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‘Foong on Finance’ with Keat Foong: Low Rates! Hurrah!!
There was news this morning of a new wave of economic pessimism: exports have fallen and the possibility grows that the 2.4 percent second quarter GDP growth figure could be revised lower. And the accompanying news was that the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bills had fallen back further, to 2.69 percent. Recently, the yield has been in the 2.90 percent range, and we thought that was low (albeit higher than the low-2 percent levels reached during the depths of the financial crisis in late-2008/early-2009). Just as I was getting ready to submit a blog today on this subject, I…
“Gimme Shelter” with Daniel Gehman: Nobody Walks In LA
Well, to be fair, what I really mean is nobody jaywalks in Los Angeles. Seriously. My conviction surrounding this issue stems from the day my colleague was ticketed to the tune of about a hundred bucks for jaywalking. Mind you, this was not for casually wandering across the street mid-block, this was for walking against the flashing orange hand at an intersection. Not the solid orange hand, the flashing orange hand. I was in Manhattan about two weeks ago, and it pretty much took a full 24 hours for me to understand I wasn’t in the city of angels anymore….
‘Foong on Finance’ with Keat Foong: Economic Recovery Reversing Itself?
The commercial real estate sectors are showing greater optimism, and investment activity is starting to come to life again. The latest National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) Quarterly Survey of Market Conditions released in May showed “widespread improvement” in the apartment sector. The apartment sales volume index even increased to a record, of 72 from 56. In the midst of the newfound optimism, we have news this week that the national economic recovery is slowing. Some experts even say the consumer spending slowdown will last through 2011. Will this economic reversal continue into future months, and take a bite out of…
“Gimme Shelter” with Daniel Gehman: Let Me Feed You
Ok, so I have a new goal. By the time I’m 55, my home will generate enough electricity to not only re-charge my electric vehicle, but also to sell the excess back to my local utility. Please understand that I’m well on my way already—there’s a photovoltaic system on my roof that was designed to provide about 85 percent of my annual demand. Why stop at 85 percent? Well, at the time, the theory went that since any energy generated at my place in excess of what I could use would flow back into the grid—from where my utility company…
‘Foong on Finance’ with Keat Foong: Financial Legislation Signed into Law
So this week President Obama signs into law the financial reform bill, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The new set of laws supposedly provides for: increased regulation of the financial industries–tightening oversight of the derivatives market–and consumer protections in the use of financial products. It is purported to put into place procedures to help avoid future tax-payer-funded bank bailouts. And it increases capital requirements for banks. Read some comments about the bills here. And our sister publication Commercial Property Executives earlier discussed (“Upward Climb,” p. 30) the bill’s possible effects on the commercial real estate market specifically….
‘Foong on Finance’ with Keat Foong: What will be the Unemployment Rate in 2013?
Like many industries, the apartment sector relies ultimately on job growth to drive demand for its products. In its recent white paper, NAI Global points to a projection that by mid-2013, the U.S. will see the same number of jobs as at the beginning of September 2008. That does not appear exactly to be good news, when you think that every year new people also enter the labor force. (The U.S. population continues to grow every year and is projected to reach almost half a billion in 30 years’ time.) Can the trend of weak job creation be sufficiently…
“Foong on Finance” with Keat Foong: Gladwell Speaks at Colliers Event
Colliers held its first annual Global Leadership Summit in Manhattan recently. The three-day meeting, which brought together clients and Colliers brokers from all over the world, concluded with a talk by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell at the Jazz at Lincoln Center theater. Collier’s recent Global Leadership Summit consisted of high-level strategy sessions and client meetings. Douglas Frye, global CEO of Colliers International, said, when introducing Gladwell, that the investment sales industry would need a different approach in the next three years.
‘Editor’s Notebook’ Can You Meet the EPA’s Definition of Green Apartments?
My excellent colleague Natasha Selhi passed along some interesting information from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this morning. The EPA wants renters to know that, much like single family homeowners, they do have control over how green their apartment homes are; in fact, they can express their dissatisfaction with a current apartment community by moving to another. According to EPA, “A common misconception is that renters have little control over the environmental impacts of their homes. The truth is that renters can influence many environmental aspects of their housing, from choosing where they live to adopting everyday practices that save…
‘Editor’s Notebook’ A Visit to the Wind Farm: My Missed Opportunity
It’s graduation season, and last weekend my sister-in-law threw a well-deserved party for our niece Monica who has completed high school. So, as planned, less than 24 hours (!) after I got home from NAA in New Orleans, I packed my overnight bag and we drove the five or so hours up to the Syracuse, NY area. A highlight of my socializing with friends and family was the discovery that just 30 minutes away from my sister-in-law is a working wind farm. MHN reports on renewable energy trends, but here was an opportunity to see a real wind farm up…
‘Editor’s Notebook’ More Apartment Marketing Take-Aways (or ‘Tweets I Should Have Posted’)
I just got back from the NAA conference in New Orleans. Attended lots of great sessions with my MHN colleague Anu Kher (including Social Media Marketing Fact and Fiction and How Good Is Your Property’s Crisis Management Plan) enjoyed catching up with industry folks, shot lots of videos for MHN TV which we’ll begin posting this week, and saw some interesting products which we’ll cover in the August issue of MHN magazine. On the flight back I came across some notes scribbled in April during the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference. I meant to turn them into something longer, but got…