Erica Fischer will soon pack up her Lakeview apartment and move across town for the sixth time in four years.
With stays in Evanston, Lakeview and downtown, the 22-year-old professional cook has made changing addresses something of a backbreaking rite of summer. And while she might not embrace the nomadic lifestyle, Fischer accepts the unsettled period in her life with optimism.
“It’s kind of like starting over just a little bit but not completely redoing your life,” she said. “It’s exciting to move into a place and be like, ‘This is how it was before, but I’m going to rearrange everything and make it my own.’ “
Fischer might be a chronic mover, but anecdotal and statistical data suggest she hardly is alone.
As summer moving season gets under way, hordes of Chicago’s young, single professionals will hit the road in search of better digs, nicer neighborhoods, cheaper rents and more compatible roommates.
Rachel Franklin, the deputy director of the Association of American Geographers, told RedEye that demographers have even developed an informal nickname for the apartment-hopping segment of the population: “The Young and the Restless.”
The practice is so widespread among the upwardly mobile, fresh-out-of-college crowd, in fact, that Franklin generated a report about the mass movers when she worked for the Census Bureau in 2003.
About three-quarters of single, college-educated Americans ages 25 to 39 reported moving at least once from 1995 to 2000, according to Franklin’s report. That’s well in excess of the general population’s 46 percent move rate.
Single Americans ages 25 to 39 who did not hold college degrees also reported a greater frequency of moves, with roughly 63 percent relocating from 1995 to 2000.
“My generation, people change jobs a lot,” said Andrea Miller, 27, a marketing assistant for Apartment People, a Chicago-based apartment location firm that is gearing up for the summer rush. “They’re always striving to be better. Never satisfied.”
Miller is no exception. In her three years in Chicago, she has lived in four apartments, moving to escape noisy “L” tracks, nightmare roommates and neighborhoods that had grown stale for her. Before that, Miller lived in eight rentals over six years in Milwaukee.
The constant moving can be stressful, Miller said, but it’s a normal phase of life among her circle of friends.
“It can get annoying not being settled in one place for a long period of time,” said Miller, who moved from Lakeview to Lincoln Square in December. “If I didn’t have to [move], I wouldn’t.”
Chicago’s landlords also would prefer stability among their tenants.
Frank Campise, who owns a handful of North Side apartment buildings, estimated he spends roughly $400 for cleaning and maintenance each time a renter leaves, plus a month’s rent to list the empty space with an apartment rental agency.
“I try to give [tenants] the absolute best customer service I can give them,” said Campise, 40. “If they’re happy with where they live, hopefully the aggravation of moving, combined with customer service, maybe they decide to stay a little longer.”
When the market is especially tight, Campise said, some landlords will entice their tenants to stay put with a free month of rent or other gifts, including flat-screen TVs.
Uber mover Amber Bel’cher, 30, recently took the unprecedented step of extending the lease on the Lincoln Square apartment she shares with her husband.
The commitment might not sound like much, but it’s a big deal for a woman who has moved every year of her life since she turned 18.
The average American moves a dozen times in a lifetime, according to the Census Bureau; Bel’cher did that in just more than a decade. Not that she’s complaining.
“I’m so good at it now, it’s kind of insane,” the theater administrator said.
Bel’cher and her husband enjoyed their time in Lakeview, but they now find Lincoln Square to be a better fit for their personalities.
“This is more where we are now,” she said. “It’s more laid-back and quiet. We were over that stage of our lives where we were out all of the time and screaming and yelling in the streets.”
But as her life continues to evolve, Bel’cher said she isn’t committed to staying in her Lincoln Square apartment beyond 2009.
“That’s just not what I typically do,” she said.
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There goes the neighbor…
The Chicago real estate experts who spoke with RedEye said there is a predictability to moving patterns among younger residents in the city that largely is tied to income and the change in personal values that comes with age.
Recent college graduates tend to start in Lakeview, Lincoln Park or Bucktown because of the neighborhoods’ proximity to bars and clubs, several Chicago landlords and rental agencies told RedEye. Then after a few years, those grads migrate north or west to neighborhoods such as Logan Square, Andersonville and Lincoln Square to find calmer ‘hoods, cheaper rents, more living space or starter condominiums.
