Commercial & Residential Property Blog

UDR, Inc., a leading multifamily real estate investment trust, today announced that its Savoye community, the first phase of the company’s residential component for its Vitruvian Park SM development in Addison, Texas, is now pre-leasing and will open its doors to residents on March 1, 2010.

Bill Gray is an independent consultant who has been assisting landlords and property management companies nationwide in addressing the issue of tenant debt since 1997.

Overall, student housing is recession-resistant because of U.S. demographics, which are producing an increasing number of high school graduates, says Jim Arbury, senior vice president of National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) which recently released a report that seeks to determine whether the dramatic U.S. economic downturn has had an impact on enrollment and on-campus dormitory vacancy rates.

Adding to evidence the recession has ended, housing construction rose in August and fewer laid-off workers sought jobless aid last week.

Still, the reports suggested a slow and fragile economic recovery. The rise in housing starts was due solely to a jump in the volatile apartment-building category, and unemployment claims remain far above levels associated with a healthy economy.

ew U.S. housing starts and permits rose in August to their highest level since November, lifted by a rebound in multifamily homes, a government report showed on Thursday.

The Commerce Department said housing starts rose 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 598,000 units, just shy of market expectations for 600,000 units. July’s housing starts were revised upwards to 589,000 units from the previously reported 581,000 units.

Housing starts rose 1.5 percent in August to an annualized rate of 598,000, led by a 25 percent increase in apartment construction, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Thursday.

Single-family starts fell 3 percent to a 479,000 annual rate, the first decline since January. Single-family starts rose 24 percent in the Northeast, 0.9 percent in the Midwest, and fell 2.4 percent in the South. The West was unchanged.

At a time when many construction projects languish in limbo awaiting the turnaround of the economy, university projects continue moving forward.

“The higher education market is going fairly strong because there are only a few markets with money and that market is moving at a fairly strong pace,” Rick Johnson, COO of student housing developer Collegiate Development Services in Irving, Texas, told CPE.

The 2006 sale of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion was the most expensive real estate deal in U.S. history. Since then the property has lost more than half its value, while rent payments fail to cover even half of the debt service.

The tenants are suing the property management firm Tishman Speyer Properties saying that they illegally raised rents. A lower New York State appeals court ruled in favor of the tenants. Now the opponents are sparring in the state’s top Court of Appeals.

At a time when many construction projects languish in limbo awaiting the turnaround of the economy, university projects continue moving forward.

“The higher education market is going fairly strong because there are only a few markets with money and that market is moving at a fairly strong pace,” Rick Johnson, COO of student housing developer Collegiate Development Services in Irving, Texas, told CPE.

The owners of federally assisted multifamily properties in Brooklyn have agreed to pay a $20,000 penalty for failing to provide information regarding lead hazard reduction work and to clean up lead-based paint hazards in nearly 800 apartments.

The agreement between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the property management company represents the first administrative settlement for violations of the Federal Lead Safe Housing Rule. According to HUD, Star Realty Co. and the affiliated property owners failed to provide information to HUD regarding the operation and condition of the 20 multifamily properties.