Seattle - Apartment Insights survey shows big bump in rents and overall firming of the rental market, reports Tom Cain of Apartment Insights .
The data are from his Seattle firm’s 2nd quarter statistics and trends on 50+ unit properties in the King/Snohomish market.

VACANCY: 4.83%
The vacancy rate for conventional, stabilized 50u+ properties is 4.83%, down from 5.21% in the first quarter. This marks the second consecutive quarterly improvement.
The vacancy rate was 4.69% a year ago.

If you are the general contractor building a new apartment community, is your carpenter more important than the electrician? Does the plumber play a larger role than the roofer?

As aggressive real estate investors, we are used to investing every last dime in our properties. As our properties grow in value we harvest the equity through refinancing and invest again. Sometimes as we are rushing forward to build our real estate empires, we run into a small problem- the problem of being out of cash.

Dear Maintenance Men:
My building was built in the 1970s and it is now time to re-plumb my water lines. Since the property is on a slab with a flat roof, all the new plumbing will need to go through the walls. I am a bit worried about all the drywall holes that will be needed to complete the work. I know plumbers are not drywall contractors, so how do I keep my walls from being completely destroyed in the process? - Albert

Dear Albert:

It's difficult to ignore that the “Green Movement” is spreading. We hear about it on the news when the talk turns to renewable energy. New homes are being built to maximize energy efficiency. Commercial properties are striving to become LEED certified. Water conservation is becoming increasingly important as drought persists in many regions of the country. Parents are more concerned about the impacts that chemicals may have on their children. But what does this all mean to you as Property Managers?

In an important victory for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and its members who rely on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), Congress has reached an agreement to reauthorize the program through Sept. 30, 2017.

Forecast shows improvement in housing, with modest gains for commercial building,
but institutional building and public works continue to weaken

Technology has revolutionized the way that many companies and entire industries do business; including the property management industry. In some rental offices, everything from leasing to rent collections, purchasing and maintenance requests, etc., are being logged, inputted, tracked or entered into a variety of computer programs and databases. All of these processes are designed to improve accuracy, efficiency, customer service and the bottom line.

1) What is your background and how did you find yourself working in the multifamily
industry?
For the past 35 years, I have owned Diamond Productions. My profession is producing large public shows and corporate events. I created and published (for 17 years) the On-Site newspaper, Northwest Resource Directory and several other industry publications. I am also an owner of rental properties.
I have become deeply involved with the multifamily industry by producing the TRENDS Education conference and Trade Show for the past 26 years.

Fifty-two of top 88 markets have increased rents 3.0% or more this year; rent concessions
at near record lows

Axiometrics Inc., a provider of data and advisory services on the apartment market, indicates in its most current report that, even with the weak job growth numbers recently reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the apartment market continued to soar in May, with effective rents up 0.74% for the month and 3.29% year-to-date (YTD).

Toolkits help federally assisted housing managers to adopt smoke-free policies

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and heath advocates today launched a new set of tools to encourage and guide private owners of federally assisted multifamily housing and public housing authorities to adopt smoke-free policies to protect residents from the dangers of second-hand smoke and to reduce property maintenance costs.

Part one of a two part series on the marketing channels, amenities and services that sell to student housing residents (and their parents).

Assumptions regarding how to leverage social media run far and wide in the apartment industry, and nowhere is the fever pitched higher than in student housing, where owners and operators see student residents (and often their parents) glued to mobile devices, thumbs typing away and figure social media has to be the customer sales and service channel of the future.

According to Census figures, the number of renters has jumped 16 percent since 2004 to almost 106 million, and the number of permits for construction of multifamily housing units went up 61 percent between the first quarter of 2011, and the first quarter of 2012.

Imagine you drive up to a property that you found in an online listing. You see cracked blinds through dirty windows, peeling paint on the front of the building, weeds a foot high, unruly shrubbery and low-hanging trees. What is your impression? What kind of tenant will this property attract?

One of the most unpleasant events landlords must be prepared to deal with is the occasional death of a tenant. Preparing yourself by understanding the law, having a plan and being able to recognize potential risks can help avoid needless hassle, unnecessary expense and unexpected liability. The most likely scenario involving a tenant dying involves an event happening offsite, like in a hospital or in an accidental death. Landlords also may have tenants die on-site (including suicides) and must understand how to manage that as well.

Multiple Tenants

One of the most common questions we receive at the UAA deals with something a city is “requiring” a landlord to do. The question is always “can they really make me do that?"
Municipalities may create and enforce regulation concerning the use of property. This is called zoning. They may also regulate common housing concerns. Also, municipalities can set general maintenance standards for the exterior and interior of properties; they can limit the storage of solid waste (junk) or vehicles on property. They can also enforce noise ordinances.

What Municipalities May Not Regulate

There are the large new construction communities… and then there are the rest of us. The management companies that market these luxury communities seem to have huge advertising and marketing budgets. They can afford interactive CD-ROMs, huge color brochures, incredible ads, billboards, radio and direct mail, all obviously designed by professional advertising agencies – but what do you do if you don’t have a big company budget to establish a brand marketing strategy?

A 38.7 percent increase in university enrollment over the past decade is creating a shortage of on-campus housing nationwide, according to a new white paper from the National Multi Housing Council’s (NMHC) National Student Housing Council (NSHC). The analysis utilized U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Census Bureau data between 2000 and 2010 to identify on-campus housing needs across the country.

Over the last 10 to 15 years it became common for builders to use plastic piping (for example PEX pipe) instead of metal piping for supplying water to fixtures and appliances in newly constructed or renovated multi-family projects. When such plastic piping systems were installed, yellow brass fittings were commonly used to connect two pieces of pipe together and to connect piping coming from the wall to the water heater and other appliances. Brass that contains more than 30 percent zinc is referred to as yellow brass.

Do you really know what you are buying when you purchase insurance for you investment real estate? Let’s discuss what could be included in a normal business owner’s policy, also known as a BOP.

Discussion of coverage: