Ashton Couldn’t Make Up His Mind

There’s nothing like giving up your bachelor pad right before giving up your marriage.  Ashton Kutcher traded in these sweet digs for $2.4 million, right before everyone in the tabloids and their moms caught him cheating.  We know she’s older, Ashton, but anyone who can play a Charlie’s Angel after forty and look good with a shaved head is probably worth keeping around.  Guess their home of wedded bliss isn’t the only thing on the market.

Bruce Willis Is Still a G

Bruce Willis’s house is selling for $15 million, more than five times what Ashton Kutcher’s did, so if it comes to a round of Demi’s exes playing Whose Is Bigger, it seems clear who’ll win.

Someone Sleeps Right Down the Hall From Where Elizabeth Taylor Died

Divorce isn’t the only reason to move real estate in Hollywood—death can also do the trick.  A mysteriously unnamed buyer scored Elizabeth Taylor’s house—the one in which she died last March.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see if the Girl Who Had Everything sticks around to haunt the place.

Not Even an Investment of Millions Can Keep Perry Tied Down

Although Friends ended years ago, Matthew Perry’s still as twitchy as ever.  Bought a home in August, put his apartment pictured above on the market, listed his Malibu residence and his “primary” (although who can keep track) L.A. home—all in the course of two months.  I don’t buy eggs that often.

What do you think of these high-end cribs?  Tell us here or on Facebook.

By MyNewPlace Guest Blogger, Ron Leshnower – About.com’s Apartment Living Expert!

Each new year is an opportunity for improvement. So, January is a time when many people begin to act on a resolution to join a gym, start a diet, adopt a savings plan, or attempt to quit smoking, with the goal of enjoying a happier, healthier year.

If you haven’t chosen a New Year’s resolution or you’re afraid the one you chose might prove unrealistic, it’s not too late to consider following an “apartment living” resolution for 2012. Whether you’re living in an apartment you love or you’re hoping to find the perfect rental soon, following an apartment living resolution can bring you financial, legal, personal, and aesthetic benefits, enabling you to enjoy apartment life to the fullest.
Check out this list of seven easy-to-follow apartment living resolutions for the new year. From creating a household budget to becoming a better neighbor, find out how to decide which resolution is best suited for you and how you’ll benefit. Then, learn how to follow it and see your apartment living situation improve in 2012.

Have you resolved to change things about your apartment life?  Tell us here or on Facebook!

Given the lag time embedded in commercial real estate, this increase in building could mean good news for years to come.  Investor’s Business Daily quoted Mark Obrinsky, chief economist with the National Multi Housing Council, as saying, “At this point, there is some noticeable pickup in new construction, but a lot more pre-construction activity is going on.” This is a welcome change from the past two years of building only 100,000 new units a year (compared to 300,000 units a year between 1998 and 2007.)

Why the sudden upswing in the real estate market? It’s a classic case of economic supply and demand.  In the lagging economy, fewer people buy and maintain their own homes, so more renters enter the market.  Furthermore, as the economy starts to recover, Gen Y is starting to find jobs and rent property for themselves. With both groups scrambling for apartments, vacancy rates are falling fast.  Manhattan rental vacancy hovers in the low single-digits, and Los Angeles boasts a 96.4% occupancy rate.  A great demand and a small supply mean that property owners can ask more money for their rentals.

In fact, rents have continually and steadily increased throughout the past two years .  Though the national average increase was  4.2% in the past year, some regions are much higher—such as San Francisco and San Jose, where have risen over 13%.  MPF Research, one of our sister companies and a consulting firm for the apartment sector, estimates that rents will climb another 4-5% in the next year.  This doesn’t mean bad news for renters, though. With all sorts of units in short supply, builders and developers are sure to expand the market for affordable (and new!) rentals, too!

Have something to say about the boom in apartment rental construction?  Comment here or on Facebook!

By Phil Murphy, founder, owner Storage By The Box

While dining with friends in New York City, an idea developed for an innovative storage concept. During dinner, my friend shared a rather unpleasant story of hiring a cab to travel across town to deposit storage items and make space for a new roommate.

His experience was both expensive and inconvenient. And the funny thing is, my friend told me this was a fairly common way for city dwellers to move out of an apartment or move things into temporary storage.

It was this unpleasant experience with traditional storage facilities that helped give birth to a new approach to temporary storage, an online-based solution I call Storage By The Box (storagebythebox.com).

(You had better run up the stairs at our apartment! – editor)

Storage by the Box customers never have to leave their home or office, and only pay for the amount of storage that they need. With the click of a mouse, customers can request free boxes and shipping materials, stuff the boxes and ship them back to Storage by the Box. And because not everything you own actually fits in a box, oversized items such as skis, surfboards or golf clubs are also accepted.

The items are stored on shelves in a climate-controlled building that also offers 24/7 video camera monitoring and a top-of-the-line fire alarm and fire suppression system.

Another problem with many self-storage solutions is that after renting a space, you fill it up with a number of boxes as quickly as possible, with little sense of organization. But what happens if you need to retrieve a box from your space? Then you have to drive to the storage facility, then spend hours going through all the contents of your storage container before finding the item you need, then spend more time repacking everything.

With Storage By The Box, if a customer needs an item, they simply send an email to request that it be FedExed back to them, at no additional cost. This process is easy because customers are asked to either label or even photograph the contents of each box they have sent to us, and they can then quickly access their entire inventory through an online account. When a customer wants to retrieve an item, they look at the pictures online and select the specific item or box they want returned.

No other company in the industry offers an easier or more cost-effective way to store personal items, seasonal household belongings, business records or any other variety of items.

The easiest way to learn more about Storage by the Box and how it works is to visit http://www.storagebythebox.com/how-it-works.aspx. The 2-minute video depicts the Storage by the Box process from start to finish. Additional information can be accessed at www.storagebythebox.com or by calling 888-929-8432.