Help wanted
The labor market continues to tighten as unemployment wobbled near a 45-year low last week leaving unemployment at the lowest level since January 1973. Last week also marked the 154th straight week that claims remained...
When buying a property goes very wrong
The only pre-demolition notice went to the former owner who lost the building to the city 18 years earlier in a tax sale. The city apparently forgot it sold the property to the Garretts,...
Capitalizing on the apartment model
Howard Behr is back from Hyderabad, India, and he’s still talking about his 85-cent taxi ride. Behr, originally with NWP, Costa Mesa, Calif., and then of RealPage, Richardson, Texas, through its purchase of NWP,...
Net zero in a box
And so my obsession over Flex House, the newest concept-in-a-box (literally) which made its final on-tour appearance at CES in Vegas last month. Created by California-based modular housing company Shelter Dynamics, Flex House was...
NMHC: Apartment Strategies Outlook Conference
It remains to be seen how the recent rise in stock market volatility will impact the US economy which has been bolstered by rising jobs, wages, consumer and business spending, consumer confidence, growing world...
Bright light, smarter brain
Paint, carpet and other surfaces link to human immune systems and more. The latest study out of Michigan says that dim light impacts the brain, dulls learning and makes remembering harder. Researchers found that exposure...
Will more of our residents die alone?
MHP recently ran a story on the ever-shrinking birth rate in the U.S. Analysts can only speculate on whether millennials are merely delaying having children or opting out altogether. Either path has wide and...
Are men better earners? Uber study says yes.
And to think, many speculated that the gig economy would favor women. This study is as clean as data comes. Uber matches riders with drivers, sets fares and fees through a simple, fully-automated formula...
Do you have time for a call from a Mr. Bezos?
Are they talking about putting Amazon lockers on their properties? Yes. But that’s not all. Amazon‘s vision is far greater for apartment communities. Representatives for the firm seek to eventually “run a property’s entire...
Truth, freedom, and flourishing
Don’t misunderstand. Indonesia is beautiful. Its citizens are most gracious and the scenery, inspiring—some of God’s finest. Core values, however, change the world says the World Value Survey, a non-profit research center based in Stockholm,...
You choose a job. A calling chooses you.
The attraction is simple. The business of apartments makes us believe, if even in scattered moments, that we can improve the lives we serve and make a living while doing it. How many lives?...
History repeats itself
It’s happening again. Once, knowledge was sequestered away on manuscripts in Monasteries only to be set free by the printing press. Suddenly, the Renaissance. The Reformation. The Industrial Revolution. Men read, collaborated and created. Our modern...
Everyone loves to be sold
The common thread throughout this wide and diverse sea of goods is identifying a solid value to the intended market. Here’s a secret. Selling is not that hard. If you understand human behavior, you’re practically...
I’m afraid to blink.
Never before has the world been safer, freer, wealthier, or healthier. In 2014, 54 percent of the nation’s counties had zero murders and more than half of last year’s murders occurred in only two percent...
Class warfare and how the Vietnam war finally ends
“He got rid of the intellectual elites,” said my guide. “Brutal—but I think it saved our country. I mean, consider what happens to a place when workers are devalued...” I was dazed by his words....
