Construction material prices on the rise
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its Producer Price Index for February on Wednesday. It showed that core inflation for processed goods for intermediate demand was 0.7 percent in February with prices increasing...
The nudge of behavioral science
The White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team was officially launched in 2015. By executive order, Federal agencies are mandated to use behavioral science to “better serve the American people” when writing policy. The...
Why are apartments such good investments?
A new report from the NMHC Research Foundation seeks to answer this question. The report analyzes data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) for the thirty year period between 1987...
When worst-case is worse than you thought
By now most know that Massachusetts has received a shipment of liquid natural gas (LNG) from Russia. The seller and vessel were French, but the cargo originated from the Yamal Peninsula. If nothing else,...
A doctor’s note does not turn an animal into a service animal
Indiana Senate Bill 240 seeks to provide relief to apartment owners and operators dealing with purported emotional support animals. The bill passed the state’s Senate last month by a 38-10 vote, and now moves...
California goes to war
It’s Friday as I report from my bunker here in Northern California. I’m afraid to venture out as things heat up on this side of the world. The state’s governor has informed us that...
Light and the secret to well-being. A future with no blinds.
A couple of years back we learned at the Energy Summit that light not only regulates our circadian rhythm, sleep patterns, dopamine levels and more, but also that the quality of the light in...
Amazon Checking
Jeff Bezos has his eye on the unbanked. Apartment managers know who they are, particularly in the southern states. They are consumers without bank accounts; thin files, as they say in the credit industry....
What kind of person are you? Let’s check your digital rating.
It’s closer than you think. Three years ago, Facebook patented a credit rating system to evaluate and mesh the financial histories of your friends with your own. E-scores are now widely used to target...
Genetic hack creates plants that use 25 percent less water
Where I live, grass has been replaced with bark or rock, dotted by an occasional sprout of green that may, or may not, survive the summer. I write this from a place of perpetual drought....
App fatigue and the future of IoT
Doorbell. Lights. Security cams. Garage door. Home cloud. Everything entertainment. Neighborhood watch. I'm only getting started. Sure, there's Echo or other hubs—big promise, little action. While I like the gamification of remembering the many parts...
ADA: emotional support animals rising
A dear friend had emergency brain surgery this week. During the ensuing chaos, one of his two cats went missing. Something as simple as listing the missing critter on Nextdoor turned into, well, a...
Amazon buys Ring doorbell for $1+ billion
It’s all part of the carefully-calculated Amazon home-invasion, right? Now Amazon, through its newly-acquired Ring smart doorbells, can monitor its packages on your doorstep. What will Alexa think? A couple weeks ago I mentioned Amazon’s...
Forest City: Deal or no deal?
Forest City Residential Group (Forest City Realty Trust), no. 26 on NHMC’s top 50 apartment owners for 2017, would not confirm/deny rumors that the company is in talks with Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management in...
When is the price of renewables prohibitive?
The annual worldwide investment in energy is more than $1.7 trillion: $650 billion in oil and gas, $300 billion in renewable electricity, and more than $300 billion in the automotive industry according to McKinsey. As...
