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...
Growth through high density housing
An organization called Up For Growth has issued a report on housing underproduction in the U.S. along with their proposed approach for addressing the problem. Primarily, the group calls for easing restrictions on development...
Micro-units remain big for some apartment developers
If you think micro-units have had their 15 minutes of fame, think again. Think tanks, policy makers and apartment notables are looking at high-density multifamily housing as a viable solution to the affordable housing...
Seattle to appeal rejection of first-in-time law
The Seattle Times reports that Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes will appeal the ruling which declared the city's first-in-time, first-in-line renter protection law to be unconstitutional. Holmes filed a notice of appeal directly with...
SALT, sanctuary and rent control, oh my
Fast five facts on the state of California
California has the nation’s highest income tax rates, topping out at 13.3 percent of taxable income (SALT=state and local tax).
California depends on those taxes for 70 percent...
Affordable housing dies a slow death in California
The activists are restless in California. This past week The Wall Street Journal broke the news that the required threshold of signatures has been achieved to add rent control to the next ballot. The signatures...
Top 10 markets for multifamily pay and for job growth
The Census Bureau released the 2016 County Business Patterns (CBP) report on April 19. Using data from this report and from the 2015 CBP report allowed us to identify the metro areas with the...
Top 50 metros for multifamily employment
The 2016 County Business Patterns (CBP) report was recently released by the Census Bureau. A dive into the report's data reveals the metro areas with the highest levels of multifamily employment in the housing industry.
The...
I heart Mike Rowe
Honest. Straight up. Tells it like it is. Wendy Broffman, MHP correspondent, just wrapped up our interview with Mike Rowe, skilled trade genius and master of all-things common sense. A graduate of Hard Work...
