The analogy has been used before: When you buy a home, it`s like getting married. You sign a piece of paper and make a serious commitment, and then you start shelling out the bucks.
So what is renting an apartment analogous to then? Dating? You find each other, enjoy it while it`s fun and convenient, but move on when things have run their course.
Perhaps for some. But many apartment dwellers these days are taking the relationship between renter and rental unit a step further by investing time, money and effort into sprucing up their non-permanent residence. It`s not quite marriage; it`s more like cohabitation.
”It used to be that you`d mention the word `home` and people would conjure up these visions of picket fences in the suburbs or at least a condominium,” says one North Side real estate broker. ”But that`s changing. Rents are really reasonable these days, and the home market isn`t as steady as everyone would like. So people who live in apartments are staying put, and they`re sinking more time into making their apartment like a home.”
If you`re considering becoming one those committed apartment dwellers, a rental resident who`s intent on making your leased quarters into more of a home, what can you do?
Reversible alteration
Most landlords will allow you to decorate your apartment as long as it won`t do any irreversible damage. That may mean painting or wallpapering or even carpeting. But before you do anything, there are a few things to consider:
Lease clauses prohibiting tenants from making alterations or installing major appliances without landlord permission are generally enforceable, according to the ”Tenant-Landlord Handbook,” available for $9.95 from the Chicago Council of Lawyers (call 427-0710). The advice given in the helpful book is clear: Get your landlord`s permission in writing before making any alterations or additions.
And if the landlord isn`t quite keeping the building up to an acceptable standard of living, Chicago residents may be able to ”repair and deduct”
under the city`s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance.
The repair and deduct remedy allows tenants to make repairs of up to $200 or one-fourth of the monthly rent (whichever is greater) and deduct the cost from the rent. Tenants cannot, however, charge landlords for decorating or for correcting problems with their apartment they accepted when they signed the lease.
But most landlords will allow some sort of ”home improvement” work to be done in a tenant`s unit.
Reason to stay
”We allow tenants to improve their units in virtually any way they want because it does tie them to the unit and encourage them to stay on,” says Arthur Goldner, president or Arthur Goldner & Associates Inc., a real estate firm with approximately 3,000 rental units under its supervision. Goldner`s primary limitation for tenant decorating is one shared by many landlords:
nothing should be irreversible.
”If they want to put up a nice light fixture or wallpaper or decorate a child`s room in a tasteful way, we certainly welcome it,” he says. ”But if you have an artist who wants to paint the whole apartment black because he has an avant-garde sense of humor, we don`t allow it.”
Another of Goldner`s requirements for decorating tasks is that all work, especially painting and wallpapering, should be done by professionals and not the tenants themselves.
If you want to do extensive redecorating in your apartment, be prepared to negotiate expenses with the landlord. Think like the landlord, and you`ll be more likely to increase the budget for making improvements.
2-year leasehold
The first item landlords often look for is longevity of lease, which can mean a two- or three-year commitment. More often, though, the lessor is more interested in a tenant`s past than his future.
That means that during the first two years you`re in an apartment, a landlord generally will not be willing to make improvements. If you`re there longer, landlords (usually) consider repainting and carpet cleaning every two to three years to prevent serious maintenance problems from neglect, according to ”The Landlord`s Handbook,” published by Dearborn Financial Press.
After the busy May 1 or Oct. 1 renting season, if the landlord has a substantial number of empty units, he may be more willing to give you a better budget for redecorating if you`re willing to renegotiate a longer lease-usually two years, minimum-says one landlord.
At North Pier Apartment Tower, management has taken the notion of tenant redecorating a step further with 26 customized apartments, which rent for $3,300 to $3,600 and provide tenants with numerous options for tailoring the unit to their personal whims. Tenants for these units must sign at least a two-year lease.
The half-dozen tenants who leased custom apartments early on were restricted only by the location of ”wet columns,” which house plumbing fixtures and dictate the placement of bathrooms and kitchens, as well as duct work. Other than that, says Dona Laketek, marketing director for Broadacre Management Co., which runs North Pier, ”people could literally put walls where they wanted to.”
”People have changed their way of thinking about apartments, says Laketek. ”Before, you`d typically see young people renting apartments before they got married or young married people (rented) before they actually bought, but the goal of everyone was home ownership. That`s changed.”
Leo and Virginia Shapiro fit one of North Pier`s marketing niches: empty nesters. With grown children having moved out of their Glencoe home of 25 years, the Shapiros recently moved to North Pier to take advantage of the building`s proximity to Leo`s business, which is located in the North Pier commercial building.
In their customized apartment, the Shapiros have added sliding doors, a tub and bidet in the master bath, a desk in the kitchen and a laundry tub for scrubbing fine washables and the two dogs, Freyja and Zampa. They`ve also converted a third bedroom into a computer room.
Uplifting a loft
While customized apartments may be new in luxury rental buildings, they`re old news when it comes to lofts, especially raw space like the second- floor berth on Fulton Street that is home to the Mars Gallery.
When artist Peter Mars and his partners Barbara Gazdik and James Turk moved into the rough loft three years ago, it doubled as both living space and gallery space. ”This place was trashed space when we first saw it,” says Mars, who notes the landlord contribution of sandblasted walls, kitchen and bathroom to the loft. Other than that, though, Mars et al. have sunk countless hours and, by his estimate, nearly $40,000 into the loft with new walls, electrical work and lighting.
”We`ve probably done 50 percent of the work by our own blood, sweat and tears” he says. ”Everything I put in here I`ve taken out of my pocket.”
And what restrictions has the landlord laid down? ”To tell you the truth, I`ve never asked them if it was okay to do anything. They`ve been in here and they see new things every once in a while and they`ll say, `Oh, you put in a new wall` or something like that. But I`m sure they wouldn`t have any complaints because I`ve increased the value of this space by quite a bit.”
”A lot of (tenants) really don`t have the imagination to go in and look at a trashed-out space and think that it will be an okay place to live in the end, but if you do, that`s when you can save rent money,” he says. ”I just figured what I wasn`t paying in rent, I`d have to pay to fix this place up, so I`ve probably broke even, but I got what I wanted.
”That`s the thing, you get the space that you want if you go and really sink money into it. You don`t get what somebody else made for you.”
