Renters Will Pay More For 'Sense of Community'

Some apartment renters don't mind paying as much as $447 extra a month if they get the satisfaction they want from a sense of community.

Westlake Village, CA-based goods and service rater J.D. Power and Associates, earlier this year, conducted it's first Apartment Resident Satisfaction Study and Novato, CA-based RealFacts.com checked its database against the findings to discover renters will pay from $37 to $447 above average rents for the right kind of satisfaction.

J.D. Power took renters' pulses in four communities: Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Orlando, FL; and San Jose (Silicon Valley), CA, to determine what satisfies them most about large apartment management companies.

The rating company measured apartment resident satisfaction six ways: amenities; condition of unit at move-in; rent/value; safety/security; sense of community; and service staff. It also asked renters in each of the four cities to rate management companies in terms of overall satisfaction.

Sense of community was the most important factor in determining resident satisfaction with apartment management companies, and residents who associate a strong sense of community with their apartment complex are considerably more satisfied than those who do not.

"Satisfying residents isn't necessarily about providing resort-like amenities, but rather about offering a lifestyle and a sense of home that resonates with tenants and creates feelings of pride, connection and identity," said Michael Drago, a senior account manager for real estate and construction studies at J.D. Power.

When renters chose management companies based on overall satisfaction, the top rated companies were shown to collect rents higher than the market average.

Novato, CA-based rental market monitor RealFacts checked the rents of those top-rated apartment management companies against the market average and found:

• In Las Vegas, top rated Houston, TX-based Camden Property Trust collects average rents of $994, $37 more than the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) average of $957.
• In Denver, renters were most satisfied with Foster City, CA-based Legacy Partners, which collects an average $1,087 in monthly rents, compared to the $1,029 MSA average -- a $58 difference.
• Renters in Orlando gave the nod to Orland-based ZOM Residential Services which came in with an average $1,101 rent, $110 more than the MSA's $991 average.
• In Silicon Valley, where the cost of living is among the highest on the planet, renters choose Irvine, CA-based Irvine Company Apartment Communities as the most satisfying management company. It collects an average $2,328 a month in rents, a whopping $447 more than the MSA average of $1,881 a month.

"So we see that good management can indeed rewards the managers. When you multiply the increased rent per unit times an average size (apartment complex) of 200 to 300 units, and then multiply that figure by 12 months in a year, the additional income could easily add up to more than a million dollars a year -- a powerful incentive to be a good manager of rental property," said Caroline S. Latham, CEO of RealFacts.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: realtytimes.com

Market Conditions: Wichita, Kansas

Wayne Short, Broker/Owner, is reporting good times for the Wichita, Kansas, market.

Sales are almost even with last year -- which was a record setting year. Inventory is down slightly from past years.

How does it compare nationally? He reports that the market "still shows well on nation reports. The Top 100 markets in the nation has 2 recent reports come out of Wichita, ranking it #16 in appreciation."

Wichita also ranked the 9th "Best Big City" to live in the U.S. Reported by Money magazine this year.

Median prices are under the $150,000 level.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: realtytimes.com

Builders' Confidence Shaken, But Overbuilding Continues

For the third consecutive month, builder confidence sustained record lows. One out of five builders are confident about the single-family home market, according to a monthly index.

Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, in June 2005 the index was 72, which means 72 out of 100 builders were confident of market conditions. Today, only 19 out of 100 feel so positive.

Realty Times question is: where do they live?

While it's true that some areas are growing, most metros are stagnant. Even positive job growth isn't enough to get buyers motivated.

Buyers are so scared, they're not even dreaming about homes right now. According to a builder sub-index, traffic of prospective buyers fell three points to a record-low 14, and that's what has builder confidence down. To have buyers, you need lookie-loos.

So it was no surprise that The Commerce Department reported that building permit applications are down for six months in a row in November. That's the slowest pace for since June 1993.

Construction of new homes and apartments was also down 3.7 percent. New single-family home building fell by 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 829,000 units. That's the lowest level of home building since April 1991.

But just to keep their hand in, builders kept busy with multi-family construction -- up 4.4 percent to an annual rate of 332,000 units.

"At this point, many builders are bracing themselves for the winter months when home buying traditionally slows, scaling down their inventories and repositioning themselves for the time when market conditions can support an upswing in building activity -- most likely by the second half of 2008," Seiders said in a release.

That's OK. The party was great while it lasted, but building for speculators couldn't last forever.

But before you join in the pity party, consider this: homebuilding is still outpacing household formation, which means some areas will continue to have more new homes than they need.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: realtytimes.com

Closings: Whatever Happened to Your $10 billion?

As the year draws to an end it's not only important to ask who was naughty or nice, it's also time for a little accounting.

It was in 2002 when HUD Secretary Mel Martinez told the world that consumers could save as much as $10 billion a year by making the settlement process more competitive. Martinez -- now a Republican senator from Florida -- offered a simple proposal: Instead of buyers and sellers purchasing settlement services one transaction at a time, lenders should buy closing services in bulk and charge their direct costs to consumers.

In the same way that Wal-Mart has forced down manufacturing costs by buying on a massive scale, the same principle would be at work with settlement providers, title insurance companies and legal services.

The real estate community promptly responded to the Martinez proposal with a reasonable alternative: Instead of just lenders offering closing services in bulk, why not other players in the private sector? More competition would be good for consumers, it was argued.

Whether you like the so-called "one package" program from Martinez or the "two package" alternative from the real estate community, the point is that massive savings would be available to the public, savings that would lower closing costs and make homes more affordable.

And so as we begin 2008 you might want to ask: Whatever happened to the idea of competitive closings? How come we're not saving $10 billion a year? Why do closings continue to cost so much?

Just think about it. If open competition means that American consumers will save $10 billion a year, it also means that title companies, lawyers and others can no longer stiff the public. But nothing has happened in Washington, and the result is that five years and $50 billion have been lost.

You have to admit, a few million dollars a year for lobbyists and PAC contributions has really paid off. Though not for you, of course.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: realtytimes.com

Agenda Must Be Included in Notice of HOA Meeting

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law Senate Bill 528 (Aanestad), a bill intended to "add greater transparency" to the Common Interest Development Open Meeting Act, which sets forth rules governing the manner in which common interest development (CID) meetings are conducted.

CIDs include condominiums, community apartment projects, housing cooperatives, and planned unit developments. There are more than 41,000 CIDs in the state, ranging in size from three to 27,000 units. CIDs make up over four million housing units, approximately one-quarter of the state's housing stock.

As the senate legislative analyst noted, "CIDs are in some cases responsible for substantial budgets and have many of the responsibilities of local governments including maintaining the roads and other facilities of the common areas. Many view CIDs as quasi-governments because of the influence they have over the daily lives and financial well-being of individual owners." It is because of this vast influence wielded by some CIDs that the legislature has seen fit to craft a variety of laws governing the manner in which CIDs are both formed and operated.

The Common Interest Development Open Meeting Act was enacted in 1995, AB 46 (Hauser) was fashioned after California's Brown Act which sets rules for meetings of governmental bodies. For example, secret meetings are prohibited except for specific subjects regarding personnel matters and/or litigation.

Under current law, owners must be given at least 4 days notice of the time and place of any meeting to be held. The whole intent of this, of course, is to prevent surprises. SB 528 plugs a perceived loophole in the current act. Specifically, SB 528 requires that, now, the notice of a meeting must also include the agenda. Moreover, it prohibits the board of directors from discussing or taking action on any item at a non-emergency meeting unless the item was placed on the agenda included in the notice.

Anyone who has been surprised or sandbagged by items introduced under "new business" can appreciate this.

Under the new law, a majority of the board is still authorized to declare an emergency situation and to take action on that issue. Moreover, it allows for routine responses to statements or questions posed by a member who speaks at the meeting. Additionally, it would allow the board to direct the management agency or staff to report back on matters that had been raised.

SB 528 was not controversial and it didn't receive a lot of attention. But it's good law, and that's good news. How refreshing.

Real Estate Designers offers totally innovative solutions for your software development, Internet programming, real estate web design and hosting needs. Our service includes domain name registration and real estate web design. Real Estate Designers provides the complete solution including design, application development and marketing.

source: realtytimes.com