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Originally Posted by migueltorres
A friend of mine just found a 1 BR apartment on Edgewater 2 blocks from the lakefront for $800. Not fancy but livable. Deals are still out there if you look for them
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I have an entire building that is half outdated 2bd/1ba apartments leased at 475/mo and half updated 2bd/1ba apartments leased at $825/mo two blocks from a Pink Line Station in Little Village. Anyone who tells you there is no affordable housing in Chicago either has no idea what they are talking about or is just lying through their teeth. I am acquiring another six unit on the freaking boulevard that is all leased out at between $450 and $550/unit for 2 and 3 bd apartments. Again in Little Village only a couple of blocks from the train. Of course I'm planning on doubling the rents there and renovating, but even then, $1000 for a newly renovated 2 BD apartment with large bedrooms looking out onto the bolevard? Even your destitute $1000/mo fixed income case can afford that if they find a roommate.
Speaking of roommates, I own a bunch of buildings in Avondale and Logan Square where the tenants are almost exclusively on a fixed income or illegal Polish immigrants and they pay $500 to $700 a month for two bedroom apartments. The living conditions aren't the greatest so I'm going to have to renovate and, oh no!,
gentrify the buildings. But at some point someone is going to have to do it or the buildings are going to fall into such a state of disrepair that it won't be healthy or safe to live there. But that's how you get affordable housing, it's a temporary state buildings fall into between the improvements becoming functionally obsolete to the luxury or upper middle class segment and the improvements falling into unsafe or unhealthy disrepair. This is inherently a temporary condition that can only exist for so long. No one is going to renovate a building into a functionally obsolete state, but all buildings eventually mature into that condition and are either renovated or the rents are lowered. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with older apartments that rely on space heaters and still have clawfoot tubs that were built into the wall as if it were a new tub at some point in the 1960's, but eventually those kinds of conditions become untenable and the tenants must move on and the building must be gutted, for everyone's sake.
There is plenty of affordable housing in this city, it's just not located next to the latest hip cocktail bar so the hipsters are convinced it doesn't exist. The fact of the matter is that I have a 2 bed 1 bath apartment located at 25th and Western in a building a manage for rent at $800 RIGHT NOW. It's in Good condition too, new laminate floors, newer cabinets and kitchen, decently updated bathroom, forced air heat. Like literally, anyone here who is lamenting the lack of affordable housing, just PM me and I will get you into a decent place within a month or two.