Our First American Real Estate Empire
By Ovidiu Catanescu
From Cockroaches to Landlords
When Maria and I arrived in America, we didn't have much money, but we had plenty of ambition.
Our first apartment on Marine Drive in Chicago was a subsidized one-bedroom unit that came with an unlimited supply of cockroaches. We were grateful to have a roof over our heads, but we were determined to find something better.
We both worked at Allied Fabricating. I earned $5.50 an hour, and Maria earned $5.25. We saved as much as we could, hoping that one day we would be able to buy a home of our own.
Our real estate agent was John Diaz, himself an immigrant from India. He understood our situation and patiently showed us properties within our limited budget.
Eventually, he found something that seemed almost too good to be true.
A three-flat building with a coach house, priced at $96,000.
It was the only property we had seen that satisfied almost everything on our wish list.
The apartment we would occupy was spacious enough for the two of us, and the other apartments would generate rental income to help pay the mortgage.
With a down payment of just 3.5%, we became homeowners and landlords at the same time.
The building generated approximately $900 a month in rental income.
We were delighted.
Our little American real estate empire had officially begun!
The People Who Came With the Building
Buying a rental property meant acquiring more than bricks, mortar and a mortgage. We also inherited an entire collection of tenants.
In the apartment above ours lived the Santiago family. They were serious, quiet people who kept to themselves. We had no problems with them, and they were exactly the kind of neighbors every landlord hopes to have.
The coach house was occupied by three Polish women who worked for a living. They were already living there when we purchased the property. I don't even remember their names anymore, but they were part of our little community.
And then there was Frank.
Frank — Our Unforgettable Moșul
Frank was an elderly American veteran who lived in the basement. Maria and I affectionately called him Moșul, the Romanian word for an old man. He was an extremely quiet person who hardly moved or spoke. Nevertheless, he still drove to shopping or to eat every day and rented our garage to park his car. Occasionally, Frank would become disoriented while driving and lose his way. Sometimes he wouldn't return home for a day or two. On one particularly memorable occasion, he somehow ended up all the way in Wisconsin! Eventually, the police brought him back home.
Imagine driving to shopping in Chicago and finding yourself in another state! Frank also occasionally asked us to buy groceries for him. Maria and I enjoyed sharing our Romanian cooking with him. Whenever we prepared something special, we would bring him some. He seemed to enjoy everything we gave him. I don't remember ever seeing him cook in his basement apartment, and I suspect he ate most of his meals outside.
Although he wasn't a man of many words, Frank became one of the most memorable characters from our first years in America. Unfortunately, he eventually became ill and had to go to the hospital, where he passed away. We were saddened by his death. For all his peculiarities, he had become part of our everyday lives.
We would always remember our American veteran, Moșul.
When Our Neighborhood Changed
After Frank passed away, a young Latino family moved into the basement apartment.
Unfortunately, the husband was involved in drug dealing, and his activities became another source of concern. But the problems weren't limited to our building. Over time, the entire neighborhood began to change, and Maria and I became increasingly worried about crime and our personal safety. One day, a man was shot in the park right next to our property. That incident brought the violence frighteningly close to home. After the shooting, one of our neighbors advised me to buy a gun for protection. We followed his advice, purchased a gun and learned how to use it.
When we first came to America, we had dreamed of owning a home and building a better future. We certainly hadn't imagined that we would eventually feel the need to keep a gun for protection. Our neighborhood no longer felt like the place where we wanted to build our future.
It was time to move on.
Two Offers and Two Sour-Cherry Trees
When we decided to sell our building, we listed it for $126,000. To our surprise, we received two offers at the full asking price! After years of working hard, managing tenants and dealing with the challenges of owning rental property, our first real estate investment had turned out to be a financial success.
But there was one final detail. We had two sour-cherry trees in the yard—vișini, as we called them in Romania. Those trees were particularly precious to us. They reminded us of home and of the life we had left behind.
We had two pair of buyers. One didn’t allow us to take the trees with us and the other one who said to to take anything we wanted. So we went with the later and with our trees.
We had purchased the building for $96,000, lived there while collecting rental income, and eventually sold it after receiving two full-price offers. But the most valuable part of the experience wasn't the money. It was everything we had learned.
The Next Chapter
Our first American property had given us much more than a place to live. It had taught us about real estate, financial responsibility, managing tenants and the unexpected challenges of being landlords. We had met interesting people, experienced both the kindness and difficulties of human nature, and learned to navigate a country that was still relatively new to us.We had also discovered that a neighborhood could change dramatically over time, and that sometimes the wisest decision was to move on.
In August 1987, Maria and I purchased our next home in Schaumburg, Illinois, for $107,000. It was a single-family house on Bradford Lane. We were excited about having our own house in the suburbs, away from the problems we had experienced in Chicago. Little did we know that our new home had a few surprises of its own. And unlike the cockroaches in our first apartment, these particular surprises weren't quite so easy to explain.
But that's another story.
2:22 — The Ghost of Bradford Lane.
An Owl Spit memory from our early years in America, by Ovidiu Catanescu.
Dedicated to Maria, my partner in every adventure, from our first cockroach-infested apartment to our little Chicago real estate empire. ❤️🦉
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