The numbers are in–and nobody's walking away with big money. According to the results of the 2004 NMHC National Apartment Management Compensation and Benefits Practices Survey, apartment companies are continuing to cut costs in myriad ways, including slowing the pace of company-wide salary...
By the time Hurricane Ivan threatened Florida in September, Michael Martin had already made multiple trips to buy supplies and materials to protect his company's properties. "It's bad when they know you by name at Home Depot," says Martin, executive director for human resource development (and the...
Dozens of new, low-income apartments went on the rental market this September in Cass Corridor, the poorest neighborhood in Detroit. The $13 million Brainard Street Apartment project consists of 20 three-story brick buildings, with a total of 120 two- and three-bedroom units. But some of the best...
After a grueling day at the office, a resident stops on the ground floor of his apartment building to buy a sandwich, pick up his dry cleaning, and rent a DVD. Ah, life is good. But soon, his quiet night at home is interrupted by the smell of restaurant cooking, the sound of trash being tossed in...
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If you own Class A or B apartments in South Florida, Southern California, or Washington, D.C., you've had some very good years. While multifamily properties have increased in value across the country, it's nothing quite like what's happening in these cities. Property values are soaring. Apartments...
Seven months after the building opened in February 2003, the Summit Roosevelt was fully leased at market rents in what the owners call "a competitive rental market." Much of the credit goes to the building's excellent location near Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood and Meridian Hill Park, but...
For years, apartment buildings offered about as much aesthetic beauty as, well, a slab of concrete. Complexes were bare, boxy, boring structures designed for functionality first and style second. Today things are changing. Cities are citing the need for multifamily buildings that complement their...
In 1989, when Mercy Housing Midwest converted the 100-year-old Mason School in Omaha, Neb., to 32 units of low-income housing, the staff was too happy with a job well done to fret about the future. But more than a decade later, worry began to surface as the Chicago-based nonprofit became...
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At an AvalonBay Communities leasing office in early June, a package arrived for a resident who wasn't home. It was ticking.
Like most 2-year-olds, Loren Hinton loved to play hide-and-seek. On a warm spring day in May 2001, Loren ran around with her friends at her family's apartment community, while her father manned the grill. The little girl wandered into the community's pool area through a broken gate, took off her...
WaterColor is thought of as one of the most successful recent housing developments in Florida's panhandle. The heart of the community, though, is more than 120 units of multifamily housing in a mixed-use town center that is punctuated by a park.
Matt Perrin, Jeremy Green, and Lissette Calderon all started their own multifamily companies. But each of them got to that point in different ways. Perrin was president of Mark-Taylor Residential in Phoenix, while Calderon worked for bigger firms, most notably The Related Group of Florida in Miami...
Mention "garden apartments," and an image of three-story buildings surrounded by a sea of blacktop parking lots jumps to mind. But garden-style rental living doesn't need to resemble yesterday's stereotypes. Today's architects are incorporating new styles and designs to make garden apartments more...
Nothing keeps K. David Meit, executive vice president of DARO Realty Inc., from his appointed mission. After six months of searching for the perfect kitchen cabinet, he emerged victoriously from an office stacked high with options. The winner: a white thermofoil cabinet with traditional detail and...
In the San Francisco Bay area, it often takes commuters an hour and a half to go from the tolls on the east side of the bay across the Bay Bridge into the city – a commute of less than five miles. In the Washington area, a rush-hour trip from Alexandria, Va., across the 14th Street Bridge and into...
You call and leave a message. Days pass, but the phone doesn't ring. So you call again, hoping someone will pick up on the other end. Sound like someone trying to get a date? Yes, but it's the same routine that multifamily executives go through when they court institutional capital.
Security. It tops residents' wish lists of amenities. But it's the last thing owners and managers want leasing agents to talk about when selling a community. Promising security could lead to liability if something happens on site. "When you talk about security, [owners] have a tendency to freak out...
How would you like to cut construction costs by 20 percent without affecting the value of your project? That's what Genesis Real Estate Group, the Dallas-based developers of Ocean Villas, managed to do by continually evaluating design and construction options right up to the completion of the...
When it comes to what today's self-indulgent 65-year old wants in an active adult community, a bumper sticker says it best: "I'm squandering my children's inheritance."
When J. Ronald Terwilliger, Trammell Crow Residential's national managing partner, surveys the apartment landscape, he sees something that doesn't quite fit. The multifamily industry continues to flood the market with luxury product that is not being filled. But the biggest growth opportunity over...
Swimming pools. Fitness centers. Off-the-shelf preframed artwork. It's your standard list of clubhouse offerings found in most multifamily communities. But what if you took your clubhouse to the next level? Imagine the reaction of prospective residents when they see your 24-hour, state-of-the-art...
If Leonard Wood had left Trammell Crow to start an ice cream stand, Donna Hawkins says she would've followed him. And Wood's longtime executive assistant obviously isn't alone. When Wood resigned from Trammell Crow in 1998 to launch Wood Partners, roughly 60 Trammell Crow employees, including...
More than a decade ago, two buddies kicked back at the pool with a few beers and started tossing around ideas for their new construction company. Like so many other entrepreneurs, they grabbed a napkin and started jotting down their business plan. The four main points decided by founders Bob...
Upon first glance, it seems hard to believe that Richard Wilpon, Michael Katz, and Tom Osterman run the diversified investment company that also owns the New York Mets. Sure, the three dress the part of successful businessmen, wearing dark, expensive-looking suits for a photo shoot held three hours...
Walk through the offices of Capstone Development Corp. in Birmingham, Ala., and the baseball hats lining the hallways are hard to miss. Pick a college–Winthrop, Duke University, or Arizona State, for instance–and you just might see its colors on the walls. That's because each time Capstone...
To some, a rectangular stamp with the words "Same Day Service" inside may not mean much. But to Penny Priebe, the property manager at Hunter's Glen, a Laramar Group property in Aurora, Ill., it was very important. When Dave Woodward, managing partner and CEO of Chicago-based Laramar stopped by...
Kevin Timochenko wanted Wyomissing Gardens badly. He wanted the 156-unit property in Reading, Pa., so badly, in fact, that he offered the Department of Housing and Urban Development $2.2 million for the complex. But, after the agency made a last-minute request for $200,000 in back property taxes as...
One of the basic battles in American business is big versus small. Large chains come into an area and offer affordable prices but often have impersonal service. Small businesses may have higher prices but better customer service. So, what if one company could bridge this gap, enjoying building and...
Efficient. Bare-bones. Cost-conscious. These words perhaps best describe the California State Teachers' Retirement System's approach to investing in real estate in general and multifamily properties in particular. After all, portfolio manager Jim Hurley is the only full-time staff member dedicated...
Giving a tour of Realty Management Services Inc.'s corporate headquarters, Beth Ross proudly points out the tell-tale signs of expansion – crooked hallways formed from adding office space over the years and the separate entrance into the human resources department, even though it is on the same...