I’m pleased to be among the first to announce the birth of the National Multifamily Speakers Alliance! Founded by Toni Blake, the mission of this exciting new alliance of educators, trainers, professional speakers and consultants is to increase the quality and integrity of industry education and establish a new standard of performance excellence. Congratulations to the group’s members, and best wishes for continued success! (Bookmark: www.MultifamilySpeakers.com)
Anna Patterson’s last search engine was so effective that Google bought her technology to upgrade their own system in 2004. She thinks her latest effort is even better … only this one is not for sale. Cuil (pronounced “cool”) is backed by $33 million in venture capital, and it apears to have just gone live. Now, you know I’m a diehard Googler, and you probably are, too; but don’t you agree it’s about time somebody shook that status quo? I ran a quick search on “Multifamilypro” and the fresh-faced format in which the results were displayed was, well, kinda cool. Check it out at www.cuil.com.
Randy Pausch, whom some of you know from his amazing “Last Lecture” on YouTube, passed away today. For those of you who haven’t yet seen the video, I hope you’ll invest a little time in yourself to do exactly that and remember that it’s never too late in life to achieve your dreams.
Few industries take the kind of heat that we do for maximizing profit and reducing our not insignificant level of risk, and this article at MSN Real Estate is a great example of that heat. Nonetheless, it does make an important point that this wealth of new information allowing us to better determine risk and customize pricing, in a way that any successful enterprise must, is all too easily perceived by the consumer as an intent to gouge rather than guage, particularly if we allow it to translate into complexity in our leasing and billing practices. In order to remain defensible in the face of increasing consumer demand for transparency, our fees and billing should ideally remain straightforward, understandable, and clearly justified by the value we provide in return. I mean, when’s the last time you actually understood your phone bill well enough to know you were getting value in keeping with all those mysterious little costs; and who wants their future residents to approach the (hopefully long-term) decision of where to make their home with the same mindset as a car purchase negotiation? Is that really where we’re heading? I think we all hope the answer to that is a resounding “no.”
This one’s for the marketers. Direct Magazine (www.directmag.com) is one of the many magazines that get added to my reading stack every month, but Thomas L. Collins’ column, The Makeover Maven, in the back of every issue is one of the few things I always try to read fresh out of the mailbox, followed by a quick and always amusing flip to Herschell Gordon Lewis, Curmudgeon-At-Large.
Yet another reason why renting at one of our communities is a better choice than renting a single family home: house renters are increasingly facing eviction thanks to the mortgage crunch and unreliability of owners being able to keep up with their payments. (Read More)
I ran across this hand-held alarm device while surfing last night for geek toys, and it struck me as a handy thing to carry while walking a property alone or in any situation where you might need to call for help.
The same site also carries these awesome little LED name badges that can be programmed to flash the message of your choice. Imagine sending your team for Outreach Marketing wearing these, programmed to display an eye-catching and unforgettable tagline about your community! I saw a Realtor’s car yesterday with an LED license plate frame, programmed with her phone number and a short line about her hottest listing. What a great idea!
A case heard last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is being watched carefully for its potential to determine the statute of limitations for violations of the Fair Housing Act for all multifamily apartments and condos built after 1991.
An organization for disabled citizens has sued multiple defendants for the 1997 design and building of a North Las Vegas community for violations of the Fair Housing Act, alleging inadequate sidewalk ramps for wheelchairs, lack of accessible building entrances and undersized interior doorways, among other things. (Read More)
Check out what Eric Wu, Founder and CEO of RentWiki, has to say about how the net is better enabling renters to turn to their peers for help in making one of their most important decisions.
