You are not wrong — if OP had no control over the situation, it was really not a mistake. If they can't take that in stride, what else is going to set them off?

That kind of situation goes both ways, too. I have had people plan a month of overlap between their new and old place, making that sort of thing a non-issue without putting it on the landlord.

It's not like OP would get a discount if they don't use an agent. 

True — likely not, since it is really not optional. Brokers rep the unit. Only naive Realtors attempt to do it the other way around, and it only works when there is already a commission on the table.

My point was that 1) someone is paying, and 2) there are a number of situations you will end up in because of that — and others you are not likely to find. None are universally bad or good, like larger buildings, or ones run by a management company.

I have never heard of a broker "pestering" an owner or manager in order to get their client a good deal. It may happen, but refer to above how the broker works for the owner/manager, not the applicant.

A sort-of exception are the services like Apartment People that handle the whole process on behalf of both. They have a semi-captive audience of both properties and prospective renters. There are advantages to that kind of setup, which obv depend on the service doing a good job. The guy who started Apartment People was amazing, which was great for everyone. Bob Scholl is only a legend today, so we are left with successors, imitators and wannabees.

Individual owners hire agents all the time, especially in condo buildings.

It's true, plenty do. But they generally fit the same criteria — hands-off owners or investors whose time is too valuable (or simply prefer not) to deal with showings and applicants. This is not necessarily bad or good.

There are a few situations where a broker can be a positive, outside of whatever brokering they do. Condo owners who either 1) have plenty of margin, or 2) don't care about squeezing every nickel will tend to hire agents so they don't have to hassle with showings and applications.

Those are unfortunately indistinguishable from ones who live elsewhere, who can't be bothered, the inexperienced, the 'accidental' — any of which can be troublesome.

They also may or may not have been promised amazing applicants that only an agent can access — leaving you, the new resident, to live up to inflated expectations.

Of course stuff happens — I am not trying to blame you, just painting the bigger picture so you can navigate successfully.

Keep going! Every empty apartment needs a new resident. Stuff happens to other people, too — job transfers and other life changes don't happen on a schedule, so you never know what will come up.

Pro Tip: Since it is past the normal end of rental season, ask about a lease that will end between April and August to get back in. Landlords understand this, so they may be receptive (emphasis on 'may'). If you like the place, you could offer to sign up for more than a year.

It is one way, and a good way.

But there are plenty of others. Like managing costs, competitive bidding, and awarding contracts based on value for money (instead of minority ownership, status, etc.).

It is a bit like dating... the good ones are normally taken, the bad ones are always available.

[you] aren’t going to get a lower rent if you renew the following year even though no commission is getting paid

...so you continue pay more for the place shown by an agent. Kinda underscores my original point.

I also wouldn’t say it costs you anything, it’s part of the landlords cost of doing business. 

You obviously have no idea how money actually works.

they need to stay competitive ... If their rent is 10% higher than everywhere else...

LOL — Have you actually rented an apartment lately? 'Staying competitive' means raising as much as they want, because everyone else is going up even more.

[landlords] don’t have access to the tools that real estate agents have

Actually, yes, we do. Individual landlords can pull credit reports and list on all the rental sites (Zillow, Apartments (dot) com, Zumper, Domu, etc). At least ones who know what they are doing — but there is at least one idiot in every crowd.

Realtors have no magic or secret recipe that property owners cannot access, other than the MLS — which is irrelevant for rentals, unless you *want* to work with a Realtor®.

I have worked with some brokers, and had some work with me (or try). They can be very helpful (for both sides) but I have never seen one do anything worth a $2,000+ commission.

Bottom line, these are all just promises. None are audited (or even auditable). Hopefully the Nous team can provide more transparency than other portals/providers.

The only way to really be sure is to have your own compute — rent or own some GPU hardware.

In Chicago many work for "free"

This is absolutely, completely NOT free.

If the landlord is paying, then they are doing it with *your* money — in the form of higher rent and fees. Owners that hire brokers are generally large, rich and/or corporate. If that is the kind of apartment and landlord you want, go for it.

#3 here is the part we need to change (from the City That Works substack). Maybe #2, but I don't know the details.

1. Thanks to our building code, labor standards, land use rules and other regulatory hurdles, Chicago’s construction costs are among the highest in the country. This impacts both market rate and affordable projects.
2. The Department of Housing layers on a second set of building code requirements that only apply to projects that receive city funding.
3. The Housing Department awards those tax credits in a uniquely opaque manner that appears to reward higher-cost projects.

That is the worst kind of self-sabotage.

Ask "How much is this going to cost?" and maybe "How does this keep happening?"

Start advocating to consider cost in public projects.

Stop voting for politicians who announce how much they spent, instead of how much they built.

And stop downvoting me for pointing out the problem. I support more housing, this is lighting tax dollars on fire to keep warm.

We need positive change, not explanations and excuses.

its a heavy lift that a lot of stakeholders are not very interested in

So we reward them with cash windfalls because there is always more money?

And yes, I am well aware this is the pendulum swing away from lowest bidder contracts. The binary choice is not whether we consider cost in public / affordable projects, it is making excuses vs actually managing our finances and projects.

We must get more than this for our tax dollars.

Developer, builder, supplier. Like I wrote... a lot of money in a lot of pockets.

We have become very focused at delivering better, best — and charging more and more for it. Great for people who want to feel proud of how much they spent.

When that pride comes in announcements like Mayor BJ's — look how much we spent on affordable — it becomes a problem. We need to bring back the concept of value for money. "Look how much we built!" not how much we spent.

YES — We can't keep doing it like this.

edit - for people not reading all the way down:

(From the City That Works substack).

1. Thanks to our building code, labor standards, land use rules and other regulatory hurdles, Chicago’s construction costs are among the highest in the country. This impacts both market rate and affordable projects.
2. The Department of Housing layers on a second set of building code requirements that only apply to projects that receive city funding.
3. The Housing Department awards those tax credits in a uniquely opaque manner that appears to reward higher-cost projects.

#3 is the worst kind of self-sabotage. Why do we put up with this?

$59 Million dollars is a "nothingburger" ???

That's not a solution — that is continuing to make excuses.

requirements and rules which far exceed anything a private developer would dream of doing

Simple solution: Stop doing that.

That sounds a lot like what we used to call "red tape" — government trying to get in the way instead of trying to get things done.

We need to hold projects accountable to get done on time and on budget, instead of just handing out more money. We keep putting up with grifters out to collect as much government money as they can.

*Some* inefficiency is inevitable. It does not have to be this bad.

There are plenty of examples of efficient government. Inefficiency happens because people let it — by making excuses instead of making things better.

And "government" is not doing any building, they are just reviewing projects and allocating funds. That is going to reduce efficiency, but it is manageable. We CAN do better.

edit: for all you people waving your hands that this is un-fixable (and/or hitting downvote). There are specific and solvable problems here. We don't consider the cost of public projects, then when the cost is too high, start saying this can never work. WTF?

From the A City that Works substack:

...the greatest problems with Chicago’s LIHTC costs stem from the way the city decides which projects are funded. Unlike almost every other housing agency, Chicago does not have a standardized scoring system that awards points for cost, quality, and other priorities. Instead, the Qualified Allocation Plan just lists a whole bunch of factors that increase the odds of winning. That makes it easy to direct projects to specific wards, and for the city to avoid confronting the tradeoffs associated with new requirements.10 But developers have no idea what tradeoffs to make.

There are three things that make Chicago’s affordable housing costs uniquely expensive:
1. Thanks to our building code, labor standards, land use rules and other regulatory hurdles, Chicago’s construction costs are among the highest in the country. This impacts both market rate and affordable projects.
2. The Department of Housing layers on a second set of building code requirements that only apply to projects that receive city funding.
3. The Housing Department awards those tax credits in a uniquely opaque manner that appears to reward higher-cost projects.

It's a solid approach, for that reason. Of course there is no perfect solution.

Totally /s there.

This is a massive and ongoing wealth transfer from ordinary taxpayers to developers of all this "affordable" housing. It has to stop.

edit: To be serious for a second, it's true that these projects have additional requirements (what we used to call red tape). Government and non-profits are generally less efficient than for-profit businesses. But c'mon — $600-650k per unit is putting a lot of money in a lot of pockets. We *must* do better.

Every YIMBY cheering "moar affordable housing" needs to see these numbers. It's stupid.

I also hid the fact that I have pets because fuck pet fees

And people want to blame landlords.

House 3: They were rude. Dodged a bullet here.

Sure, there's no good reason for being rude. OP also violated the social contract in renting, though. This is not a hotel — you need to commit to a move date because there is someone else (maybe two or three) who has their shit together and is not going to try and apologize their way out of a $1500 flip-flop.

IOW, OP was being unreasonable to ask for a change that is going to cost 5% of their annual revenue because they can't plan ahead. Inability to plan ahead is a big red flag — this is why the best apartments are rented two months ahead.

Counterpoint:

House 1 - This is a greedy owner, probably an 'accidental' landlord with limited experience, exploring least-effort vs most-profitable. Could work out, but there will certainly be hassles later.

House 2 - A very popular property where they are struggling to deal with the volume of applicants. Yes, it can be like that. Pay to play always sucks, even if the place really is that nice. Brokers on commission are effectively the same thing, btw, just with a friendly face hiding the fee.

House 3 - Definitely a nightmare avoided. Changing your move date costs the prospective landlord $$$$ (apologies won't fix that). You need to know your move date, but there's no excuse for verbal abuse like that.

Volunteer -> Meet people, Work with tools -> Learn.

Want to get involved? There’s room for you!
We have no education or experience requirements. We only ask that you be reliable, kind, and excited about our mission.

Sorry it's not *exactly* the thing you asked for — you might get more out of it than finding a class.

Good to know this is still a thing.

Is there a particular local / oss classifier that you recommend?

Was just looking at the workshop post about it.

Have you checked out Chicago Tool Library?