How I Became a Landlord

I spent my quarantine rehabbing a Chicago 3 flat and learning about property management. Met wonderful people along the way and had a blast!

How it started

• A 3 flat in the Chicago suburbs, built by my grandfather, was left unattended for over a year by a family member. Once the rest of us realized what was going on, I stepped up to take it on.
• I wanted to take care of the building the way my grandfather did. Here’s what I was up against
  • 90% of the financial reserves were drained from family (that’s a whole other topic).
  • 2 units occupied, 1 left abandoned. The empty unit I ended up moving into was trashed. Smelly carpet, stuff leftover, and trash upon trash.
  • No records. No leases for current tenets and a box of 100+ keys with a note that says “good luck”.
  • Where’s the deed? After my grandmother had passed, my dad was the rightful owner, but with unkept paper work it was difficult to prove. My dad and I split up responsibilities: He finds the deed and I’ll handle everything else.
  • I’m not a handy person but know how to search YouTube. As stuff breaks in the 3 unit building, I have to figure it out or make enough of a profit to pay someone.

2 months later the pandemic hit.

Remember when all the donation centers were closed?? I had a three car garage packed with crap to the ceiling and no where to put it.

My approach

Whenever I’m overwhelmed, taking small bites at a time helps me breakdown the problem. My goal was to clean up the unit I was now living in and make the building profitable.

• Rehab – The bathroom’s soft pink tile/sink was ready for a rehab (new floors, cabinets)
• Clean and throw crap out.
• Organize – Found a room full of paperwork. I dug through it all to find old contacts, leases, and appliance info.
• Spreadsheet city! I itemized all the appliances to get an idea of what needs to be replaced next. This helped me plan my finances ahead of time and allowed me to project financial growth. Glad I did it because major repairs were waiting for me down the road.
• Laugh – as I learned more about property management in Cook County, the hits kept coming. But it was wonderful to take all my frustrations out on cleaning, organizing, and painting. There came a day where the original unit I moved into was DONE. The day 4 bedrooms of paint dried a tenet knocked on my door and said they were going to move out in 3 weeks. PERFECT because I didn’t have a copy of this guys lease and he was underpaying. Time to move upstairs and do it all over again. I did.

What I learned

• Be a cool cucumber
• Project financial growth
• Confidence comes when you learn enough to call bullshit when you see it.
• There will always be a to do list.

I’ve had major support/guidance from family and friends. Special shout out to Lindsay who came to my “unpacking party” and “painting party” (when there is too much for me to do, I have a “party”) and to Oscar, a fellow designer/landlord. And my partner in crime, Taylor.

Reach out if you have interest/advice on property management or have a good quarantine story.