Sell your Chicago house fast for cash

Two-flats, three-flats and tenants who complicate everything

A large share of Chicago’s inventory is small multi-family, and much of it is owned by people who bought decades ago and self-managed until they no longer wanted to. The building is tired, the rents are under market because raising them felt awkward, and at least one unit has a tenant situation nobody wants to explain.

Selling that retail is hard. Owner-occupant buyers want a vacant unit they can move into, investor buyers price in every deferred item you disclose, and Chicago’s tenant protections make the timeline for emptying a unit long and expensive.

We buy occupied with leases attached. You do not evict anyone or turn a unit before selling.

The costs that come out of a Chicago closing

Chicago sellers face transaction costs that surprise people moving from other markets. There are city, county and state transfer taxes on the sale, and the city portion in particular is meaningful money on a typical home.

Add roughly five to six percent in commission, attorney fees, a survey, and whatever credits emerge after the inspection, and the gap between the price on the listing and the number that reaches your account is wider than most sellers estimate at the outset.

That is worth calculating carefully before you assume a listing beats a cash offer. Compare net proceeds on a date certain, not gross prices.

Century-old buildings and what inspections find

Expect the standard set on a pre-1930 Chicago property: active knob-and-tube in the attic, a wood porch system that no longer meets code, tuckpointing overdue on the masonry, a sewer line of original clay, and a roof with more layers on it than anyone remembers.

The porch and the wiring are the two that most reliably end financed deals, because both create insurance and code exposure a lender will not accept. We buy with all of it in place and price it once.