I’m a second-generation American. My parents both came here from immigrant families that probably would have been denied entry if not for the fact that they arrived here around 1908. I come from a long line of renters (and a couple of very colorful characters who resided for a time at Sing-Sing and some other places for trying to make a living in some non-traditional ways). Renting was, in most respects, the norm in those days, and the vast majority of immigrant families either lived with relatives that had previously entered the country and found housing, or rented tenement flats or…

Sometimes you get to meet people in this business that really surprise you. Being on the inquisitive end of research, I’m always observational instead participative, so I notice details many would consider non-important (Probably one of my most irritating qualities). That’s why I wanted to tell you about Mack the Knife, the Chicago Chop House and how you get professional basketball players to lease from you. Picture it: Chicago, land of governors and gangsters, where a well-placed bribe is a lot like a bet, you never quite know how it’s going to turn out. Chicago in winter is unlike any…

In an article that appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal, not necessarily the most accurate of sources, to be sure (hello, Rupert, lay off anybody today?), there is a bellwether article garnering little notice, but certainly worthy of more attention than Rick Perry got about forgetting the names of the federal agencies he was going to eliminate. When it comes to the annals of fund raising history, few can match the talent, wits and connections of the Carlyle Group, so named for the Carlyle Grand Cafe in Washington, D.C., according to my conversation years ago with a senior…

Renters are a pretty curious bunch, and between checking out the latest and greatest buildings and comparing amenities with their friends, they use smart phones and social media to get information. Being in research, an integral part of gaining perspective is to, in essence, act and think like a renter. Emptying my head of such non-renter notions as cutting the grass and painting the deck, I recently began to investigate the potential of using smart phones to get information about renting in a community without calling them. For this test, I used my recently acquired Samsung Galaxy II 4G phone,…

Apartment rents have been a bright spot in an otherwise dreary economic outlook. The last time I had a conversation with anyone from Greece, he was a taxi driver taking me to LaGuardia. We had a very spirited conversation about Greek politics along with his insistence the speed limit signs in Manhattan were only advisory and didn’t apply to taxi drivers. An interesting fact that came out of the trip to the airport, white knuckled, seat-belt tightening aside, was that people in Greece apparently feel a sense of comfort that their system, however disorganized and prominently dysfunctional, takes care of the…