Recently at the farmers’ market I visit, I came across a variety of grapefruit known as a “cocktail.” On my quest for the perfect morning citrus treat, this one, apparently a cross between a grapefruit and an orange approaches holy grail status. Wow, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have one of these in my yard. So I inquired at my local nursery for the species, and of course no one had ever heard of it. All right, move on, I thought. Then this morning, while enjoying another sweet, juicy, near-perfect hemisphere, gingerly picking out the seeds with my…

As Aretha Franklin sang “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at President Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony last Tuesday, ABC News panned to images of the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, Capitol Hill and other scenes of architecture and nature from across the nation. It was hard not to be moved, not only by the occasion, but by those images of great art in the midst of the swelling music. As those images flashed, it occurred to me that every one of those sculptures shown was by an artist from the Nineteenth Century. That was art that had something real…

  Last week I had the pleasure of attending at least one day of the National Multi-Housing Council Conference in La Quinta, California. You know what? I have to tell you: I’m certainly glad that developers, as a rule, are optimists. Well, maybe not the numbers guys, but certainly the visionary guys. It provided some comfort to hear many of the seasoned veterans remind us that, thought this particular downturn had a unique brutality, they had all been through it before, and knew that if, rather, as they survived they could look forward to making a lot of money in…

It’s a remarkable thing when, twice in one week, I hear news stories about apartment rental rates dropping in Los Angeles. Seriously, what does it take in the cultural context for a piece about falling rents to become a lead story? There’s no question that rents went up in conjunction with the condo housing bubble, though I’m not really sure what the connection was, exactly. Were there enough people priced out of ownership opportunities who nevertheless could afford luxury-level rents? In the interest of full disclosure, my livelihood is derived from the design and construction of apartment communities. It is…

There’s a great line in Young Frankenstein, when the crew is exhuming a body from a creepy cemetery, in the middle of the night, to harvest sundry useful parts, where Dr. Frankenstein asks, “How? How could this possibly be any worse?” to which Igor offers the cheery rejoinder, “Oh, I don’t know . . . it could be raining.” Naturally, thunder cracks, lightning flashes, and a downpour ensues. Be careful what you wish for. Ah, such is the case with Washington’s tireless printing press. As senator Everett Dirksen once supposedly remarked, “a billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you’re…

I remember the recession of the late-1980s-early-90s. Wave upon wave of news kept coming in 1989-‘90 of layoffs at corporations. I thought at the time, “They are laying off so many people that there will be no one left to buy the goods they produce.” Sure enough, by the early 1990s, the situation was pretty bad. But one bright spot at the time was the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which played a large part in driving this magazine’s recovery. The reason? Although the market-rate apartment industry at the time was not doing so well, money was still…

Part 1  This weekend I had the opportunity to introduce to the public a family that had worked very hard to gain equity in a property they were about to purchase—a Habitat for Humanity home in Fullerton. In presenting the keys for the home to this Mexican-American family of five, I was struck by the irony of the situation; while something like one in ten of their peer group was either behind in mortgage payments, or facing foreclosure outright, this clan was about to enter the precious heart of the American dream—a home of their own. But the descriptor “their…

By Keat Foong It was certainly hair-raising to watch the stock market in the past week. By Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen from 9,955.50 on Monday to 8,451.19 points—a drop that was reportedly even worse percentage-wise than the 17 percent plunge in the week ending July 22, 1933. Part of the current panic has to do with the suspended financing markets—which one would think at its worse can lead to economic collapse. In this regard, the Treasury’s announcement this week of the plan to inject $250 billion into banks, guarantee inter-bank lending and backstop the commercial paper…

By Keat Foong, Executive Editor We are going from crisis to crisis. The House voted down the $700 billion bailout plan, and the Dow Jones Industrials plunged by 777.68, or nearly 8 percent—its worst drop in two decades. In the immediate aftermath, it looks as though banks’ short term  interest rates are spiking. That means higher benchmark for short-term, LIBOR-based multifamily borrowing. On the positive side, Treasury yields have fallen further. This is a plus for longer-term, fixed-rate loans, provided spreads do not widen further—which is a big if. If the bailout plan should eventually pass, that should have a…

By Keat Foong, Executive Editor Phew! What a week! Our very own event Multi-Housing World 2008 Conference and Exhibition was held in Denver last week. Within less than a week—a week—prior to the conference starting, the following happened: The government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the sale of Merrill Lynch was announced. And on the day the conference began, on Wednesday, the newspapers were filled with reports of the government bailout of insurance giant AIG. The next day, the stock market plunged. And by the end of our three-day educational and networking get-together, the…