Bill Bein's (wbein) Blog

A home or condo lets you own property, but 2- to 4-flats take it to the next level: building passive income and wealth. But the rules in buying multi-unit property are NOT the same as with a condo or home, as you may already have begun to learn: Rule 1: Picking a Neighborhood is Different. When y...

Neighborhood Street Maps Since the 30's Chicago has been organized in 77 census tracts-and all real estate in Chicago is still sold by those boundaries. Click here for a master map of Chicago neighborhoods (it shows the 77 major neighborhoods that Chicago is divided into). And here are two larger...

School DataFor school boundaries in Chicago: http://schoollocator.cps.k12.il.us/ Zoning DataIf you want more details about any one property, you may want to check the Cook County Assessor's office or the City of Chicago online zoning map:City of Chicago Department of Zoning & Land Use Planning Ma...

Did you know that the City of Chicago maintains a database on all reported crimes? Citizen ICAM enables you to search the Chicago Police Department's database of reported crime. You will be able to see maps, graphs, and tables of reported crime. The log-in screen can be found at: City of Chicago ...

Neighborhood Boundaries Chicago as a city has many specific neighborhoods (like Wicker Park, Bucktown, etc.) At Chicagoland2to4Flats.info, we provide a chart with the boundaries of some 150 neighborhoods in Chicago. To access that directory, click on this link: Chicago Neighborhood Boundaries   A...

We are proud of all the resources our Sales Data / Maps page offers. Here are some highlights: Property Sales Data: City WideWe are pleased to bring you important data showing current prices and historical appreciation for Chicago. Click here (Sales Summary Chart) to see or print this important s...

"Arm-Chair" Investors are those who do NOT want to live in the property they buy (a more precise term for this would be "NON-owner occupied"). The question we ask here is: Where have ‘arm-chair' investors like that been concentrating their investments? Our work with arm-chair investors has led us...

With 2- to 4-flats, cheap properties don't always perform worse than expensive ones (or better, for that matter). Instead, some less expensive properties perform well, but not all; some expensive properties sparkle, but others don't. In short, in this market you can't easily correlate price and v...

As the home page of www.chicagoland2to4flats.info says, "You buy a home or condo to own property. Multi-units flats take it to the next level: building passive income and wealth. But the rules in buying multi-unit property are NOT the same as with a condo." AND THAT CERTAINLY IS THE CASE IN TERMS...

This blog post is #9 in a series we call "Mortgage 101." To see the whole Mortgage 101 document, click on this link: Mortgage 101   Here is a link that will take you to the Tools / Resources page of the Chicagoland2to4Flats.info website-where you can see and print: Current Loan Matrix   And this ...