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Gear Grinding 9: I Need a Wine!

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Remember the proper order to do my job?

My brain: Can't do that.

Remember song lyrics from the 80s?

My brain: JUST A SMALL TOWN GIRL, LIVING IN A LONELY WORLD...
 
It should be against the law to be a host/ in charge holding a virtual professional conference for 400+ people and
-not know how to mute the participants
-not mute yourselves
-not know you can't have multiple devices in the same room and persist despite horrid reverb/squealing and people posting this in chat
-think you are funny because you can't figure any of this out when people have paid $$$ to attend.
-have to listen to or watch people watching the news, eating, clacking away with their mouse, discussing what they want for dinner
-talk over someone presenting an award for professional of the yr and lifetime award to tell us all you have figured out how to screen share
THis has huge continuing ed credits but I might not make it!

Oh, and I forgot the woman who is guzzling the wine down and pouring refills
 
Told my team lead "I have class three nights a week. Can't avoid them, can't reschedule, etc." So far, so good for three weeks. Then she unexpectedly shifted me to evenings and scheduled me on those nights.

Huge red flag. Taking that as a sign I need to get out of there, or at the very least, get away from her and switch departments.
 
I know most of y'all are home owners vs renters, but are income requirements hard lines that can't be negotiated in other parts of the country? Apartment hunting is grinding my gears currently. Thankfully I have an open-ended current situation that I have almost full year to resolve, but this is turning out to be quite a fiasco.

In my area of Chicago any halfway decent place requires your take home pay to be 3-4x the monthly rent. So for a $1,200/month apartment they want your TAKE HOME to be from $43,200 to $57,600. I would really like to know where all the single men/women that rent these places work, cause apparently everyone works a job that pays $60-70k/year. I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white, but it's frustrating as someone who makes a "livable" wage (well what seemed to be a livable wage for the past few years) and has 3 years and counting at my current place without a blemish on my record. Also many of these places are heavily dated to the 1980s/90s and aren't spectacular in any form.

The common reply seems to be that there are multiple people on every lease. Unfortunately I don't have a significant other living with me and Im not getting a roommate in a 1BR.

In my area there is a pretty clear line of demarcation between "good" and "bad" areas, with income requirements being dropped and rent being sub-$1000 in the latter.

I'll be honest in that getting a mortgage scares the crap out of me and that I don't move far out of the "bad" areas with the $150k-ish mortgage that I would be able to afford.


I suppose its my reckoning as an adult, but its still frustrating to deal with, especially after spending the last 5 years actually building up a meager savings and getting rid of debt. Doing all that and being told "You're not good enough".
 
RaceBoarder said:
I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white
Click to expand...
Nailed it. They're not allowed to discriminate based on race, but income is not a federally protected class.

Just curious - what does "take home" actually mean? Gross minus Income Tax? Gross minus income tax and other monthly loan payments? If you're competing with someone else with identical incomes, but you own your car and he has a big loan on his 2021 Camaro, it seems like you should still come out the winner.
 
RaceBoarder said:
I know most of y'all are home owners vs renters, but are income requirements hard lines that can't be negotiated in other parts of the country? Apartment hunting is grinding my gears currently. Thankfully I have an open-ended current situation that I have almost full year to resolve, but this is turning out to be quite a fiasco.

In my area of Chicago any halfway decent place requires your take home pay to be 3-4x the monthly rent. So for a $1,200/month apartment they want your TAKE HOME to be from $43,200 to $57,600. I would really like to know where all the single men/women that rent these places work, cause apparently everyone works a job that pays $60-70k/year. I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white, but it's frustrating as someone who makes a "livable" wage (well what seemed to be a livable wage for the past few years) and has 3 years and counting at my current place without a blemish on my record. Also many of these places are heavily dated to the 1980s/90s and aren't spectacular in any form.

The common reply seems to be that there are multiple people on every lease. Unfortunately I don't have a significant other living with me and Im not getting a roommate in a 1BR.

In my area there is a pretty clear line of demarcation between "good" and "bad" areas, with income requirements being dropped and rent being sub-$1000 in the latter.
Click to expand...

The best treatment of the racist Chicago housing demarcation is, and I swear I am not kidding, Candyman.
 
RaceBoarder said:
I know most of y'all are home owners vs renters, but are income requirements hard lines that can't be negotiated in other parts of the country? Apartment hunting is grinding my gears currently. Thankfully I have an open-ended current situation that I have almost full year to resolve, but this is turning out to be quite a fiasco.

In my area of Chicago any halfway decent place requires your take home pay to be 3-4x the monthly rent. So for a $1,200/month apartment they want your TAKE HOME to be from $43,200 to $57,600. I would really like to know where all the single men/women that rent these places work, cause apparently everyone works a job that pays $60-70k/year. I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white, but it's frustrating as someone who makes a "livable" wage (well what seemed to be a livable wage for the past few years) and has 3 years and counting at my current place without a blemish on my record. Also many of these places are heavily dated to the 1980s/90s and aren't spectacular in any form.

The common reply seems to be that there are multiple people on every lease. Unfortunately I don't have a significant other living with me and Im not getting a roommate in a 1BR.

In my area there is a pretty clear line of demarcation between "good" and "bad" areas, with income requirements being dropped and rent being sub-$1000 in the latter.

I'll be honest in that getting a mortgage scares the crap out of me and that I don't move far out of the "bad" areas with the $150k-ish mortgage that I would be able to afford.


I suppose its my reckoning as an adult, but its still frustrating to deal with, especially after spending the last 5 years actually building up a meager savings and getting rid of debt. Doing all that and being told "You're not good enough".
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any rules or regulations that require a landlord to insist on a certain level of income before renting to that person, so you are undoubtedly correct in assuming these "rules" are put in place to, at a minimum, make it relatively certain they'll be able to collect their rent, with probably some sort of underlying effort to limit the encroachment of certain "classes" of people.

I think you should really look at the mortgage route, if you can swing it. First, use your money to build something for yourself, not some corporate landlord. Second, money is cheap right now. It sounds like you've never owned before, so there may be a ton of programs and options out there for you. Check out the FHA first time home buyers program. They don't require much down. A lot of states have first time home buyer assistance for residents. Even organizations like the United States Department of Agriculture has a program, although if you're living in Chicago that may not be an option (it doesn't require you to live on a farm, though).

If you can swing $1200/month, you can get a mortgage. Find a home in an area that may be a bit "rough" but is starting to see some improvement (or has been targeted by the local government for improvement), buy it and put some improvements into it when you can. It'll give you your start.
 
RaceBoarder said:
I know most of y'all are home owners vs renters, but are income requirements hard lines that can't be negotiated in other parts of the country? Apartment hunting is grinding my gears currently. Thankfully I have an open-ended current situation that I have almost full year to resolve, but this is turning out to be quite a fiasco.

In my area of Chicago any halfway decent place requires your take home pay to be 3-4x the monthly rent. So for a $1,200/month apartment they want your TAKE HOME to be from $43,200 to $57,600. I would really like to know where all the single men/women that rent these places work, cause apparently everyone works a job that pays $60-70k/year. I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white, but it's frustrating as someone who makes a "livable" wage (well what seemed to be a livable wage for the past few years) and has 3 years and counting at my current place without a blemish on my record. Also many of these places are heavily dated to the 1980s/90s and aren't spectacular in any form.

The common reply seems to be that there are multiple people on every lease. Unfortunately I don't have a significant other living with me and Im not getting a roommate in a 1BR.

In my area there is a pretty clear line of demarcation between "good" and "bad" areas, with income requirements being dropped and rent being sub-$1000 in the latter.

I'll be honest in that getting a mortgage scares the crap out of me and that I don't move far out of the "bad" areas with the $150k-ish mortgage that I would be able to afford.


I suppose its my reckoning as an adult, but its still frustrating to deal with, especially after spending the last 5 years actually building up a meager savings and getting rid of debt. Doing all that and being told "You're not good enough".
Click to expand...

The rental market is totally fucked up. It's a totally different world here in Maine vs Chicago, but even in Portland where the real estate market has been red hot for a while now, I don't know of places that have hard income requirements. It's generally on you to decide if you can afford the place. If you can't, there is a line of 100 people that would happily rent it the second you get evicted.

Where I live (an island just off the main land), long term rentals are unicorns. Everything's turned into an Air B&B. It's a pretty big problem because not everyone wants to / can buy (and even if they can, it's not like a young single professional that isn't sure they'll settle down here really wants to buy a half million dollar house) -- and my employer is fairly large and recruits globally. My company has had to rent out a bunch of newly constructed apartments in the next town over so it can hold them for new hires. We've also been buying up houses and apartment complexes that surround our campus, and we're about to start construction on 50 new apartments. My company doesn't want to be in the business of being a landlord, but it's now necessary to even be able to recruit.
 
LynahFan said:
Nailed it. They're not allowed to discriminate based on race, but income is not a federally protected class.

Just curious - what does "take home" actually mean? Gross minus Income Tax? Gross minus income tax and other monthly loan payments? If you're competing with someone else with identical incomes, but you own your car and he has a big loan on his 2021 Camaro, it seems like you should still come out the winner.
Click to expand...

From what I can tell, they are just looking at what goes into your bank account after Taxes/Benefits/etc. ("Net" pay would be another term used). Every place requires a credit check too so it kinda shows what you are talking about. But it all comes down to your actual income as I have been denied based on that and that alone, before I ever submit the application fee and fees for background and credit checks. I guess I should mention that most places will have a "pre-application" that you fill out with contact info, references, and basic income before you need to fill out the application that you pay for. I'm struggling to get past that 1st step.

And I agree with you on the overall outlook. I know for the most part I'm currently on stable financial ground as I have just a small amount of student debt that Im sitting on cause it might get forgiven (and even if its not it will literally be paid in a single payment once it goes back "live"). I own my car and have my credit card balance at $0. I also have the best credit score once could have without a mortgage/car loan on it (750-ish). It's just another case of being a "millennial".

I get that there are scammers out there and landlords need to cover their asses, but it's definitely questionable (but legal) means to discriminate.
 
BassAle said:
The rental market is totally fucked up. It's a totally different world here in Maine vs Chicago, but even in Portland where the real estate market has been red hot for a while now, I don't know of places that have hard income requirements. It's generally on you to decide if you can afford the place. If you can't, there is a line of 100 people that would happily rent it the second you get evicted.

Where I live (an island just off the main land), long term rentals are unicorns. Everything's turned into an Air B&B. It's a pretty big problem because not everyone wants to / can buy (and even if they can, it's not like a young single professional that isn't sure they'll settle down here really wants to buy a half million dollar house) -- and my employer is fairly large and recruits globally. My company has had to rent out a bunch of newly constructed apartments in the next town over so it can hold them for new hires. We've also been buying up houses and apartment complexes that surround our campus, and we're about to start construction on 50 new apartments. My company doesn't want to be in the business of being a landlord, but it's now necessary to even be able to recruit.
Click to expand...

I know the Air BnB problem is a thing in Marquette, MI around NMU's campus and in other parts of the country (ski towns).

I get that the market is good, but are there really that many applicants making $60k+ that want to live in dated, not spectacular apartments? It seems that they just turn people aside at will with the pre-applications and pick their 2-3 favorites for a showing and serious talk. Here's a representative listing:

$1,070/month

And even that apartment has two things going for it: It's been updated, and the location is really "out there" on the border of Metro Chicago and farmland.

But that's basically what 70% of the apartments around here look like.
 
The rental market isn't going to get any better, imho. It's just so, so expensive to build right now that it's impossible to build apartments and not charge anything but high "market" rates. Material costs are through the roof. Cities are strapped economically, and they see development fees and planning fees and permits, etc..., as an opportunity to help out on the budget. It's a bad problem.
 
SJHovey said:
The rental market isn't going to get any better, imho. It's just so, so expensive to build right now that it's impossible to build apartments and not charge anything but high "market" rates. Material costs are through the roof. Cities are strapped economically, and they see development fees and planning fees and permits, etc..., as an opportunity to help out on the budget. It's a bad problem.
Click to expand...

That's exactly the reason Im being pushed out. My rent started out four years ago at $900. 13 months into the lease, the previous owners, who were a retired construction worker and his wife, sold the property and bailed to warmer weather. Really nice folks (traded 1/2 months' rent for about 8-10 hours of simple maintenance/clean up work on our property and three others they owned two separate times, took issues/concerns to heart, and just had an approachable and good vibe about them). But they were retired and wanted to cash out. They sold to an actual property management company.

The management company has made no qualms about their intent to turn our building into "luxury condos" and have stated that our units need to be at $1350/month to meet their goals. They have steadily increased rent to meet that and we've reached a tipping point. I'm currently paying $1150/month with an increase to $1250 next year and $1350 after that. They want to gut the apartments and make them "luxury" so they are basically forcing current tenants out. They will increase the rent until we leave, when they will then do the update. If we don't leave, they make out better cause they get their monetary goal without any investment. So it's win/win on their end.

I will be fair in that they are giving me an open ended lease currently where I can leave with 30 days notice and terminate things with no additional cost. Otherwise the lease will run till next March. Again, this is just playing to their endgame. The sooner Im out they can get their investment done and recouping costs.

So thats the deal.
 
RaceBoarder said:
That's exactly the reason Im being pushed out. My rent started out four years ago at $900. 13 months into the lease, the previous owners, who were a retired construction worker and his wife, sold the property and bailed to warmer weather. Really nice folks (traded 1/2 months' rent for about 8-10 hours of simple maintenance/clean up work on our property and three others they owned two separate times, took issues/concerns to heart, and just had an approachable and good vibe about them). But they were retired and wanted to cash out. They sold to an actual property management company.

The management company has made no qualms about their intent to turn our building into "luxury condos" and have stated that our units need to be at $1350/month to meet their goals. They have steadily increased rent to meet that and we've reached a tipping point. I'm currently paying $1150/month with an increase to $1250 next year and $1350 after that. They want to gut the apartments and make them "luxury" so they are basically forcing current tenants out. They will increase the rent until we leave, when they will then do the update. If we don't leave, they make out better cause they get their monetary goal without any investment. So it's win/win on their end.

I will be fair in that they are giving me an open ended lease currently where I can leave with 30 days notice and terminate things with no additional cost. Otherwise the lease will run till next March. Again, this is just playing to their endgame. The sooner Im out they can get their investment done and recouping costs.

So thats the deal.
Click to expand...

Developers are a quarter-step down from the fraudsters on Wall Street.
 
Last time I was in Chicago (proper not some town 15 miles away people still call Chicago) we took a river tour and the guide mocked "luxury condos" every 12 seconds. It seems the city wants everything to be luxury condos these days.

I used to be a big advocate of renting, but until the rental crash hits (and that will be a few years) it is smarter for about a million reasons to get a mortgage. I dunno where you want to live in Chicago but I bet you could get something reasonable and the bank will bend over backwards to give you the money at a decent rate. Since you have a high credit rating and almost no loan debt your debt/income ratio should get you everything you want and then some.

Just be smart, they will try to give you too much and they will mess around with all sorts of crap on the rates especially if they start super low. If you know someone who can help (a finance person or banker) have them read over everything.

Where you looking to live? My girlfriend knows Chicago quite well (has lots of relatives there) so I can see if she has any advice. She would tell you not to rent too ;^) (as would her banker parents who lived in...Chicago!)
 
Handyman said:
I used to be a big advocate of renting, but until the rental crash hits (and that will be a few years) it is smarter for about a million reasons to get a mortgage. I dunno where you want to live in Chicago but I bet you could get something reasonable and the bank will bend over backwards to give you the money at a decent rate. Since you have a high credit rating and almost no loan debt your debt/income ratio should get you everything you want and then some.

Just be smart, they will try to give you too much and they will mess around with all sorts of crap on the rates especially if they start super low. If you know someone who can help (a finance person or banker) have them read over everything.
Click to expand...

Get pre-qualified by a credit union before you start hunting. They take a little longer to process their applications, but you'll generally get a better rate than you would from one of the big boys or a borderline predatory lender like Quicken, and they're less likely to approve you for more house than you can reasonably afford.
 
Yeah that is sound advice. Though keep it down the GF's parents worked for WF and USBank back in the day! ;^)
 
RaceBoarder said:
I know most of y'all are home owners vs renters, but are income requirements hard lines that can't be negotiated in other parts of the country? Apartment hunting is grinding my gears currently. Thankfully I have an open-ended current situation that I have almost full year to resolve, but this is turning out to be quite a fiasco.

In my area of Chicago any halfway decent place requires your take home pay to be 3-4x the monthly rent. So for a $1,200/month apartment they want your TAKE HOME to be from $43,200 to $57,600. I would really like to know where all the single men/women that rent these places work, cause apparently everyone works a job that pays $60-70k/year. I get that this is to keep these places Lilly white, but it's frustrating as someone who makes a "livable" wage (well what seemed to be a livable wage for the past few years) and has 3 years and counting at my current place without a blemish on my record. Also many of these places are heavily dated to the 1980s/90s and aren't spectacular in any form.

The common reply seems to be that there are multiple people on every lease. Unfortunately I don't have a significant other living with me and Im not getting a roommate in a 1BR.

In my area there is a pretty clear line of demarcation between "good" and "bad" areas, with income requirements being dropped and rent being sub-$1000 in the latter.

I'll be honest in that getting a mortgage scares the crap out of me and that I don't move far out of the "bad" areas with the $150k-ish mortgage that I would be able to afford.


I suppose its my reckoning as an adult, but its still frustrating to deal with, especially after spending the last 5 years actually building up a meager savings and getting rid of debt. Doing all that and being told "You're not good enough".
Click to expand...

I'm a renter who is about to become a homeowner. My experience renting in Metro Detroit for the last several years is that individual landlords are more flexible with income requirements than property management companies (whom I have flat out refused to rent property from) and are generally much better with staying on top of maintenance. However with certain "hot" suburbs where all the young professionals are, all available rentals will have dozens of applicants to pick from so it doesn't really matter what the listing says.
 
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