Chicago Property Management Blog

We handle close to 500 lease transactions a year across about 1,500 units in Chicagoland, and every one of them starts with screening. Credit is usually the first thing an owner asks about. It shows how an applicant handles their obligations, whether there are collections or a prior landlord judgment, and whether the rent fits on top of what they already owe each month.Pulling the report is easy. Pulling it the right way in Illinois tak...

This week Tim and I got into some of the heating issues landlords deal with every year, especially in older Chicago buildings. We also answered a good listener question about when a 1031 exchange actually makes sense, and wrapped up with the latest PRO update from City Hall.Chicago Heating IssuesHeating season always exposes problems that were easy to ignore during the summer.One of the biggest challenges is boiler buildings.Boilers can...

The security deposit is the smallest number in your lease and the one most likely to land you in court. I have been managing rentals in Chicagoland since 2003, and our team at GC Realty now oversees roughly 1,500 units across more than 100 municipalities. The pattern never changes. Owners rarely get sued over rent. They get sued over a $1,200 deposit they held a week too long or a paint charge they could not back up with a receipt.Illin...

Week 37 of Chicago Landlord Secrets brought another update on Chicago’s proposed rental law changes, but once again the biggest development was that there was no final vote.Tim and I also got into a topic that comes up constantly with owners: treating a rental property like a real business. That means budgeting for maintenance, planning ahead for major repairs, and understanding that cash flow is only one way real estate creates w...

Elgin is one of the most active rental licensing towns in the western suburbs, and it doesn't leave much room for owners who learn the rules after a tenant moves in. At GC Realty we manage 30+ rental units in Elgin today, and we've taken hundreds of properties through the city's licensing and inspection process over the years.If you're converting the home you used to live in or buying your first rental in Elgin, this is ...

It rains hard in Chicago for two hours. The storm sewers can't keep up, water comes up through the floor drain in the garden unit, sits there for an hour, and goes back down. By morning the floor is damp and the tenant has a few wet boxes.Now the landlord has a question. Do I have to put that on the flood disclosure?We get versions of that question constantly from owners, realtors, and even other property managers. The Illinois floo...

With everything going on in Chicago housing provider news these days, the phrase "Chicago rights ordinance" gets tossed around constantly. But the real meaning of that name points to the 2013 Tenants' Rights Ordinance, which is a completely different animal from the RLTO and from any of the proposals being fought over right now in City Hall.I've been operating in this market since 2003, and I still watch people confuse...

Chicago is about to rewrite the rules for every landlord in the city, and most owners I talk to have no idea how close it is. Two competing proposals to overhaul the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, the RLTO, have already cleared City Council committees. A full vote was on the table this week before it got pushed to later this fall. If you own rental property in Chicago, you are at risk of new fees, new paperwork, new limits o...

Every lease is a contract, and every contract has terms both sides agreed to follow. When a tenant breaks one of those terms, that's a lease violation. The tricky part for Illinois landlords isn't spotting bad behavior. It's knowing which violations are backed by state law, which fall under a local ordinance like the Chicago RLTO or the Cook County RTLO, and which ones simply live in the lease itself. Mix that up and yo...

Every Fall leasing traffic falls off a cliff. If you're not leased up before that happens, your vacancy can run into November.The real fix is getting everything leased before Labor Day. If you didn't, you're in this window now, September 15 through November 1. Activity usually picks up for about a week after Labor Day, then drops off. That's what happened in 2025. It's happening again in 2026. This is not new, and it...