‘The Accidental Economist’ with Jack Kern: Shadow Inventory Disappearing?
“Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.” —John Wayne 1907-1979, Actor, Director, Philosopher The most recent report by Corelogic suggested that the shadow inventory as of July dropped to 2.3 million houses. I found myself thinking about this a lot lately because conceptually shadow inventory really does compete with professionally managed apartments. The real issue is where is it located and how it impacts apartment rentals. For the most part, research shows (I love to use that phrase) that residents living in single family or row-house units tend to rent from individuals who have one or at most…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: Ways to Appeal to Introverted Residents
It’s all well and good to offer events for your residents. Ice cream socials, screening parties, bbqs, are all fun and allow residents to mingle and feel like they’re part of the community, which, in turn not only helps with retention, but also with positive word of mouth about the building. But, sometimes residents just don’t want to hang out with their neighbors. And that’s OK. Some people are shy. Some people work crazy hours and would rather come home to a nice quiet apartment and watch DVR-ed episodes of Dexter and enjoy a nice glass of wine (actually, take…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: Why You Shouldn’t Assume Anything Regarding Your Renters and the Lease
You might not think you need to spell out every little thing in your lease agreement with your residents because some things are just common knowledge—everyone knows them, everyone follows them, and there’s no reason to waste time or paper writing them out. But you’d be wrong. It turns out that there really isn’t “universal knowledge.” What might be a “no duh” thing for you might not even occur to your renters. Case in point: I was recently talking to a coworker, and referenced the classic teen movie Clueless. You know the one, of course—the updated version of Jane Austen’s…
‘The Accidental Economist’ with Jack Kern: Capital Flies South for the Winter
Life is funny. Sometimes just when you have it figured out, you get bopped on the head and realize how wrong you can be. I’m usually in the prediction business and have been fairly successful at it. My interest is in commercial real estate sectors and multifamily is a regular guest on the circuit. One of the more interesting facets about multifamily is how popular it has become. Recently on a trip to Chicago, a taxi driver from Senegal told me he comes from a wealthy family by Senegal standards and they’re pooling their resources to buy an apartment building…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: Ways to Keep Your Community Safe from Bad Guys (Or Bored Teens)
The other night, I was sitting in my apartment watching some TV with my husband. Then these two guy drove up in a van, parked in front of my building, and sat there. And blasted music. For two hours. I was totally creeped out. And not only was it creepy that these two guys were just sitting there in their van, but the music was really, really annoying. Now, maybe I’ve just been watching too much Breaking Bad. Maybe I would have been more at ease if they were playing Bon Jovi or Green Day, or other music I like,…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: What to Do When Your Building’s Selling Point No Longer Sells
Back in the day, you could get a bucket of fried golden goodness at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then people got super into health and fitness. Plus, in the ’90s, not only did the term “supermodel” come into existence, but belly-baring t-shirts were all the rage (thanks a lot, Gwen Stafani and Sporty Spice). And in 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken faced a dilemma. “Fried” was in the name, after all, and admitting to eating fried food was no longer en vogue. So Kentucky Fried Chicken rebranded itself as KFC. Did they still sell fried chicken? Of course. Still do, in fact. But…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: What Do You Consider a “Luxury” Apartment?
When you think of a luxury apartment building, what do you picture? Is it a building with a doorman and elevator? Or one chock full of amenities? Or, I don’t know, full of Donald Trump-inspired opulence, like solid-gold toilets or something? (And if it there were solid-gold toilets, and it happened to be super cold in the apartment, could there ever be an incident similar to when that kid got triple dog dared to lick the pole in A Christmas Story and ended up getting stuck? Because, if so, I know what I’m going to get my younger brother for…
‘Gimme Shelter’ with Daniel Gehman: The Search for ‘Gen Y Zero’
Over the last half-decade or so, I’ve spent a lot of time studying and speaking about Gen Ys, and was on another panel back in June at the Pacific Coast Builder’s Conference in San Francisco. Since then, I’ve received two more requests to speak about it at industry events. While it’s encouraging to see such widespread interest in this demographic cohort, I’m feeling a bit ready to move on to the next thing. Even before PCBC, I was already feeling I’d heard too many presentations about Gen Y that treated the entire block of 18-33 year olds as a monolith,…
‘Gimme Shelter’ with Daniel Gehman: Ambivalence
Today I was gently dressed down for being a “highly educated, articulate, upper middle class white person” who “didn’t pay taxes to support L.A.’s crumbling infrastructure.” Huh? I guess I earned the epithet, but let me explain. For some time now, California has allowed certain vehicles to drive in the car pool lanes with a single occupant if they met a certain environmental standard, which typically required super low emissions and high mileage. Both the Prius and the Honda Civic hybrid qualified. This program came to an end in California about a year ago, and all the folks with the…
‘The Accidental Economist’ with Jack Kern: Forecasting in an Age of Uncertainty
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” (c) John Kenneth Galbraith, noted writer and economist I recently had the pleasure of meeting with the Dallas Fort Worth Real Estate Research Forum and presenting some thoughts on being a real estate forecasting practitioner. In some ways, it’s a lot like being a weatherman in the middle of storm where everyone knows it’s raining and all you can talk about is how long it’s going to come down. In some sense, whether you’re concerned about Basel III or the change in cap rates on apartments or other…