Retail goes rental
Retail developers met in Las Vegas this week at the industry's annual convention. Rather than discussing dismal traffic numbers or the shadow of Amazon, the tone was surprisingly upbeat—a marked change from recent years....
Free market not welcome
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) has filed suit in federal court against the city of Seattle over a ban on the use of rent bidding sites. The suit was filed behalf of RentBerry, a...
Fair Housing 50 years later
The Fair Housing Act turned 50 this year. The charter that began with government-mandated racially-balanced communities has paved the way for today’s organically derived communities where Americans of different races, for the most part...
Comfort animals at NAA next month
There’s no better way to assess your potential Fair Housing risk than to hear it from someone who makes a living suing noncompliant businesses… and usually wins. The Erin Brockovitch of civil rights, Martie...
Census releases housing construction data for April, 2018
The Census Bureau, in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), released its monthly new residential construction report for April, 2018. The report shows a drop in permits and construction starts...
Multifamily job openings up for March
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) report for March. It showed that job openings were at their highest level since since this economic measure began...
Help (still) wanted in construction
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) report for March from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates continued strength in the number of construction job openings, which is near the high reached at...
California: The great housing bust
California is the sixth biggest economy in the world according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Legislators like to tout that fact.
They often forget to add that the state also has both the highest...
Dallas adopts its first housing policy
This week the Dallas City Council approved its first-ever housing policy intended to help remedy its affordable housing shortage, a deficiency estimated to be around 20,000 units. The plan attributes the shortfall to the...
Construction material prices rise more slowly
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its Producer Price Index for April on Wednesday. It showed that overall prices for processed goods for intermediate demand were up 0.7 percent from March and they...
California mandates solar panels for new apartments
Today the California's Energy Commission in a unanimous 5-0 vote mandated the installation of solar panels on every new home and low-rise apartment building.
The newly-minted regulation requires that all apartments buildings of 3-stories or...
As California goes…
California's state constitution, culture and oh-so much more, empowers the state's bleeding edge progress—and high degree of volatility. Certainly the Golden State's penchant for both experimentation and social turmoil feeds the carefully crafted aphorism:...
The grandest of urban experiments
San Francisco has a housing problem.
Among other challenges, tech has overtaken the City and exacerbated a housing shortage that was already one of the worst in the country. The parallel problems of an epidemic...
It’s great to be in the apartment business
It’s Five Bullet Friday and it’s great to be in the apartment business. Rents have generally remained steady, apartment construction is up, and Mike Rowe’s campaign to energize the construction industry is working. Without...
Zuckerberg implements changes to Facebook news
Social advertising is the top communications channel for apartment communities to rent units and retain residents within their communities, particularly Millennials. Facebook's reach is most heavily weighted toward the 22-37 age group by 70...
