All Forum Posts by: Baris Yuksel

@Meryl McElwain I am sorry about your collection issues. As a Chicago investor I am a little luckier so far, collections have been about 95% but the thing that bothers me is the ones not paying are very aware that not much can be done... so we expect that they will be living for free for a long time before anything can be done about it. I have an acquired tenant back in Oct 2019, she promised to be out by Nov.  I filed her eviction in Dec, she signed agreement to be out by May in court and she is still enjoying the unit. next status check in August. God knows when Sheriff will pay her a visit after that court. 

Bad tenants are and will be definitely taking advantage of the corrupt Cook county legal system. 

You mentioned someone with 432 evictions waiting to file. Do you mind sharing the location(s) for these tenants? I have tenants all over the city. 

Voted!

Nine months ago I purchased a 7 unit property in Bronzeville that was in housing court for several issues. Prior owner had chosen to fight back the City via lawyers and for years had been putting just band aids using handyman off craigslist, instead of fixing these issues using licensed contractors. 

When I first met with the task force inspectors (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, porch etc) I listened all their demands, then I fixed everything that was mentioned (new porch, new roof, new windows, new pipes etc) and invited them back. Now it seems they are coming up with new items so the list just keeps growing. They refuse to give you a definitive list or their notes just so they can keep finding new stuff each time. 

One thing they came up with in the recent inspection was that they want the entire garden unit drywall ceiling to be 5/8" for 1 hour fire resistance. (It is a 3 story building and this garden unit was legalized with the rehab permit & plans under which things are being done)

Existing drywall appears to be half inch (so we are off by 1/8th of an inch) and it was never touched so I thought it can be left alone but now they want to cut it and check the thickness.

Since they demanded that I tear down the entire ceiling to put 5/8" drywall per code, I suggested if I can keep the Half inch drywall and just add another layer of 5/8" inch which would make it much thicker then what they demanded. Of course the answer came back no. 

Any suggestions or advice in how to best deal with the task force and their moving list of demands? This drywall alone will cost a good chuck of money and there are several new items that they keep adding to this list of demands. 

They also want 3 layers of 5/8" drywall on all posts and beams. Is there a good source to look up the City of Chicago code for this?

I may need a new contractor that works closely with fixing code issues and deals with the city task force / housing court violations.

Thank you in advance!

One thing I hear is that city of Chicago doesn’t really like the enclosed porches and they will probably fine you if they do an inspection and they see it is used as an additional room in the winter . People put HVAC duct to provide heat in these and I’m not sure if any of that is technically legal in Chicago . 

Good job! How much did the digging cost ? Also how much did the whole job cost ?

I am considering doing this also but I am afraid the Breakeven will take too long. 

Will be there. Thank you John.

@Account Closed

This is a Great story! Thanks for sharing , but I have to ask , for all the trouble you had to go through , how did you end up with so many properties there ? 
I always laugh when I read a post from some wanna be out of state investor from California asking if they should invest in Englewood . They just don’t have a clue . 

Thanks for sharing @Andrew Holmes

 just curious where do you pull this data from? It’s definitely interesting . 

If you want any kind of appreciation invest in city of Chicago. Suburbs are on a huge decline and that will be the trend for next decade(s). As far as population decline concern for Chicago, it is simply decline in poor south side communities as people escape gang wars and unsafe neighborhoods. The population in north side neighborhoods is doing just fine and increasing, so the big population declining announcement the media keeps repeating isn't really telling the full story here.