What do Bentley Prince Street’s Cool Carpet, Arbor Contract Carpet, WeatherTRAK Smart Water Management by HydroPoint Data Systems Inc., Post Properties’ EcoActive program, The Tower Companies’ “Beyond Green” program and Forest City’s “Roadmap to Intrinsic Sustainability” have in common? They were all winners of MHN’s 2008 Green Initiative Awards! (Click here for details about last year’s winners.) With sustainability an increasingly “hot,” albeit important, topic, more and more companies are paving the way for a greener future. Whether it’s a recycled-content carpet, technology that creates a rational irrigation schedule based on the landscape or a corporate initiative pledging a company’s…

NAA Exhibitors ScentAir and Beaulieu Demonstrate the Role of Scent Management in the Apartment Business We know that the smell of baking cookies can make a house more attractive to prospective buyers. So why not apply the same principle to rent apartments—or to keep residents from moving elsewhere when their leases are up? There is a growing body of research on the sense of smell to affect consumer responses. According to The Scent Marketing Institute, “scent can be highly effective in helping us distinguish one product from another. It can trigger a memory or desire that influences a purchase decision….

The House of Representatives recently passed energy and climate legislation that would include a number of provisions for green building incentives. The Waxman-Markey bill, otherwise known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454), would include such things as: -A building retrofit program, which would include standards for both residential and nonresidential buildings; -A building energy performance labeling program, which would encourage both owners and occupants to learn about building energy performance; -Established percentage targets for energy use reductions in new residential and commercial buildings; -The GREEN (Green Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods) Act, which includes…

The USGBC recently released its “Top Ten Ways to Use Recovery Funds for Green Buildings.” In its introduction, the report notes that local governments have begun to think “holistically about how to use recovery dollars to advance sustainability in the built environment,” rather than basing change on a “project-by-project” basis. This is pretty evident in the ever-increasing news about city and state efforts to mandate building standards and/or provide incentives to buildings that include a certain green checklist, if you will. While most, if not all, of the USGBC’s Top Ten can be incorporated into multifamily, I find No. 2:…

Construction financing is still attainable, if you know where to look. Learn about obtaining and nenegotia ting for debt financing—including construction, acquisition and refinancing—in today’s difficult environment at the upcoming Multi-Housing World Leadership Summit 2009. The conference, which is produced in conjunction with Multi-Housing News magazine by Nielsen Business Media as part of the Nielsen Co., will be held from Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in San Diego. One panel in the Finance and Investment Track is called “Show Me the Money: How to Find, Negotiate and Secure Construction, Acquisition, Rehab and Permanent Financing.” The panel will be led by David Hendrickson,…

Spotlight on Operations Track A recent assessment by the Wharton School shows a dramatic surge in economic losses from natural catastrophes worldwide, up from just over $50 billion in the 1950s to almost $800 billion in the 1990s. William Gray, a forecaster and the head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University, warns that the probability of a major hurricane striking the U.S. Coast is estimated at 74 percent, compared with the average of 52 percent over the past century. Recently MHN talked to Michael Payton, senior vice president of CAS Partners Insurance Services, the parent company of…

The next time you’re in Phoenix, I highly recommend taking a ride on the newly opened light rail. Whether your niche involves marketing apartment communities, financing them or building them (or, like me, reporting on them) I’d say checking out public transportation options from time to time is a no-brainer. It’s interesting to see the backbone of future transit-oriented development in action. I didn’t intend to research the Metro Light Rail ($2.50 for a day pass) while in Phoenix for the NAA’s green conference, but it turned out that my hotel was much closer to the airport than to downtown….

The debate continues about whether apartment residents will pay more for green living, but c learly demand is growing within certain demographics and interest is quickly spreading to others. And it’s on all of our minds. Recently NMHC’s Kim Duty shared an interesting article “Green Renting: Tenants Desire Eco-Friendly Digs” with members of our newly launched MHN Forum at LinkedIn. In the meantime, the number of properties offering a nod to green living keeps growing. So much so that the National Apartment Association hosted a new niche conference devoted to this topic last w eek. One attendee, a small property…

In New York City the daffodils are in full bloom and you don’t have to go to Central Park to see them. You may not find any blooming flowers in Times Square, but in other parts of town urban landscaping is plentiful and quite effective. It provides excellent curb appeal—a concept that takes on a much more literal (and urgent) meaning in city environments where, frequently, only a small bit of sidewalk separates the entrance of an apartment building from the curb. With smaller green footprints to design and care for, urban locales generally mean easier—and less costly—landscaping choices. One…