I feel as if my leasing team and I dropped the ball in recent days. Largely because
Super Bowl Sunday is this weekend and I cant help to think that somehow a little bit of fan fare could have helped us standout amongst our competition. I'm not suggesting anything outrageous like a Budweiser keg in the middle of the leasing office or dressing up as NY Giants cheerleaders. Instead I'm thinking more along more the lines of a team spirit theme: wearing football Jerseys, replacing cookies and French vanilla coffee with chips,pretzels and coke while replaying halftime "PG" rated shows of past on the clubhouse TV.
Its hard for any of us to plead ignorance in this case especially when considering last year when South Florida hosted Super Bowl XLI and we all salivated over the estimates of $400 million dollar boost to our local economy. So not only am I surprised at myself for forgetting to resurrect the spirit of last year's bowl- I'm trying to figure out why it seems the entire region (with the exception of Publix) has fumbled too.
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Homes my clients rented
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Candidates as Residents
I'm beginning to see the Presidential candidates in ways that just weeks ago I couldn't imagine. I guess its a side affect of paying more attention in preparation to carry out my civic duty in the upcoming primary. . . blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, its really tough to decide, and I'm not just talking about choosing an individual candidate or party, but an authentic person I could believe in to lead our country. So I got to thinking. . . and figured I'm looking at this all wrong. Why not use my highly evolved property management abilities to help me select the right candidate. In fact this method might even make it easier for all of us Apartment Industry/multi housing pro's to vote with clarity.
So I finally asked myself---What type of resident would each candidate make? With this simple question I was able to evaluate each candidate with much more confidence.
P.S. heres my answers, whats yours?
Hillary- Likely to be the resident that insists on being present to oversee a service request (even if Bill is home)
Mitt- Likely to complain about limited parking spaces
Barack- Hangs around the clubhouse after work to watch Oprah
McCain- Typical retiree veteran that walks his miniature poodle every morning like clockwork 0600 hours sharp!
Edwards- Constantly threatens to sue his neighbor McCain for "excessive" dog barking every morning at exactly 0600 hours.
Guliani- Quintessential snowbird/empty nester that cant stop comparing New Yawk to Floridah
Huckabee- Is likely to face eviction for the weekly classic rock jam sessions
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Casino Night! SEFAA Does Vegas....
The best remedy for those holiday credit card hangovers has to be this year's Casino Night brought to you by SEFAA.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
6-10 p.m.
CORT Furniture Showroom, Boynton Beach
Blackjack, Texas Hold Em, Craps, Roulette, with professional dealers and despite what you may have heard their will be NO strip poker tournaments.
Click here for more details.
Cooling Your Heels
From the golfcart to maintenance shop, walking vacants, and touring perspectives-- the demands we put on one of our most dependable body parts can now relax. Introducing Camileon Heels the convertible and fashionable shoe thats attempting to revolutionize the comfort for women in business.
I find the style of the shoes fresh and modern, but the true beauty is in its ability to convert from a low to high heel. My only hangup,is the price tag that ranges from $200-325, Ouch! At that price I can only hope that the concept of the shoes find its way to our salaries and bonuses .
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Home Sellers’ Pain Is Renters’ Gain
By NICK TIMIRAOS
From the Wall St. Journal January 15, 2008
There’s one bright side to the housing crisis: some lower rents.
The regions hardest hit by the housing downturn have seen ailing builders, rising foreclosure rates and a glut of unsold homes, amid other signs of distress. But there are also stories like Laura Evans’s.
The 38-year-old elementary-school teacher moved to Stuart, Fla., from Orlando with her husband and baby last fall. Looking for a rental apartment, they were pleasantly surprised: There were plenty of choices at lower-than-expected prices, thanks to the multitude of owners trying to rent units they couldn’t sell.
“When we got down here, we shopped and shopped around,” says Ms. Evans, who rented a new 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse with a pool and a playground for $1,150 per month. The owners allowed the couple to move in with their dog, despite a prohibition against pets.
To be sure, rents have continued to rise steadily in many markets. And the housing downturn means that more people are looking for rentals as well, increasing demand. Many would-be buyers have become renters because they can’t get a mortgage in today’s tight credit environment, or because they’re sitting tight in hopes that prices drop further.
…
Behind the trend are tens of thousands of unsold condominium units that are being dumped on markets such as South Florida, Las Vegas and Phoenix. While thousands of single-family homes also are coming on the market, renters prefer condos to houses, which typically have more expensive upkeep. “Tenants have to pick up more of the bills,” says Artur Ciesielski, a Phoenix real-estate agent.
…
More than 4,200 units have been pulled out of the for-sale condo market and put into the rental pool in Florida’s Palm Beach County alone, according to Mary Grace Breeding, president of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach. Those units include the 216-unit Aventine at Boynton Beach and the 450-unit Mizner Court at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, where rents range from $975 to $2,000.
Nor are so-called condo reversions limited to the Sunbelt. In Brooklyn, N.Y., two luxury condo developments converted to rental apartments last spring, including 99 Gold Street, which had begun accepting sales contracts less than a year earlier. Rentals at the 88-unit building range from $2,000 a month for 700-square-foot studios to $5,500 for two-bedroom penthouses.
…
Savvy renters in struggling markets are playing landlords off each other. Ms. Evans, of Stuart, Fla., says the same day she and her husband leased their apartment for $1,150 a month, the owner of a bigger home they had looked at called to lower his asking price from $1,500 to $1,200. “If he had called earlier, we would have taken it,” she says.
…
Housing experts predict that many would-be home buyers may be forced to rent for years because the relationship between rents and home prices are out of whack. Rents remained at around 5% of home prices throughout much of the postwar period, but beginning in 1996, home-price growth rapidly outpaced rent growth. By the end of 2006, home prices had more than doubled while average rent was up just 48%, driving down the annual rent/price ratio to 3.48%.
A study by one former and two current Federal Reserve economists suggests that home prices will have to fall by 15% over the next five years while rents increase by 4% a year to return that rent/price ratio to normal.
From the Wall St. Journal January 15, 2008
There’s one bright side to the housing crisis: some lower rents.
The regions hardest hit by the housing downturn have seen ailing builders, rising foreclosure rates and a glut of unsold homes, amid other signs of distress. But there are also stories like Laura Evans’s.
The 38-year-old elementary-school teacher moved to Stuart, Fla., from Orlando with her husband and baby last fall. Looking for a rental apartment, they were pleasantly surprised: There were plenty of choices at lower-than-expected prices, thanks to the multitude of owners trying to rent units they couldn’t sell.
“When we got down here, we shopped and shopped around,” says Ms. Evans, who rented a new 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom townhouse with a pool and a playground for $1,150 per month. The owners allowed the couple to move in with their dog, despite a prohibition against pets.
To be sure, rents have continued to rise steadily in many markets. And the housing downturn means that more people are looking for rentals as well, increasing demand. Many would-be buyers have become renters because they can’t get a mortgage in today’s tight credit environment, or because they’re sitting tight in hopes that prices drop further.
…
Behind the trend are tens of thousands of unsold condominium units that are being dumped on markets such as South Florida, Las Vegas and Phoenix. While thousands of single-family homes also are coming on the market, renters prefer condos to houses, which typically have more expensive upkeep. “Tenants have to pick up more of the bills,” says Artur Ciesielski, a Phoenix real-estate agent.
…
More than 4,200 units have been pulled out of the for-sale condo market and put into the rental pool in Florida’s Palm Beach County alone, according to Mary Grace Breeding, president of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach. Those units include the 216-unit Aventine at Boynton Beach and the 450-unit Mizner Court at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, where rents range from $975 to $2,000.
Nor are so-called condo reversions limited to the Sunbelt. In Brooklyn, N.Y., two luxury condo developments converted to rental apartments last spring, including 99 Gold Street, which had begun accepting sales contracts less than a year earlier. Rentals at the 88-unit building range from $2,000 a month for 700-square-foot studios to $5,500 for two-bedroom penthouses.
…
Savvy renters in struggling markets are playing landlords off each other. Ms. Evans, of Stuart, Fla., says the same day she and her husband leased their apartment for $1,150 a month, the owner of a bigger home they had looked at called to lower his asking price from $1,500 to $1,200. “If he had called earlier, we would have taken it,” she says.
…
Housing experts predict that many would-be home buyers may be forced to rent for years because the relationship between rents and home prices are out of whack. Rents remained at around 5% of home prices throughout much of the postwar period, but beginning in 1996, home-price growth rapidly outpaced rent growth. By the end of 2006, home prices had more than doubled while average rent was up just 48%, driving down the annual rent/price ratio to 3.48%.
A study by one former and two current Federal Reserve economists suggests that home prices will have to fall by 15% over the next five years while rents increase by 4% a year to return that rent/price ratio to normal.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Rolling Into 2008
Happy 2008! Its been almost 2 months since my last posting and I blame it all on that avalanche referred to as the holiday season. The shopping, the parties, the food and of course my personal contribution to national debt has made it almost impossible to update this blog and fully launch its sister blog Rent Roll and Recruit. But it’s a New Year and I’m ready to get back to business.
Overall my holiday season was pretty good, and one of the best and most surprising gifts was a noticeable up tick in occupancy throughout our region despite the notoriously slow December market and I’m loving it! Wrapping up a sluggish and unpredictable 2007 on such a positive note. I can only hope its an indicator of what to expect as we roll into 2008. Stay tuned!
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