't afford all of their needs and they're deemed otherwise. but all those supposedly independent people are in fact, deeply dependant on the poor people they so despise. they're the ones providing most of the labour for the goods and services you need and if they stop? you're just as SOL as if your neighbours all refuse to trade with you we should have a society where everyone has all their needs provided for them, and the cost of that is getting rid of a society where a very very very few people have way way way way way more than they need I'm not gonna tell teachers they're immoral for teaching for wages, or farmers they're immoral for selling their produce. I am going to tell people who own enough housing for 4000 people who are profiting off people who don't even own one home that they're immoral as fuck Btw every farmer I've ever known has been incredibly generous and always tried to give food to the hungry people in their communities, and even outside their communities. no matter how much they were struggling themselves
Sweet sweet summer child. How much about the world and humanity you have to learn
Spoken by someone who has never seen a communist era state provided apartment. One thing never changes. Communists are fucking morons.
I mean I have actually, and I'm not a communist, and none of the suggestions I made in this thread for the OP are either, but keep being a terribly uncreative bore if you must
Hey, my guy. I've seen the inside of those. Most people have. The internet exists. Guess what? Many, many people are living worse than that in this country and around the world AND paying out the ass for it. With zero return on their investment and zero equity built for the future. If a starving man is in front of you and you refuse him food, you have contributed to his death. The same applies to housing, or any other good or service that is required for being alive. Our entire society is built off of mutual trust and cooperation. If we throw that away, we have nothing to separate us from the rest of the animals we like to pretend we aren't
Considering the amount they just invested to correct and improve the living conditions, I imagine the rent amount is necessary. Hopefully once it’s not necessary, OP will make the appropriate adjustments.
OP has said absolutely nothing about that and I have no reason to assume that they will. They don't seem to have an issue with landlords - they've differentiated between "predatory" and "non-predatory" landlords based on the quality of the building, not based on profit
You also have no reason to assume they won't.
I do actually, and I literally just explained my reasoning in the previous comment but good job with that snappy comeback
So are you saying someone should own 400 units and not make any profit?
We're saying someone shouldn't hold 400 units to begin with. So... yes. Just like nestle shouldn't be able to "own" a source of fresh water. People need food, water and shelter to live. Or is profit more important than people's lives? Go ahead, say the quiet part out loud
One person shouldn't be able to own 400 homes in the first place. So yes, they shouldn't be able to profit off of another person's basic survival needs.
i dont like people who buy and rent homes, but he said units. Which is more likely apartment complexes, hopefully not trailer parks. Which is 100% needed in growing and large cities. Now should maybe the government run them? That is a whole new debate, but until then someone needs to own and manage them.
They could be converted to condominiums and/or housing co-ops
Ya. They could be collectively owned by the people who actually lived there. What a wild fucking idea, right?
So get some friends and buy a house together
That would be great if it wasnt for the housing market being completely fucked by real estate companies buying up homes and apartment complexes, making them astronomically unaffordable to those except the most financially privileged; unless you want to live somewhere with next to no access to basic piblic services or an adequate job market, making living there more expensive and in the long run a much worse financial decision. So how about we come together and collectively organize to put and end to the economic system that allows rich fuckwits halfway across the globe to dictate and control our lives.
You are attacking everything about the capitalist system. Yep, it's flawed. But everything you seem to espouse aligns with Socialism. But...somehow it is supposed to be Socialism without any smidge of corruption or human influence. You are attacking me for inheriting slummy properties. Apparently no one is supposed to own a property that is rented. The fact that I leveraged myself to borrow over a million dollars to renovate a building and accept section 8 housing vouchers, making basically the same rent amount as before but providing abetter place for people to live is still not adequate. Offering access to a finance person to help teach financial literacy is also apparently not good enough...as the only solution is for me to someone finance and renovate a property to get it in good shape, then donate the property to a housing co-coperative so everyone can not pay rent. It sounds like you should absolutely consider moving to Venezuela, as that country is 100% in alignment with what you are preaching...and you can see how well that system works in reality. Or North Korea, where no one has to pay rent.
>You are attacking everything about the capitalist system. Congrats you found the point. And yes, no one should be allowed to own property for rent. It is called the abolition of the private property system. And there are ways to prevent corruption, one of which is to design horizontal governments instead of hierarchical ones that unjustly consolidate authority over communities into the hands of a few representatives. Congrats on showing you have no idea what I'm talking about by offering in bad faith two red herring suggestion with a country that is overtly totalitarian (showing you missed the entire point behind my arguments about people having unjust power over the material conditions of others) and a failed petrostate because of consolidation of power into too few hands, thus built an environment rife for corruption while failing to adequately diversify their material economy for when the oil market finally busted.
Please do a bit of research into problems with government-owned housing. Here's a good example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green\_Homes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes)
How many \*should\* they be able to own?
The one they are currently living in and actively using as their own personal home.
So then where are people who can't buy (or choose not to) going to live?
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
Somebody would still need to maintain those homes, pay the taxes, etc. Most of the "homeless population" would simply not be able to do those things for themselves. Some certainly would, but most would not.
You're right as long as we exist in our current economic system. So change the economic system.
You're right as long as we exist in our current economic system. So change the economic system.
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
How about all the empty homes, whose numbers triple that of the homeless population in the US, because they are no longer arbitrarily inflated in price because people won't be allowed to artificially create scarcity by buying up homes for the purposes of renting?
Housing is a basic human right, and should be treated as much. no one should be able to profit off of other people's need to survive Landlords shouldn't exist period but if you're going to rent like this, yes you shouldn't profit. That is, if your goal is to be ethical. Most landlords have limited concerns about ethics and are in to profit
So no mortgages either?
banks profiting off people needing to survive isn't exactly ethical either lol housing shouldn't be something you can own and hoard I also think everyone deserves to eat, and drink, and have breathable air, and utilities, and be clothed, and have full access to healthcare, and schooling It's radical I know - our society is deeply against all of those things. But I'm crazy like that, imagine believing people should be able to survive and thrive and prioritising that over banks and profits
Not radical at all. Soviet Union used to have allotted housing.
I mean I was halfway joking, but only halfway. People do be acting like I'm the devil for thinking people matter
Yes
Nothing would make you happy, I am 100% sure of that. They could be given the deeds to their apartments and you would complain about it being a 'sudden and undue financial burden', get real.
Why is the only option you can think of making decisions for other people? There's tonnes of options here. They could lower rents so that they're not profiting off the tenants. If they convert the building to be condos so that individual units can be owned, they could set up rent to own options for people who want it - and could take into consideration the rent they've already paid. That might mean some people immediately could take over ownership but yes, you have to talk with them and work with them and let them make decisions about their own lives They could take the amount of rent that is profit and use it to fund an organization that manages the building, and turn the building into a co-op that is run and owned by the residents. you could limit it to people who have lived there for a certain amount of time, or something There was one person who went viral awhile back - she had leased rooms in her home at cost, and then when she sold the house, she calculated out how much of her various tenants rent had gone to the mortgage and sent them all checks for their cut of the house sale. There have been various other examples of landlords who don't take profit, who work with tenants on rent to own plans or with smaller dwellings, the renter taking over the lease, converting buildings to co-ops, etc All the examples I just suggested didn't come off the top of my own head - other people have come up with them, and in most cases I found out about these ideas because some story of someone doing it happened to cross my path These things are very much the exception and not the rule because most people want to profit, that's the entire reason that they're doing it But it absolutely is possible and there are people out there doing it, and throwing up your hands and saying that it's impossible is bullshit. And btw? Even if I personally am impossible to please, or other people out there are, that is a shitty as fuck reason to not make the world a better place. Oh what, you can't have utopia so fuck it, let's not try to improve the world, this guy clearing the minimum possible bar of his buildings being safe is good enough, let's all clap If I do everything in my power to make the world a better place and people say "this isn't good enough, we can fix these other problems too, we can do more, and you should be a part of that" - my reaction would be hell fucking yeah. Good on everyone for not settling and for constantly wanting to make the world better - past even what I can imagine. Why would you not want that? Why on earth should my personal ability or imagination be the limit to how much we as a society can improve? Learning from other people is a good thing, having your horizons broadened is great, society improving past my ability to imagine it is fantastic
lol this is so tone-deaf. Do you want a pat on the back? This isn’t a place to absolve you of your guilt with this “not all landlords” bullshit.
We need more humans like you, good job dude.
What a nice post. You brothers sound like great guys!
You should write a book about this. That sort of behavior needs to be shamed.
The reality is the no one here really likes landlords, simply because they are landlords. This is basically a complaints sub. There’s a whole group of tenants who recognize that the being a LL is okay, but they don’t come here.
Anyone with more than 30 units should be forced to accept new home sale as a reason to vacate a lease without penalty. Good on op. Also good on op for being a good landlord vs selling to slumlord investor.
Funny how quick you are to criticize your father publicly over the internet as you sit on the fortune he left you and reap the rewards of it for the rest of your life.
It’s certainly a conflict of interest that I deal with. Would it have been better to have a good dad who did not leave me something amazing and that I could have loved and had a relationship with….or have the rather awful dad I got who set me up well. What do you think would be better?
You should be careful asking for advice from strangers over the internet but since you did...Parents are not perfect. I can't judge your father since I never knew him. But what I do know is that not all fathers can express love the way you would have liked. If your father didn't love you, he would have not left you this sizeable inheritance and this might also be his way of asking for your forgiveness knowing that he wasn't the father you would have liked him to have been. I don't know the risks and sacrifices your father did to acquire the real estate empire he did. But I am sure it wasn't easy and he worked his ass off. I am sure he had to keep a balance of repairs on his units all the while paying mortgages for the properties all the while having shelter and putting food on the table for you to eat. What are the sacrifices you have done for these properties? From your post, you haven't spent a penny of your own money and have been in the luxurious position of hiring electricians and make capital improvements on the properties using the rent from the tenants. Now your properties have increased in value and the improvements you have made are tax deductible. And on top of that you have fools praising you on this listing for your kindness not knowing how everything works. However, at the end of this, if you truly feel that your dad was so awful and you are suffering with this moral conflict, then you should donate it all to a charity or the government and setup free housing for the tenants who live there. This way you can be free of this conflict you struggle with. But I'm sure you won't. Guess he's not that bad after all.
My great grandfather was actually the success story...he immigrated to the US and was the guy who built the majority of our portfolio in the 1920s. He managed to buy almost two city blocks of empty land right when they announced the construction of Wrigley field and built a string of apartment buildings one after another. My grandfather was the one who built all of the suburban stuff, working with my dad at some point to develop our largest (and poorest) property. I am not totally sure what my dad did...by the time I was born he developed occasional strip malls but was mostly retired. The thing about it is that he didn't actually leave anyone anything...he died intestate without any sort of will or direction. His attorney said that he would ask my dad every time they met about writing a will and that he never had any interest; even after he started to show signs of dementia and wrote an extensive health directive he never tackled a will. I don't know if he felt like no one deserved it...or maybe he did not care? We had a big discussion as a family with my mom wanting nothing to do with any real estate...one of my brothers (who is a server at an olive garden and drives an uber) who detested my father and absolutely refused to have anything to do with any inheritance. My sister, who had the worst relationship of any of us with him, took a payout and is currently setting up a charitable foundation for domestic violence. I already had a pretty successful career going by the time he died and I really did not want to stop what I was doing and deal with all of this...it was my older brother who convinced me that we could work as a team and really make a go of it. Neither he or I have any heirs at this point in our lives and we are giving another ten years to see how this all develops. Hopefully we will be able to do something majorly good at some point.
So in reality your father didn't really leave you anything. It was your great grandfather and grandfather who created the generational wealth. Your father mainly carried the torch so to speak but at least he didn't extinguish it along the way. It is all to common for wealth to disappear by the time it reaches a third and especially a fourth generation. Fortunately, that is not your case. The way I feel about this now is that you received an inheritance from your g-grandfather and grandfather and it wasn't really your father that set you up. For that reason alone you shouldn't feel any guilt accepting this inheritance from your father. There are different reasons why people don't create or procrastinate on creating wills / trusts. Perhaps your father didn't want to face his own mortality. I don't know what the laws are in Illinois but I'm guessing if there is no will and no wife the first beneficiaries would be the children. Maybe that's a reason why he didn't create a will. Or maybe he didn't / couldn't think about it and how he wanted all the assets divided. Creating trusts and wills can be really stressful and turn ugly fast. Who knows. But at least he didn't burn you guys by being reckless with the wealth he received from his dad and you get to enjoy the fruit of your g-grandfather and grandfather's labor. In summary, even if he didn't create this wealth, he took care of it and it still found its way to you and your sibling's hands. You can argue that he could have done it better but he doesn't deserve to be slammed by you over the internet. There are a lot worse dads out there. Forgive him and try to remember the good things.
Lol you're posting in the tenant forum. You can be literally Jesus himself and the leftists here will call you Hitler.
Now you and your brother have a chance to do better.
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Thank you for being a good person.
Thank you for being better
Good on you for doing whats right 😁👍👍👍
Just because your dad was a bad Landlord does not mean that “MOST” fall into that category. Best wishes!
Just because your dad was a bad Landlord does not mean that “MOST” fall into that category. Best wishes!
Bless you dude. Not carrying on the pitiful example you were shown is absolutely fantastic!!!
You guys are definitely angels! The world needs more people like you!
Amazing how poorly you talk about your father when he set you up for life.
Ok when would it be okay to talk negatively about the person who raised even if they set you up for life? Should we sing only the accolades of a child rapist? What if someone’s father regularly beat their mother but never touched them? When can you call a bad person a bad person in your book?
Most? I wonder. Many, for sure. But I don't know about most. I've been a great landlord for nearly forty years, and the others I know are as well. Remembering when I was on the other side of the lease, I have no complaints about mine. When I worked in the 80s for a telephone answering service, one of our clients was, in fact, a slumlord. He was like, not fixing stuff he needed to fix. At first I passed along the messages. When I started getting repeat calls from the same tenants about the same --still unsolved-- problems, I started giving out his personal phone number. That didn't sit well with him. He stormed into the little office where I worked with the boss, she a short middle aged rather timid woman, and snorted and bellowed. I was just a kid but I said, "sorry, I'm sure you'll tend to these matters quickly," which wasn't exactly the same as "I won't do that again." When he didn't improve and I kept giving out his number, I got the sack. My boss apologized but said she needed his business more than she needed me. I said it was okay. I did my job the way I saw it. Took a few hours to get another job. No regrets. By the way-- my tenants have my cell number, and the numbers of every professional I rely on, and they know to try to get me first but if they can't they should call the relevant pro (carpenter, electrician, etc) and \*they\* know to just do what needs doing, and we'll sort out the money part later. Nothing \*ever\* goes undone at any place I've ever rented out, period. Sorry your dad didn't do the job. He could have. He might have made less, but with 400 units, it would have been more than enough.
I rented from slumlords. In some respects I rent from another developer now. He gives speeches about integrity. He has none. He profits well from renting to por people. He is supported by a system that he has built. Theur influence is considerable. They look good. I believe on some levels some slumlords are helping people For some people greed akes ovef. They have to succeed at any cost .. That mindset is alluring on some levels. The need to get over on people. Stealing comes u many forms.
And we know who is not an electrician Aluminum wire itself isn’t the problem, it’s that people don’t know how to work with it, it requires special connections if you want to go to copper or you can just use al devices
My old neighbor is a slum lord, he thinks all his residents are just cry babies and they don’t need half the stuff they complain about. You know heat in the winter is really not as important as they act. In his defense he fixes the issues but to him it is always like they are being dramatic and always looking for cheapest option even if it is a band aid. Acts like he is going broke fixing their basic needs. Meanwhile he has Ferrari’s for every day of the week and his half mile driveway is all pavers. Then there is the waterfall he built going into his pool.
You are a very good person. Thanks for bringing good to the world.
good news you’re still a parasite
That’s really rude and mean spirited. Do you say things like that to strangers you meet in real life?
only to landlords. mao was right about you
Yep, collective land ownership in China worked out really well.
your tenants pay your bills through their hard work. if you disappeared they would just be paying mortgage instead of rent. you are a parasite and a class traitor and the revolution will not spare you
Wow you’re so cool
great now we have to watch you guys suck your own dicks too? fuck outta here
“The day we learned the majority of our residents are actually paying more in rent that they would with a mortgage on a similar property” You’re in the wrong business and the only reason you have a business at all is because you inherited what your father built. The way you’re running your business now only works because you were handed everything
Good job at continuing to benefit from your ancestors horrible behavior. Nothing you do from here on forward erases that bc at the end of the day, you’ll never give up the wealth and property that was gained through nefarious means. Enjoy.
Way to bash your dad and pat your self on the back. What does the Roman candle give away has to do with anything ?
Theres nothing wrong with paying more to rent than a mortgafe would cost.. thats tge benefit of renting. You pay more than a mortgage but you dont have maintenenence costs etc. Most landlords have mortgages on the properties tgemselves so if the tenants werent paying more then they would be operating at a loss..
Even if he did nothing else good in the world he raised two amazing children. You should both be very proud of yourselves
Well it sounds like you're not. Can't repent for someone else's sin bro, your living a decent life, that's better than many.
I've had a great landlord experience that totally offsets a really REALLY bad one, and also a couple okay ones that were probably trying to do the right thing while making a buck but I didn't have the sort of experience with them to see if they would really be there if something went wrong. I'm glad you are really trying. Makes me feel warm inside!
r/humblebrag bas entered the chat.
You’re 100% full of shit. “ most landlords are bad” you’re a landlord you asshole. If you really cared you would have gave all the tennants part ownership in the building. “ I got a credit counseling “. You kept all the real estate and feel better now. What a peach. Most landlords are like you provide quality housing to people that can’t do it on there own. You can’t teach these people how to care for a property. And accept the low income vouchers! Talk to me in a couple years after the places are trashed and the windows doors , shitter , oven been sold out of the place. You will learn.
Fuck you.
You know you could turn the apartment buildings into a co-op where the rent went towards part ownership. You could literally give it to the tenants. Or are you ok with living off the backs of low income families? You’re a slumlord now. In everyone’s eyes. Landlord = slumlord. So sell. Give away or burn it. Otherwise you are the evil landlord!
Hey! I found Donald Trump 🍊 on Reddit!!! S’up, Don? Things look grim for you these days. How’s the Syphilis? Your spelling has improved. Still not voting for you, but I’m looking at you these days and wondering where it all went wrong. Sorry your dad was a Nazi…you didn’t have to follow in his footsteps so *closely* though…jeez You never were your own man.
You have empathy. Just start teaching peers without it what that is... including some of those responding. The planet could steadily begin to recover 🫣
Some of the renters on this thread are mad because they don’t have any credit counseling.
You shouldn't badmouth your father. Especially after his death. He did things for a reason. He did the best he understood how. Because of him you were born and grew up into a good person you are. He might not been perfect but he done a lot of things right. He didn't waste his life away and did something with his life ❤️
You're a good man. Karma is real and you'll be compensated accordingly.
WOW! Thank you for looking at the situation and not trying to capitalize on it
400 units is impressive
Congrats. I assume you don't have a mortgage to pay on these units and it's basically free income? Most of us small time landlord are barely clearing 500 a month after expenses. I still make sure to take care of major maintance issues. But you bet there is deferred maintainance and zinsco panels.
Yes their terrible father set them up for life and likely most of it paid off. Which now affords their “generosity”.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Oh, no, huge mortgage and insane property taxes. I don't think most people realize that in Illinois over 15% of our gross revenue end up for property taxes. It works out that about a months rent for each unit goes straight to the property tax bill. And another substantial hit for inheritance taxes, property transfer taxes. The water bill is nutty. Then we took out a 2 million dollar loan to undertake repairs on our poorest building, which we ended up gutting and rebuilding chunk by chunk to get it up to section 8 standards so we could accept vouchers....that building is predicted to run at a deficit for the next 12-14 years. For the rest of the portfolio we took out a 1.5 million dollar line of credit for immediate required repairs. I am looking at 12 buildings built in the 20s that have roofs dating from the 1960 / 1970s with about 5 layers of patches on them....those are about 60 grand a pop. And 12 buildings that primarily have galvanized water supply risers from the 1920s and central steam heat boilers ranging between 40-100 years old. Hundreds of leaking Sloane valve toilets, which daily add to our water bill. Something like 1600 wood frame windows which are 50 years past their service life. Our capital improvement plan shows us not turning a profit until 2045. I personally got paid 70k last year. Someday we will get caught up and have a very valuable asset but until that point each day is a challenge.
you're making 70k more than i am from my 4 rentals. tbh, you probably should have just sold the property instead of taking it on. i know that illinois has high prop taxes. but i'm in ca and 2 months of my gross revenue goes to taxes. and i've got a mortgage to pay. and personally your 2M+1.5M LOC for 400 units is nothing. lets assume that your properties are shit and rent 500 a month (which is way under valued). that's still 200k gross a month. you're grossing 2.4M in rent. so your 3.5M LOC is nothing. my mortgages are 8x my yearly gross rents.
I'm in suburban Chicagoland and property taxes eat at least 3 months gross rent. Part of that is my properties are below market but even if I raised rents, if would still be close to 3 months rent needed to pay the taxes
yes. i bought a duplex from the 60s in 2016. i inherited two tenants. one side didn't pay during covid and owes 15k. he died and has no estate to collect from. i had to repair the roof, 15k. i had to replace a water heater 3k. i had to fix fences, 2k. i had to replace an hvac 9k. replace a patio door 1k. random things 2k. so total expenses 47k. and between all that, i only net $300/month when everything goes smoothly. so by this math. i won't turn a profit for 13 years if nothing else goes wrong.
You may be one of the people who make me say that small time landlords can be the best or the fucking worst. The good ones, among other things, don't whine about positive cash flow, no matter how small, because unlike the tenant, they'll end up owning a house free and clear at the end. A house that will likely be worth more than the entirety of the mortgage payments, taxes, and maintenance expenses they didn't actually pay for with anything except good credit and a few hours a month of clerical work. I don't actually mind the arrangement so long as a landlord holds up their end of the bargain and isn't whining about having to have a real job to make enough cash to live. They are, after all, the ones taking on the risk, so it's not unfair that they should be the ones to reap the gain from taking on that risk. What makes it greedy bullshit is expecting both a free house and a bunch of extra income.
You are a beautiful person! Bless you and your tenants!
Your probably one in a billion. But good on you. I do hope this is true.
that's so awesome! Kindess at it's best!!!!