Sunday, November 28, 2010

NAA Intervenes in Missouri Apartments’ ....

...“Potentially, what happens in Missouri could become a test case for other states,” said Greg Brown, NAA’s vice president of government affairs. “We want to protect our members from being denied the right to individually bill residents for utilities, which has been shown to conserve resources.”...

AAKC Members please login to http://www.aakc.us/ and read an important article that coud affect your daily operations.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

We're Social!


The AAKC Social Media Committee was created to enhance the presence of AAKC both locally and nationally.

Through social media, we will bring awareness to upcoming events, seminars, educational opportunities and other ways that current and new members are able to get involved. We are confident through this new committee we will help to strengthen our other committees and encourage new members to join.

Find, Follow, Like and Connect with us!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Please Join us for the AAKC Holiday Party & Dinner Meeting

Please join us for this special event in the Rooftop Ballroom, at the Intercontinental Hotel for our December Dinner Meeting & President's Awards Banquet. the AAKC President, Lenora Carpenter will be giving out Awards for:

* Local Vendor Company of the Year
* National Vendor Company of the Year
* Management Company of the Year
* Vendor Volunteer of the Year
* Management Volunteer of the Year
* Vendor of the Year
* Manager of the Year
* Management Executive of the Year
* Vendor Committee Member of the Year
* Management Committee Member of the Year

It will be held on December 7th, 2010 at the Intercontinental Hotel

401 Ward Parkway
Cocktails from 5:00pm-6:30pm
Dinner and President's Award Banquet begin at 6:30pm

Tickets are $38.00 Dinner & Awards Banquet in advance $43.00 at the door

*This event is for AAKC members only.

The Boom In Apartment REITs

Rental units are hot again. How to invest.
Stephane Fitch, 12.06.10, 12:00 AM ET


As millions of Americans were looking in vain to unload their homes this summer, Thomas Toomey bought 1,374 of them for an average of $300,000 each. The $412 million outlay left his Denver-based apartment company, UDR, with 58,800 units worth $7.6 billion.
Toomey is buying for a simple reason. He's convinced that rising rents will drive up the profits he can earn leasing out those homes to record levels over the next several years.
"Our industry will do for apartments what Holiday Inn and Marriott did for hotels," Toomey says of his brand-building plans.
Rather than your Realtor, it's your stockbroker who can tell you that a housing boom has been going on in apartment real estate investment trusts for at least a year.
"Apartment demand is rebounding in dramatic fashion," says analyst Andrew McCulloch of Green Street Advisors. With little new development under way rents have risen 5% nationally in the past year, apartment-data firm Axiometrics says. McCulloch expects the gains to flow through as a 12.5% annual average earnings increase over the next two years among the dozen U.S. apartment REITs he follows.
The average apartment stock, meanwhile, has produced a total return (price gains plus dividends) of more than 40% this year. Apartment REIT shares are now at an average 12% premium to their underlying equity values, McCulloch figures. Even so, he rates only 3 of 12 U.S. apartment stocks as "sell."
Even if future gains are more tempered, investors can enjoy average 3.2% yields on apartment stocks (slightly below the overall REIT average) and good prospects that payouts will grow. That's partly because after rising to 69% in 2006, homeownership is heading back down. With the children of baby boomers now in their early 20s and looking to live on their own, the number of renters will grow by 4.5 million, or 13%, by 2015, analyst McCulloch figures.
Why not just buy apartments directly? Diversification, for one thing. UDR owns 58,800 apartments in numerous cities, and Equity Residential owns nearly three times as many units. Professional management is another plus for top REITs.
"On a scale of one to ten for management skill, I rate all the companies I follow an eight, nine or ten versus the private guys," says McCulloch.
Big apartment managers are figuring out how to use amenities like outdoor grilling kitchens, gyms and movie theaters, as well as electronic systems for paying rent or requesting a repair. Facebook-style apps enable tenants to organize parties, find jogging partners or even dates. Such amenities should help keep residents in place even if owning continues to become cheaper relative to renting.
The table shows eight apartment stocks, all rated "hold" or "buy" by Green Street. The picks have an average leverage ratio of 45%. The entire group should benefit from rising rents and pay rising dividends over the next three years.



http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1206/investment-guide-reit-apartment-building-rent-secret-housing-boom_print.html

Sunday, November 7, 2010

"Landlords Woo Tenants With Free Wi-Fi"

When 22-year-old graduate student Eric Pitt needs to check his e-mail or begin online research for college courses while at home, he's getting online for free.

Pitt, who lives in Newmarket, is renting an apartment and has a landlord who is paying for wireless Internet access — a service more landlords are beginning to offer to entice renters.

"It's a huge cost savings," he said. "I know it's probably about $70 that I'm saving a month."That can go a long way for a student, added Pitt, who is working on his master's degree in business administration at the University of New Hampshire. When he moved from Rhode Island in August, he said, he was sold on the apartment when he saw Internet was included.

"It's definitely a big selling point," he said. "And the signal strength is good. They put in a new router and it's strong. I've got no complaints."

Tom Toye, owner of Arthur Thomas Properties, manages Pitt's 12-apartment complex. The idea of installing shared secure Internet for a complex is something Toye has been working on over the last three years.

"The real advantage is cost savings," he said. "If it's something people have to save $50 a month, that's an extra $50 they can use for gas money or insurance."

The buildings are provided with one line of broadband shared among tenants. The wireless signal is encrypted and password-protected.

The Newmarket complex is the most recent installation Toye has helped create. The connections are installed at the owner's expense, and rental fees were not adjusted.

"There are two reasons it's a benefit to the owner," Toye said. "It's an amenity for the residential building that keeps the current tenants happy, while giving them less incentive to move on. It also makes it more attractive for new people looking to rent."

Paul Bergeron, a spokesman with the National Apartment Association, based in Arlington, Va., agreed that it can be a useful tool for property owners and managers.

"With consumers demanding greater use, better access and more convenience of Internet connectivity at home, apartment owners who are able to offer options and higher bandwidth to residents can gain an advantage in attracting new residents while retaining those who they already have," he said.

Arthur Thomas Properties has tried it in three other properties and said by now, they have worked out the kinks. When signal strength was straining from routers too far away from apartments, they began cascading routers — connecting one router to another to provide more wireless Internet coverage.

"The biggest trouble we had was trying to get strong signals throughout the buildings because it tends to be multifamily units," Toye said. "We found the routers worked up and down, but not left to right and fixed it."

Arthur Thomas complexes that provide free wireless Internet to its tenants also have maintenance request forms online as well as online rental payment options.

According to Toye, he hasn't seen other small complexes providing such services in the area, but student housing in Durham does provide Internet to students. Those buildings are prewired, he said, adding that smaller landlords who use older buildings, have to rework setups.

For landlords offering free wireless, it's been a boost in rental interest, according to Toye.

"Everybody says it's great, because it's expensive to have," he said. "Even cable is expensive. Most people are looking at $100 just for those services. Everybody is trying to save a few bucks, and this works."

Jule Holcombe of Dover has been renting out extra space in her home for the last four years. She said she offers free wireless for convenience and to help tenants save money.

"I think it seems ridiculous not to," she said of sharing Internet. "It's one house broken up into three apartments, and it seems ludicrous for three people to pay for wireless when we can split that cost."

She said the renters share the passcode for the wireless and in the four years she's been living there, there has only been one time where the connection was disconnected.

"We thought it was an added benefit," she said. "The expense of paying your heat and utility and water — it all begins to add up."


BY RONI REINO
rreino@fosters.com
rreino@fosters.com

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Monday, November 1, 2010

Mission Statement

The Mission of The Apartment Association of Kansas City is to protect owners of multifamily housing from harmful legislation through effective political representation; to offer educational opportunities for professional leadership in the industry; to communicate with our members regarding local, state and national issues; and prudent administration of our resources.