The envelope please.

The dynamic, edgy look with lots of steel and glass, concrete and brick, variations of color and texture and dramatic features like bays of different depths, overhangs, staggered rooflines and building heights and a combination of eclectic, seemingly incompatible architectural styles melded to create harmonious communities was prominent among the projects that took top honors in the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Multifamily Pillars of the Industry competition this year.

The 150-unit Mosler Lofts condominium community in Seattle, which walked away with the 2008 Multifamily Community of the Year award and also was chosen the best high-rise condominium community this year, was one of the few truly green projects among the entr
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Reflections

There is an energy and excitement to this industry that is fiercely addictive. Multifamily, after all, is the complete package: We have the bling (Pillars, page 52). We have the style (Luxury, page 58).
And we're not only good looking, we're smart (Time, page 18).

We sit at the controls of an industry that fuels our economy, even as other sectors waiver. Fuel prices, defunct mortgages, the economy, sure, they get the headlines. But multifamily is a steamliner, forging ahead with strength and grit, causing some to finally relent with a sigh, "Well, people will always need a place to live," as if apartments run themselves by sheer supply and demand, and a little dash of demographic default. Don't think so.

In Q1 of this year, much of
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Pick one, then keep it to yourself.

At her previous job, Samantha Smith, was the lone conservative in a 10-person office—something her more liberal co-workers were happy to tease her about after she shared her views on hot-button issues like same-sex marriage and the Iraq war.

"One April Fools Day one of my co-workers sent an email to the entire staff that called me Nancy Reagan and suggested I ‘pretend to be a Democrat for the day' because that would be really funny," says Smith, a registered Republican.
Because the Foxboro, Massachusetts, resident liked her co-workers and the office was small, Smith says she stayed silent on the matter.

"I didn't want to make waves," says Smith, who's now director of communications at an online gaming company. "But I thought, if we w
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Regional apartment players hunt deals

While most commercial real estate owners and developers are singing the blues these days, investors like Bruce Hellman are whistling a brighter tune.

Hellman is president of Cincinnati-based Berkshire Realty Group LLC, an owner and operator of rental-apartment buildings. With 5,500 units in Ohio and Kentucky and a healthy appetite to buy more, Berkshire and regional operators like it have found one of the few sweet spots in the market right now.

While credit is scarce in many sectors, financing is still available for buying apartment buildings thanks to government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At the same time, competition facing investors like Berkshire has greatly diminished as the giants that used to rule the mult
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Apartment market going strong

The apartment industry is apparently faring the economic climate well. Large apartment owners are scaling back portfolio size, whereas apartment management firms are increasing their portfolio size by as much as 70 percent.

"The apartment industry has historically been dominated by smaller local and regional firms, particularly in the area of property management," noted Doug Bibby, National Multi Housing Council president. "But that is clearly changing as we see the emergence of several powerful national property managers. These firms are using economies of scale to overcome thin margins and to refute the conventional wisdom about property management being a low-growth area."

"Not only are they surpassing investor and client expectation
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The $700,000 late fee: when time is not on your side

For one management firm, finding lost revenue and relief from rising energy costs was as simple as paying utility bills more efficiently.

In early 2006, Houston, Texas-based Alliance Residential Management, LLC. (not to be confused with other firms by similar names in Phoenix and Chicago) managed a portfolio of 45,000 units across 150 B and C class apartment communities. As a predominantly owner-managed company, Alliance's mainstay is managing operational costs and creating value for its owners and investors. By moving the task of utility bill processing from on-site staff, and outsourcing it to a provider more adept in both bill processing and utility management, Alliance not only streamlined payables, but saw immediate fiscal savings i
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Leveraging your greatest asset

Kimberly Andreadis, an industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in the multifamily industry and strategist, trainer and founder of Marketing Path LLC, sees a direct correlation between sales success and employees' skill sets.

"Our onsite customer service representatives and leasing consultants must excel as marketing managers in a variety of disciplines. They have to be market savvy, have extraordinary lead generation and selling skill and, most importantly, they must create brilliant customer experiences. Fortunately, the technology exists with which to link together these diverse activities, giving them greater impact on revenue growth and retention," she said.

Amy Earp, director of marketing and creativity at Sawyer
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The smell of success

But the idea that came to him in 1976, while savoring the rich sensory experience in a lush redwood forest, prompting him to investigate how that captivating emotional experience could be infused into commercial buildings, was received with incredulity and the implication that his concept was laughable.

Perhaps those he approached early in his effort to market his idea would have been more likely to take it seriously had they been aware of the findings revealed at the 1986 conference in England, where researchers presented solid scientific evidence that fragrance can, indeed, modify mood, emotions and behavior, confirming what was intuitively obvious to Peltier, whose customers today include Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt Regency, Int
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Something in the air

"Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make your heartstrings crack," wrote Rudyard Kipling in his 1903 poem "Lichtenberg", capturing in verse what scientists have learned over the past 20 or 30 years about how olfactory stimuli are processed in the most primitive part of the brain, which also governs emotions and short- and long-term memory.

In early 2007, Post Properties rolled out ScentAir Technologies Inc.'s scent delivery system across its 62-community, 22,400-unit portfolio, as part of the Branded Leasing Office Experience the company initiated a couple of years ago. That experience also includes taste and audio-visual impact in the overall program that is intended to strengthen the Post identity and brand by providing the REIT'
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Tiptoe through the tulips

"There's no finer ambassador of quality than the tulip," Todd Tibbitts, senior VP of property services at Post Properties, said recently, adding that the blossom has long been a symbol of opulence and excellence worldwide, making it the perfect reflection of the company's upscale communities' qualities.

Founded in Atlanta in 1971 as a local real estate development and management company, Post Properties was a pioneer in the development of suburban garden-style apartments and quickly realized the importance of curb appeal.

Because Atlanta experiences distinct seasonal weather changes, Post launched an in-house landscape division in the late 1970s to make certain that prospective and current residents would be greeted by flowers in bloom
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Integration evolution

Apartment owners and managers have retooled their Internet strategies to allow prospective renters to visit apartment communities online, see pricing and availability that changes daily—thanks to integrated revenue management systems—and choose a unit, complete the screening and application processes and pay processing fees with the click of a mouse.

Their technology investments are paying off. Mid-America Apartment Communities, for instance, is seeing an explosion of Internet- generated traffic. The contacts from potential renters the multifamily REIT received via the Internet and email in Q1 2008 more than doubled year-over-year. In addition, online community portals, or Intranets, enable residents to order and pay for utilities, reques
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Rent by numbers

Yield management tools adopted from successful applications in the hospitality and airline industries are among the latest integrations to capture the minds and bottom lines of apartment companies. These software programs help set rents by analyzing real-time market conditions and historical performance—such data as seasonal traffic rates, weighted competitor rents and recent demand—to recommend pricing for a given move-in, unit or lease term.

But, no matter how a community's units are priced, how well managed, maintained or well-built it might be or how quickly a company responds to skips and other bad debt, the ability of an apartment property to generate revenue is in direct proportion to the quality of its renters.

"A lot of people
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A doctor in the house

Internhousing.com and NurseHousing. com—subsidiaries of Key Housing Connections Inc., a California-based corporate housing provider—are comprehensive online resources that enable clients to arrange short- term housing for cooperative education workers and interns and traveling medical professionals.

Both Web sites help clients locate and secure rental housing in markets across the United States and Canada and provide a place where their independent travelers can go to find their own housing options among listings by local apartment owners and property management companies. In addition, the sites make available the collective intelligence of short-term rental professionals and provide tips on locating hard-to-find properties and negotiatin
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Y should you care?

Today, the oldest members of Generation Y are about 27 years old though there has yet to be solid consensus on its start/end dates.

The most commonly quoted dates refer to the approximate 70 million born between 1981 and 2001, and include the Echo Boom between 1989 and 1993, when the number of annual births exceeded four million.

Some demographers refer to Gen Y as the 80 million born since 1980.

Some refer to them as The Millennials: anyone born after 1978—a group with one trillion dollars on hand according to the U.S. Census Bureau in November 2006. Factoring in immigration brings the population born since 1980 to approximately 90 million, as reported by College and University in January 2007, which would make them the largest
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In the lap of luxury

Apartment owners and managers also have observed that recent trend.

Nearly 80 percent of those responding to the National Multi Housing Council's (NMHC) Quarterly Survey of Apartment Conditions conducted in January and February reported seeing a decrease in the number of renters leaving to become homeowners.

As more people who can afford to buy homes choose to rent, multifamily developers likely will find new opportunities in the luxury sector. They will need to keep their finger on the pulse of what renters-by-choice expect for their money Renters of luxury apartments want state-of-the-art fitness centers, the latest technology, media rooms, business centers, swimming pools, movie theaters, cyber cafes and espresso bars, valet trash
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Sub-prime bail out

A subprime lender is one who makes loans to borrowers who do not qualify for loans from mainstream lenders. It is a market that has evolved to permit borrowers with poor credit history and an unstable financial situation the opportunity to get home mortgages. The catch is they pay a higher and typically an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).

Encouraged by the housing bubble, easy credit, along with the expectation that housing prices would continue to appreciate, many subprime borrowers took out mortgages they could not afford in the long run, particularly if interest rates rose and housing prices depreciated.

As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions wer
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