Before World War II and the decade that followed, renters often stayed in their apartments for years at a time. Like Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel, or the Honeymooners, apartment dwellers got to know their neighbors and landlords nearly as well as their families.
After the war, apartment dwelling dropped in popularity as families moved into the suburbs, and renting began to seem like a brief aberration on the route to the permanency of homeownership.
Now, however, higher home costs and the amenities of renting are prompting some people to opt for long-term rental again, say building managers and rental agents.
High mortgage costs are one reason, but the charms of their neighborhood and hassle-free maintenance paid for by the landlord are also influencing people in the Chicago area to stay in the same apartments a little longer than the national average.
Area Realtors say it`s not unusual for people to stay in the same apartment or more than five years, although long-term leases are still unusual. The trend toward long-term apartment dwelling has never returned to its pre-World War II popularity, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors, but it may be gaining some ground.
”There are lots of people who stay for long periods,” says Jim Watts of the Habitat Co., a Chicago apartment management company. ”In some of our buildings, we`ve had people stay for 20 years.”
Long-term kind of town
In general, Chicago area renters stay in their apartments longer than people in other regions of the country, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Apartment Association, a non-profit trade association that represents owners, developers, management companies, investors and lenders to the multi-family housing industry. That organization`s figures indicate that the annual turnover rate in apartment buildings without elevators is 54 percent in the Chicago area, compared to 65 percent for the nation as a whole. The reasons for this are unclear to the organization that detected the trend, but one Chicago-area residential housing consultant believes it may have something to do with the city`s higher proportion of ethnic groups.
”Some ethnic communities do have a higher propensity to rent than to buy,” said consultant Tracy Cross.
There is also a trend developing among the managers of new downtown-area luxury apartment buildings, such as River City and the ParkShore, to offer first-time renters long-term leases, some lasting up to 26 months.
There are benefits in such leases for both sides. Managers use the special offers of fixed rents to help fill vacant apartments in new buildings, while renters get the advantage of stability and a locked-in rent for the next two years.
Long-term leases being offered in the Chicago area today are coming mainly from managers of new luxury or high-end apartment developments. The long-term leases are being offered as incentives in what`s being described as a buyers` market, and they generally assure renters that their rents will stay lower than if they had short-term leases, managers say.
A renter`s market
Michael Parke, chairman of Omnibus Harbor Realty Group, which manages more than 20,000 units in Chicago, says such long-term leases are being used to lure more sophisticated and mobile renters to stay in one place for a longer time.
”It`s a buyers` or renters` market right now,” Parke says. ”People seem to be looking for longer term leases, to stabilize things.”
Parke recounted his personal experience of an era when people stayed in the same apartment for years.
”When I was a kid, my parents lived in the same couple of apartments for years,” he says. ”There wasn`t a lot of moving around. Now, people are more readily able to move. It`s a much more fluid group of people, and people are also shopping very carefully to get the best buy.”
Parke says there may be a slight trend back toward the living habits of his parents` generation. A sign of this change is that Omnibus has been seeing in some buildings a tendency for tenants to do their own major improvements.
”People seem to be fixing up their apartments to a greater extent,”
Parke says. ”They are saying, `I don`t want to move around, I want a home and a little permanency.` ”
In some cases, the decision to rent long-term is being forced by the exigencies of the economy and a housing market that`s left some middle-income people behind. Many people choose to rent and stay put in neighborhoods or buildings that they could not afford to buy in.
Paul Connor, North Central College football coach, has lived in the same apartment in a multi-unit building in Naperville for seven years, mainly because he can`t afford to buy in Naperville.
”I get no special benefits from the landlord,” he says. ”But I`m a creature of habit. Once I settle in, I probably overlook a lot of long-range practicalities just to have the convenience of knowing where I`ll be throwing my hat.”
Connor says that if he gets married, he will most likely buy a house.
”If I had the funding now, I would probably be more apt to go out and make a purchase.”
Chicago executive recruiter David Dolmon is married and the father of a two-year-old child. He and his wife Jan both work, and last year they looked for a home but couldn`t find one within their price range. So they have decided to rent in a luxury apartment building in Hyde Park. They plan to stay in their apartment, with its nine-foot ceilings and view of Lake Michigan, for the foreseeable future.
”The biggest advantage to me is that we don`t have $20,000 to $30,000 tied up in a down payment,” Dolmon says. ”For us to buy the equivalent of what we are renting, we`d have substantially more money than that tied up.”
Converted renters
Some long-term renters are former homeowners who`ve switched back to renting. Brian Montgomery, a marketing executive with the Illinois Institute of Technology, says he`s lived in his Streeterville high-rise apartment for three years, and he plans to stay there. Montgomery was a homeowner, but moved back to apartment living after a divorce. He says he plans to continue renting, mainly because he likes his neighborhood.
”It looks as if I`ll do this for awhile,” he says. ”I really enjoy the area and the size of this apartment and to get what I have in a condo . . . would cost a lot.”
Montgomery is content where he is, but he also thinks his landlord ought to give some special considerations to long-term renters like him, instead of always offering a standard year-to-year lease.
”I know there are apartment buildings down here offering special incentives for people who stay put,” he says. ”But here, it`s just sign on the dotted line and that`s it. So that is kind of frustrating for someone who plans to stay.”
Some downtown apartment buildings are catching on to this desire, and using it effectively to keep tenants put. River City manager Charlene O`Connell says she often does long-term deals with the ”quality tenants” at the upscale complex.
”We have such a wonderful quality of resident here,” she says.
”Increasing the rent every year is not offset by having apartments not rented. These people come in and put down parquet floors, marble floors, custom wallpaper. They prefer to rent because they don`t want upkeep hassles. They want somebody to change lightbulbs and carry groceries upstairs.”
Staying put
O`Connell believes ”staying put is coming back.” The factors influencing her tenants to stay tend to be service and location.
One family at River City was just given a special deal to rent two apartments side by side and knock a wall out between them, in order to create one giant unit, O`Connell says. That family intends to remain for a long time. But Chicago is full of average-income people who simply prefer to rent because they like their homes and communities.
Dolores Withers, who works for the Chicago public school system, has lived in the same apartment on Chicago`s South Side since 1975. A widow, Withers at one time considered buying a townhouse, but felt the prospective place was too large and lonely.
Withers says she`s stayed put for a number of reasons. She likes her proximity to downtown stores and hospitals, the size of her apartment, and its security. ”I don`t have yardwork to do, and they keep the grounds beautiful,” she says. ”I have the beauty of flowers without the trouble. It`s just lovely living.”
Withers says she also treasures the sense of community she gets from her apartment complex. Several of her friends have left the apartment complex, and they regret it because they were unable to find apartments with rooms quite as large and there was no sense of community.
”Here, my neighbor knows me and I know my neighbor,” Withers says. ”We don`t meddle but if I got sick, I wouldn`t worry. My neighbors come to my rescue. If I cook something, I carry it to my neighbor. One neighbor has my key and I have her key.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some long-term renters keep their apartments because they are so rarely home that community means almost nothing to them.
Pied-a-terre
Chicago photographer David Maena spends months at a time traveling around the globe. When he`s home, he has unpacked his luggage at the same Rush Street area studio apartment for the last 17 years. Since he moved in, the rent has risen from $225 a month to $625, but he has no plans to buy.
”What made me rent it first was the view of the lake,” he says. ”I also liked the proximity to Rush Street and being close to the beach. Now, I like the convenience and the protection of the doorman.”
Maena says his traveling lifestyle would have made it impossible for him to deal with the maintenance requirements of home or condo ownership. In addition, he never wanted to make such commitment.
”They started selling condos in this building six or seven years ago, but I didn`t get in on the condo craze mainly because I can`t see past my camera. I need flexibility. I always think maybe I`ll be ending up in Costa Rica for a year.”
