Jessica Fiur is the editor-in-chief at Multi-Housing News and Commercial Property Executive and writes the award-winning blog What Renters Want.
Jessica has been with the company since 2011 and previously was with Weekly Reader and IQPC. Contact Jessica at jessica.fiur@cpe-mhn.com, on Twitter @jfiur or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicafiur/.
Bainbridge Develops Green Luxury Multi-Housing Property in Bethesda, Md.
The Bainbridge Cos. has begun construction on Bainbridge Bethesda, a luxury apartment development located in Bethesda, Md., an urban district outside of Washington, D.C.
Cervera Real Estate Expansion Highlights Recovering Florida Economy
Cervera Real Estate, a South Florida luxury condominium realtor, has just added five new locations across Florida to its current network of five offices.
Economy Watch: New Homes Sales Back in the Cellar
The economic tumult of spring and summer have apparently discouraged Americans from buying new homes. According to the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday, new home sales in July sold at an annualized rate of 298,000, a drop of 0.7 percent from June.
Pittsburgh’s Piatt Place a Model in Green Evolution
Piatt Place, a mixed-use destination with 60 upscale residential condominiums in downtown Pittsburgh, is green to the bone. Completed by Millcraft Industries in 2009, the property is a shining example of how a non-green building can be reincarnated with a sustainable structural material to become a model of green development, and how it can help revitalize a city.
CWCapital Escalates Pace of Multifamily Deals
Earlier this month, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that multifamily lending increased a whopping 114 percent between the second quarter of 2010 and the second quarter of 2011, much of which was during 2Q11 itself, which saw a quarter-over-quarter increase of 47 percent in multifamily lending.
Economy Watch: Mortgage Delinquency Rates Offer Good News, Bad News
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Monday that the percentage of U.S. households delinquent on their mortgages rose by a slight 12 basis points during the second quarter of 2011 to 8.44 percent compared with the first quarter.
‘On the Ground’ with Eric Brown: Treat Your Blog Like a Content Command Center
As apartment marketers start to trek down the content marketing pathway, they should treat their blogs as command central. However, you can write the best article in the world, but if no one reads it, or worse, can’t find it, your overall marketing strategy will suffer. There is a multitude of ways to distribute your message and get folks reading your content. Quality content does not make a blog successful. Variety, promotion and connectivity make it successful. Goodbye bare minimum blogging! You need to have a variety of media—podcasts, video, guest posts and slideshare presentations. At The Urbane Way, we…
‘The Accidental Economist’ with Jack Kern: And the Census Says…
The Census Bureau has released some very interesting statistics from the American Housing Survey. The survey covers characteristics of the housing inventory in most metropolitan areas and there are always some surprises. For example, in 2009 in Seattle, homeowners in the Sea-Tac metro area paid a median monthly housing cost of $1,576, while renters paid $1,019 by comparison. Renters contributed a higher percentage of their incomes to housing costs (30%) than owners did (23%). Looking at Chicago for comparison, homeowners paid a median cost of $1,479 per month while the renter median was $895, also in 2009. Percentages of contributions…
Gimme Shelter with Daniel Gehma: “Stop! It’s Only A Rental”
When traveling for business, it seems there’s often one little detail that gets overlooked. Today I had to be in Phoenix to visit a property with a client, as sort of a fact-finding mission. (“Shade” at Desert Ridge, a former Gold Nugget “Rental Apartment Community of the Year.”) It’s only a short flight over to Arizona, but the community is about a half hour drive from the airport. (Sprawl—go figure.) A rental car was necessary. Since business has been slow for a while, I haven’t traveled a ton, especially to destinations where a rental car is required, so I guess…
‘Gimme Shelter’ with Daniel Gehman: Busy’s Back
Ok, I’m gonna call it: busy is definitely back. I’m teetering right on the edge of exhaling, and it won’t take much to push me into real belief. If I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me, because I like this. As far as I can figure, the phone started ringing in earnest about sixty days ago. At first, the work was coming in as sort of a steady trickle . . . drip, drip, drip: a combination of both completely new developments and others previously left for dead. The drips have combined and become a relatively steady flow, so much that…