Blog
‘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: How to Compete with that New Building on the Block
Lisa: What’s so special about this game anyway? It’s just another chapter in the pointless rivalry between Springfield and Shelbyville. They built a mini-mall, so we built a bigger mini-mall. They made the world’s largest pizza, so we burnt down their city hall. Homer: Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, they swore they’d get us back by spiking our water supply. But they didn’t have the guts. Marge: [drinks the tap water] Ooooh. The walls are melting again. -The Simpsons The multifamily industry is hot now, and that’s all good for all of us. Tons of people are renting. Which also means that…
‘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,…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: 5 Things to Put in a Welcome Basket for Student Housing [For the Parents]
It’s August, which means the time for commercials for school supplies has officially commenced (and even though many of us have—thankfully—been out of school for some time, this is very depressing. Probably because we are just realizing that we didn’t take any vacation days to go to the beach like we promised ourselves we would. Summer slips by so quickly when you don’t get a mandatory three months off). And college freshman are getting ready to leave the nest and live in student housing—either on campus or off. And once the housing is picked out or assigned, and everyone is…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: How to Protect Your Apartment Community’s Brand (By Not Following Ryan Lochte)
I’m not a fan of watching sports, but by that I mean baseball, basketball, football…pretty much anything that has my husband hogging the TV and preventing me from watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother. That doesn’t include the Olympics. I love the Olympics, especially the Summer Olympics (excluding baseball, basketball, and football—which I’m not even sure if they play). My favorite sport is swimming, because I was on the swim team back in high school. Oh, and also because the U.S. men’s team, as a whole, is really, really ridiculously good looking. Anyway, everyone is super into the Michael Phelps/Ryan Lochte…
Guest Blog: Developing Integrated Pest Management Strategies for Management and Residents
By Rose McMillan Educating residents about pest mitigation strategiesCreating an integrated pest management strategy (IPM) for any multifamily housing setting requires a collaborative effort by the management company and the residents alike. By establishing a long-term strategy of pest elimination and working to educate the residents in developing their own successful cleaning strategies, the facility can ensure that pests do not become established within the housing units. Effective pest control strategies cannot be successful without the informed participation of the residents. For this reason, the management must ensure that all residents are aware of how best to avoid attracting pests. They…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: How to Appeal to Different Groups of Renters (And Why You Should Want To)
This past weekend my husband and I went down to D.C. to visit some friends, and they took us to a Nationals game. I’m not a fan of baseball, but I don’t like to cause waves, so I went. Plus, they were my ride. Anyway, after the game and after all the players left the field, stadium workers began wheeling out a portable stage, and soon after we all got to watch a free Wallflowers concert. (I’ve said it before: The ’90s are totally back.) Now, I love concerts. Love them. (You probably wouldn’t be able to tell by looking…
‘What Renters Want’ with Jessica Fiur: How To Get That Tiny Apartment Rented
It’s a common joke that if people want to move to Manhattan, or some other large city, they’d only be able to afford something the size of a shoebox. (OK, so maybe that’s not the funniest joke out there. Picture I said it with Steve Martin’s arrow on my head. Wakka wakka.) But according to an article on Yahoo, it turns out, that’s sometimes true. Well, not literally true. You’d have to be some sort of contortionist or Barbie doll to live in a shoebox. But the couple featured in that article lives in an apartment that’s 240 square feet….
‘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…