The job-creation plan that President Obama is pushing congress to pass may have some great ideas about how to help this country and its citizens climb out of the giant hole of debt we’ve all fallen into. It does not, however, address one of the biggest problems that the nation is currently facing: the housing [...]

It’s still not clear exactly how the increase to the debt ceiling will affect the behavior of the American economy. The long term effects of this change are difficult to predict in the global marketplace, but there are three ways this increase could significantly affect the multifamily industry. Changes in the mortgage rates, falling stock [...]

Three and a half years after the start of the Great Recession and two years after it officially ended, Americans are still worried about the anemic economy.  The unemployment rate is stubbornly high at 9.1% and first-quarter GDP growth was a weak 1.8%.  There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the risk [...]

What does rent control do? According to the California Apartment Association, rent control can discourage construction of new housing and investment in existing apartments precisely when it’s needed most. The issue is raised because in the case of Guggenheim v. City of Goleta, a 2009 case, a lower court ruled against the property owner. Because [...]

Wednesday’s headline at Multifamily Executive was “Fair Housing Activists Put Multifamily ILSs on Notice.” The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) claims that some ILSs are running ads that discourage families with children from applying and thereby violate the Fair Housing Act. They released a report on Monday on the subject and are recommending that the [...]

Atop today’s DrudgeReport, labeled with the either facetious or insightful headline, Landlord in Chief: Obama Mulls Rental Option for Homeowners, was a link to an article outlining a new plan from the federal government to combat the housing crisis that could have some major impact on the apartment rental market. According to the article, U.S. [...]

Richmond, CA, a city of about 100,000 people located in San Francisco’s East Bay, has passed a local ordinance that will ban smoking in all apartment buildings. The new law comes on the heels of another smoking ordinance passed earlier this year that prohibits smoking in public places such as parks, parades and farmer’s markets. [...]

Yesterday, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco announced that he plans to veto a set of renter protection laws authored by Supervisor Chris Daly and passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week. The Renters Economic Relief Package includes: Prohibiting rent increases that puts a tenant’s rent over 33 percent if the tenant [...]

*UPDATE- House Passes HR 2454 219-212, will now head to Senate* Today the House will vote on HR 2454, (at press time, House Minority Leader John Boehner was filibustering the House by reading selections from a 300 page amendment, you can watch live here) the American Energy and Security Act; this bill has many implications [...]

The GREEN Act Reintroduced According to Multi Housing News Online, Colorado Representative Ed Perlmutter has reintroduced legislation (H.R. 2336) that would bring energy efficiency to the single and multifamily housing markets. Mr. Perlmutter’s district, located on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, gets about 300 days of sun every year(and a whole lot of [...]