Blog
“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…
‘Foong on Finance with Keat Foong’: The Government Presents Plan to End Homelessness
The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) has put forth its plan to end homelessness. The USICH was mandated by the HEARTH Act, enacted by Congress in May 2009, to present a “national strategic plan” to end homelessness to Congress and the President. The plan puts forward strategies to end homelessness among veterans and the chronic homeless by 2015, and homelessness among children, family and youth by 2020. Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said that her organization looked forward to working with the Administration this year to “identify funding sources” to help communities provide…
‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: Induction Cooking…I have seen the future and it is cool!
Today… The laws of nature will be broken. Matter as we know it will be altered. Time will have no relevance. The past is hot. The future is COOL!” Not since our ancestors squatted around an open fire, cooking the catch of the day of the day on a stick over an open flame has there been such a leap in cooking technology. With today’s modern kitchen consuming as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of household energy, the magnetic induction cook-top uses 90 percent less energy than that of a conventional gas or electric cook top, making it…
‘Foong on Finance’ with Keat Foong: New Real Estate Investment Fund
There is plenty of private funds seeking below-market properties to scoop up. Recently, GoldOller Real Estate Investments formed a new real estate investment fund to invest opportunistic and value added opportunities east of the Mississippi.
‘The Essential Kitchen’ with Kevin Henry: Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?
Almost 35 years ago, while still living a post-hippie lifestyle, I attended my first Earth Day in Los Angeles. I was working at one of the first 24 hour gas stations in California, where gas was 25 cents a gallon. A couple of bucks would fill the tank of my, mint condition, 1955 VW Bug, almost to the brim. I was invited to attend the day in the park by a young woman who wrote for an ecological magazine, a “commie rag”, as my father would say. She would come in late at night to get gas and we would…
‘Foong on Finance with Keat Foong’: Spread the News: President Obama Wants to Privatize Public Housing
Whether you are for or against it, would anyone be really surprised if President Obama tries to privatize social security, or impose regressive VAT taxation, down the road? For now, President Obama wants to privatize public housing. That is one interpretation of his Preservation, Enhancement and Transformation of Rental Assistance Act (PETRA). PETRA proposes to convert public housing—on a voluntary basis, it is emphasized—to project-based Section 8. This may be a boon to private multifamily owners and developers. Bankers also stand to benefit under the Act. Think of the immense, publicly owned, housing stock that is at stake. As they say,…
How Do You Measure Consumer Confidence?
I was chatting on the phone with a publicist earlier this week. After he got done with his editorial pitch, the conversation turned to other topics. He and his wife are thinking about downsizing and also moving to a warmer climate… maybe Florida, where there are condo bargains waiting to be snatched up. It was just one consumer talking, but his optimism was contagious. This anecdotal evidence reinforces the May numbers released by the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® which now stand at 63.3, up from 57.7 in April. The Present Situation Index increased to 30.2 from 28.2. The Expectations…