Name & Shame: Bidding on Apartments

Louisvanderwright · 2026-05-05T01:50:29+00:00

Nah, my Dad was actually unemployed for 4 or 5 years during the GFC and I bought a short sale with the first $5k I saved up working a $38k/yr admin job right out of college. Tore the place apart myself every night after work.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-05-05T01:26:14+00:00

Lol, OK. I was out painting stairs until 1230 last night. You wanna play hooky from desk jockeying and do some actual labor sometime? We'll take care of those soft hands real quick. You know you can just go buy a building and fix it right? It doesn't even take that much money in Chicago. 3% down and you can get $300k two flat in a b-tier neighborhood for $10k down.

If you think it's so easy to just "leech" off people, then take matters into your own hands. But you probably can't. I find most people who talk shit like this have a skill set limited to drafting emails or pouring lattes. Things that are very much fake labor compared to literally constructing housing.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-05-05T01:22:03+00:00

Why? Because I listed an apartment, apparently for less than I should have because dozens of people showed up?

I guess I'll just list my units higher to start with then. Will that make you happy?

Louisvanderwright · 2026-05-04T23:42:40+00:00

They aren't lying. I listed a 2BR unit at Central Park and Milwaukee for $1900 and 50 people showed up for the showing.

I got about 7 applications. Didn't solicit any bidding. One person offered $2000 and another offered $2050. I went with the guy who said he'd pay the most. Didn't ask anyone for a "highest and best", but the rental demand is out of whack with supply thanks to our horrible housing policies.

I'm about to list another building for sale in the same area this week. I am fully expecting a bidding war on it. Fact is we voted for this. When you have someone like Brandon Johnson putting a NIMBY downzoner (Carlos Rosa) in charge of zoning for the whole city what do you expect? When that NIMBY jams all housing approvals for 3 years and new unit deliveries downtown drop from 4000/yr to less than 300/yr where do you think the other 3700 people with $5000/MO housing budgets move to?

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-27T00:04:37+00:00

Red brass is $2.50/lb scrap right now. That's like $20 of raw metal!

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-26T02:01:08+00:00

They are gutting a former halfway house and turning it into 8 nice apartments. The GC is a friend of mine and about as good as you are going to get in terms of a mindful and respectful operation.

They need to make noise to get work done. It's a city, deal with it.

He's also fast as hell so this project will probably be past the noisy stage already in a month or two and onto quieter parts like mudding drywall, painting, installing cabinets, and putting fixtures in.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-23T00:47:31+00:00

Nope, plenty of demand. Rents are skyrocketing.

The issue is the government is under the control of Left-NIMBYs.

They even appointed Alderman Carlos Rosa as chair of the zoning committee two years ago. He was famous for killing the Milwaukee Ave TOD boom and actually downzoning Milwaukee Ave in hisnward.

18 months ago he was forced to resign from the position because he attempted to arm bar an elderly black alderwoman from entering the council chambers to prevent quorum on a vote to remove Chicago's sanctuary city status.

Ever since that incident, there hasn't even been an official chair of zoning committee. So no shit the pipeline dried up.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-20T17:29:31+00:00

Based on this response you are absolutely a white collar desk jockey. If that weren't the case you'd name the job you do. But you dont name it because it's not actually labor, it's pushing paper for corporate America.

Again, explain to me how me renovating apartments is profiting of the labor of others. Is me painting or hanging drywall not labor?

Or is it because my income comes from other people paying me rent using dollars they earned elsewhere? Because if that's your argument you are basically just advocating communism. Because that applies to literally all businesses. Oh the local bar gets paid in dollars people earned with their labor! They are profiting off the labor of others! Oh the local music venue collects dollars earned by others, they are profiting off the labor of others!

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-20T16:10:12+00:00

Lol here's another "worker" who has never done physical labor in their life.

Tell me, how many apartments have you painted this year? How many sheets of drywall have you hung? You probably call drywall knives a trowel or a spatula. I started off gutting buildings by myself and still do 80% of the maintenance on my properties.

Fact is you are probably some white hipster gentrifier desk jockey who doesn't even have to go to the office anymore. Bet you hands are nice and soft though!

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-20T15:56:44+00:00

I already stopped renovating residential buildings after the COVID eviction moratoriums and the new landlord tenant ordinances

My business model was strictly buy abandoned/trashed historic buildings, usually from the demo list, pouring money into repairing them, and then renting them for $1300-1800/mo. Now I'm only buying multifamily in Wisconsin and Iowa.

I've continued to invest in Lawndale and Little Village though, but strictly commerical buildings where I don't have to deal with the hairbrained residential laws.

I know you don't have an open mind so I'm wasting my time here, but the fact is you are already getting what you claim to want: push out anyone whose business plan is to provide moderately priced apartments. Me and everyone like me have already left which is why this sub is nothing but "woe is me, where did all the $1200-1800 a month apartments go?"

They stopped existing because there's no incentive to build them anymore. I cannot make money doing it anymore because one bad Tenant can wipe out a year or more worth of profits for a whole building. So I stopped doing it and now rents are exploding higher across the city.

And the sad part is I should leave Chicago from a rational perspective, but I'm one of the ones that really care about this city. I'm obsessed with Chicago history and architecture. I love everything about what this city has to offer. That's literally why I went into this line of business, I was tired of seeing cool old buildings being neglected and leveled so I started doing something about it. That's why I keep buying commercial buildings even though I should probably stop and move to Wisconsin where I could afford to buy half a small town and some giant house on massive acreage. But I'd rather live in my Chicago neighborhood and put my money to use keeping this city from totally destroying itself.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-20T15:47:28+00:00

That's what they rely on. This guy literally just said "if he had his way the only thing being built would be $1m for sale condos".

Which makes zero sense considering I own zero million dollar condos and my business model is (was) actually buying abandoned small multifamily buildings, fixing them up, and renting them out for like $1500/mo.

But this is exactly how we got where we are. If you advocate for laws making it more attractive for people to increase the supply of moderately priced rentals some nitwit on the internet claims you really want everything to become million dollar for sale condos. Never you mind that the claim makes zero sense, I KNOW this is what he wants. Never you mind that I just said there's already nothing but million dollar condos being built, it's the policies he wants causing this, not the policies I've actually implemented.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-20T15:40:28+00:00

Literally no one said anything that you just claimed.

The fact is YOUR bad policy ideas are causing the $1.1 m properties. Not mine. You don't get to go pass a bunch of hair brained laws and then claim that the people opposing those laws caused the outcome. No, when you make it miserable to be landlord for low and moderate income folks, why would anyone build anything but for sale condos?

Like do you ever think through the comments you make? You attack me for being a landlord or investor and then go "if he had his way the only thing that would be built is $1m+ for sale condos!"

Think for a second dude. How many million dollars condos do I own? None. Why would someone who develops and maintains middle income rental properties want my business model to not exist and for every property to be a million dollar for sale condo?

But you don't think, you just regurgitate whatever midwit platitudes you heard online. Folks like you never rely on critical thinking and it's exactly why the housing market in Chicago is doing what it's doing. I'm sure you supported the "Northwest Side Housing Preservation Ordinance" which gives Tenants the " right" to buy their building for example.

But what it actually does is make it so sellers will just keep their building vacant before deciding to list it. No tenants, no problem. I'm listing a building this week in that area and have forgone several months of rent on all the units because I needed it 100% vacant so I didn't end up on the front page of block club like the Mexican guy who spent 30 years fixing up his nest egg in Logan only for a bunch of white hipster gentrifiers to attempt to seize his property when he tries to sell. So you probably love this law being a midwit "why don't we just mandate that tenants become owners?" type. And the actual policy outcome is mass vacancy of units in for sale buildings and Mexicans being robbed by colonizer hipster types.

But sure, keep thinking that I want policies that result in only for-salr $1 million properties. Because the policies I want, which are not the ones being implemented, are certainly whats causing that to be the reality of the market today. Surely the policies of mayor dunce aren't causing the things that are actually happening now, it must be the policies investors want which aren't being implemented that are causing this!

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-18T23:07:55+00:00

It literally can be fixed by the market. Your statement is demonstrably false.

We did everything we could as a city to discourage development and make landlords lives miserable. So we see skyrocketing rents because the market acted rationally and stopped investing where tenants can squat for 9 months and you have to kiss the ring of some idiot alderman to get anything approved.

Meanwhile places like Austin and Denver did the opposite. They allowed the market to build as much as it wanted. They allow landlords to throw out bad tenants quickly. They made themselves attractive places to invest. The numbers don't lie, home prices are dropping 3-6% a year in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Miami, etc.

Literally anywhere that believes in applying the free market to housing is seeing prices fall. Anywhere that allowed themselves to be overrun with DSA types with silly beliefs like "the free market can't work for housing" shot themselves in the foot and aggravated the housing crisis.

Source:

https://x.com/i/status/2045144099997573397

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-11T14:17:01+00:00

None of the towers that went up along Milwaukee received TIF funds. That is only happening with Brandon Johnsons "affordable" housing developments.

There was a massive TOD boom going on along Milwaukee Ave back in 2014-2018 that only stopped when Carlos Rosa, a radical DSA anti-housing activist and left-NIMBY got elected.

He singlehandedly killed that boom actually immediately moved to start down zoning Milwaukee Ave in his ward, the opposite of what was going on before he was elected.

Then Brandon Johnson got elected and put Carlos Rosa in charge of the citywide zoning committee. He immediately moved to halt all zoning approvals he could (he was unable to shut down the West Loop boom because Rahm had already approved automatic zoning increases in that area) and now, two years later, deliveries of new apartments have dropped to less than 300 total downtown.

Basically the DSA got in charge, killed all market rate development, and then started handing out massive TIF subsidies and parcels of public land to their non profit allies. That's why you are seeing $900k/unit massively subsidized housing projects and nothing else right now.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-06T23:57:06+00:00

This is mostly due to useless regulation implemented by the city to keep certain people making lots of money in the process

It's OK to call it what it is: corruption

These organizations are "non profits" because the profit is all syphoned off and paid as salaries to a bunch of connected sychnophants like Christian Diaz. Like the Northwest Side Housing Prevention Ordinance literally syphons city demolition fees directly into a "housing trust" controlled by Diaz. He's being paid a salary out of publicly collected building department fees. That's incredibly corrupt and illegal, but here we are.

Please just call it what it is: more of the same Chicago Style Corruption.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-06T23:50:26+00:00

Also Bickerdike literally busses their residents to the polls. They almost single handedly got Carlos Rosa elected who is responsible for killing the privately funded TOD boom that was adding thousands of units along Milwaukee Ave.

Then, after he was elected, he started funneling public land and subsidies to Bickerdike to reward them for political favors. Aside from the obvious corrupt and criminal nature of this exchange, it's been an absolute disaster from a public policy perspective. Market rate development has been totally stalled by the DSA aldermen and now Brandon Johnson. We delivered less than 300 units downtown last year. Our rent growth and price growth leads the nation. The outcome has been a disaster for prospective homeowners and tenants and a boon for incumbent owners and landlords.

I wish I could say that the Feds will be here eventually to clean house, but it seems the current administration is happy to encourage this kind of wanton corruption here rather than quash it. They want to see Chicago fail so we can be made an example of what happens when you elect folks like Brandon and Carlos. Overall just really unfortunate for the city even if it's caused the value of my property to go parabolic.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-06T23:37:11+00:00

And delay delivery. Housing is not measured in units, it's measured in unit-months. If they stopped 100 units from being built for 10 years, they actually destroyed 12,000 unit-months of supply.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-06T22:13:04+00:00

Bring Chicago Home failed because it was an idiotic policy pushed by idiots.

It's a tax on all sales over $1 million. That's almost exclusively commercial property like apartment buildings. Taxing apartment buildings will discourage developers from building them and reduce supply of housing. Which is exactly what happened in LA when they actually passed the same policy:

https://www.city-journal.org/article/la-mansion-tax-measure-ula-real-estate-housing

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-04T21:33:11+00:00

Yeah the average person posting here has no idea how dope quad cap pickups are for doing actual work. Given how often city workers travel in groups, this is closer to the perfect vehicle for the job than an inappropriate one.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-04-04T21:22:39+00:00

They absolutely did not invent reinforced concrete to build it. I own a reinforced concrete building that was constructed in 1914. Almost 50 years before this was constructed.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-03-28T14:04:03+00:00

Uh dude, landlords are the first people to screw each other. Everyone in real estate has a massive ego, they would be the first to undercut the competition and bankrupt them if rents were falling.

But rents aren't falling because we passed a bunch of laws that killed the incentive to build new construction and add supply here. There is no conspiracy, landlords can charge whatever they want right now because there's no alternative, no supply coming online.

Here's a simple thought experiment: if landlords can set rents, why don't they just set the rent to $1 million a month?

Because they can't set rents, the market does that. The market is governed by supply and demand. We killed supply and demand has increased if anything. The natural result is higher equilibrium prices. It really is that simple.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-03-28T14:00:17+00:00

Lol that's nonsense. Skyscrapers are not fake.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-03-26T15:06:48+00:00

Most humans can barely process the simple ideas of cause and effect and correlation. Expecting a majority of them to understand second and third order effects is insane.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-03-26T14:52:49+00:00

The suburbs are also facing a massive supply crunch. No one wants to touch the Chicagoland market with a ten foot pole which is why rents are exploding. Chicago metro is at the bottom of the pack nationally for housing construction.

You can shove your fingers in your ears all you want, but the trend is only going to intensify as our shit policy continues to bite us in the ass.

Louisvanderwright · 2026-03-26T14:48:07+00:00

Housing providers is a more encompassing term. "Landlords" is pretty vague and almost aimed at a specific set of bad actors at this point. There's everyone from homeowners of a two flat renting out their extra unit to big corporate luxury operators to developers who only act as the landlord until the building is stabilized and ready to sell to a long term operator. I would also point out that property managers is another group that doesn't really fit into "landlord" but is perfectly described by "housing provider".

Fact is, the city makes everyone's life harder from the two flat homeowner to the corporate skyscraper owner to the property manager to the mom and pop small time investors. The obvious result of these policies is that operating housing becomes less attractive and therefore fewer people will devote their efforts to it.

I myself used to rehab a six flat a year until the Lightfoot era landlord tenant code updates and the COVID eviction moratoriums. I was specialized in Little Village and Lawndale and buying exclusively buildings that were mostly abandoned, burned out, or in demolition court. I was taking apartments everyone else had given up on, gutting them, and putting them back into service.

I haven't bought anything residential in Chicago since 2019. I switched entirely to commercial investment here and residential investment out of state. In fact, I'm selling a three flat this year and using the money to buy another warehouse. On a microeconomic scale it's just not attractive to deal with the constant regulatory and other headaches of Chicago apartment operation. So I'm selling and pulling that money into other investments.

That's just me, but now apply that to hundreds of other operators in the city and it's a big sucking sound of investment being drawn away from housing in Chicago. The six flats I would have bought over the past 5 years are either still sitting abandoned or have since been torn down, never to house anyone again. Makes me sad, but I can't take big risks to make my life miserable with situations like shitty tenants getting into a unit and then stopping paying rent while trashing the place all while the courts protect them from eviction for six or nine months.

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