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…

The prospect of a full blown commercial conundrum is now in full view, as news outlets continue to report stresses in all major property sectors. With the industrial, office, retail and multifamily property groups vying to avoid the ranking for the worst of the bunch, we can take some solace as an industry in being at the end of the recessionary trough. It can only get better from here. This week, I’m in Palm Springs, Calif. for the National Mult Housing Council’s Apartment Strategies Conference, along with the NMHC Annual Meeting. I’m planning to be pretty diligent about taking notes…

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, it appears he might face an uphill battle in getting his pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, through confirmation hearings quickly. Geithner, currently the president of the Fed’s New York bank, has come under scrutiny over some personal tax questions, and his confirmation hearing—originally scheduled for Thursday—has been delayed until after Obama’s inauguration next week. With troubling economic indicators still being released on a seemingly regular basis, many are of the mind that, should Geithner’s nomination be held up, Obama should select a new nominee in order to ensure that the Treasury…

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…

Welcome to 2009 “Voters don’t want good government, they want good entertainment!” Louisiana Governor Earl Long, just before his wife committed him to a mental hospital for taking up with Blaze Starr, stripper and constant companion.  (I believe Blaze was a childhood idol for Sarah Palin.) Leadership, it seems comes in all shapes and sizes. Between the old adages, “Vote early and often,” to Governor Edwards of Louisiana, who said, early in 1983, “If we don’t get Dave Treen out of office, there won’t be anything left to steal,” politics has always provided an interesting cast of characters. With the…

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…

As we near the end of 2008, it probably comes as no surprise, that the Dr. Kervorkian of automobile investing, Tracinda Corporation's billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, has sold off all of his remaining shares of Ford Motor Co. Having successfully purchased almost $1 billion in shares at an average price of $7.10, Kerkorian sold approximately 134 million shares at around $2.45 a share, a loss in excess of 65%. Apparently his offer to help resuscitate Ford fell on a dumb board of directors, who were fearful of Tracinda's influence. Ford has withdrawn from the Fed bailout, leaving Chrysler and GM…

"A lot of people in that plant feel betrayed by their own government. This is class warfare by Republicans against blue-collar workers," United Auto Workers Local 2209 President Orval Plumlee.  With the big 3 automakers shutting down plant operations for at least the next 30 days, if not longer, UAW rank and file are planning to send a message to their former employers, and it won't be pretty. Their anger is palpable and may show up in a variety of ways. The may vote out their current leadership in exchange for tougher negotiations, or some of them might sign up…

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime; Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?(c) "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931) With over $500 billion in commercial real estate loans coming up for renegotiation in the next 3 years, according to some estimates and approximately one third of that in 2009, a number of real estate groups have asked Treasury Secretary Paulson to include commercial real estate as a permissible sector under TARP. With the greatest risks apparently…