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HUD Publishes Proposed Fair-Market Rents for Section 8 for 2011

Dennis Norman

Annually, HUD determines “fair market rents” which become effective October 1st each year and are used to determine rent amounts under the Housing Choice Voucher program, Housing Assistance Payment Contracts, Moderate Rehab programs as well as other Section 8 programs.

Earlier this month HUD published in the Federal Register it’s proposed fair market rents [...]

Gulf Oil spill could cost coastal homeowners up to $3 Billion in home values

Dennis Norman

Report looks at impact of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil spill on Florida Coastal home values

According to a report released this morning by CoreLogic the impact of the BP DeepWater Horizon oil spill on home values in the coastal area’s along the Gulf coast is expected to range from $648 million [...]

Rental Market for New Apartments Holding Steady

Dennis Norman

With all the negative things I have been discussing about the real estate and housing market lately, it is refreshing to actually get to write something positive for a change.  Last week HUD released it’s Housing Market Report for 1st quarter 2010 and it contained some reasonably good news for investors, or at [...]

Top 10 Cities in the US to Buy Rental Property

Dennis Norman

Last month I did an article, “Rental Market Looking Strong;..“, in which I discussed a survey that was done by the National Apartment Association indicating 76 percent of consumers surveyed believed renting to be a better option than home ownership. Well, today Trulia released it’s new “Rent vs. Buy Index” which [...]

Congress Considering New Tax Burdens on Real Estate

Dennis Norman

As the real estate market and industry continues to struggle to try to pull out of the dumps, another blow could come soon from Congress in the form of new tax burdens on real estate.

Congress is proposing that all owners of rental properties be required to complete and file 1099 forms for all [...]

Florida Condo Sales Up 67 Percent In First Quarter; Prices Drop 13 Percent

Dennis Norman

Sales of existing single-family homes in Florida rose 24 percent in first quarter 2010 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the latest housing statistics from Florida Realtors®. A total of 38,846 existing homes sold statewide in 1Q 2010; during the same period the year before, [...]

Apartment Industry Seeing Improvement

Dennis Norman

The apartment market continues to rebound from the “Great Recession” according to the April 2010 Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions conducted by the National Multi-Housing Council (NMHC).

According to respondents to the survey, sales volume is up, debt and equity are more available and the rental markets are getting better.  The survey has [...]

Rental Vacancy Rates For First Quarter 2010 Up From a Year Ago

Dennis Norman

According to a report released earlier this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, rental vacancies for the first quarter of 2010 in the U.S. are almost 5 percent higher than they were a year ago. The rental vacancy rate in the U.S. for the first quarter of 2010 was 10.6 percent, up [...]

Do you want ‘Green’ tenants? Survey says tenants want green landlords

Dennis Norman

Recently,  Apartments.Com conducted a survey of it’s website website visitors across the country and found that the majority of apartment seekers want to live in an apartment community that caters to a sustainable lifestyle.  According to the survey results, 89 percent of respondents said they would prefer to live in a “green” apartment [...]

‘Great Recession’ Challenges Apartment Industry

Dennis Norman

Every facet of the apartment industry was touched by the Great Recession in 2009, according to the NMHC 50, the National Multi Housing Council’s annual ranking of the 50 largest apartment owners and the 50 largest apartment managers.

“Apartment sales transaction volume plummeted,” noted Mark Obrinsky, NMHC Chief Economist. “Only $14 billion in properties [...]

Will renting become the next American Dream? Could it create a new niche?

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How to avoid being a victim of a real estate or rental scam

Dennis Norman

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have published a report about common real estate scams and rental scams they are finding and how to avoid them. Like most scams there are warning signs and red flags that can help you avoid falling victim; knowing what to look [...]

Rental Housing Market Holding Up Well – At Least In the Lower Rent Ranges

Dennis Norman

Recently HUD published a report, “U.S. Rental Housing Characteristics: Supply, Vacancy, and Affordability“, which was packed with data about the rental housing market.  The data in the report clearly illustrates that the rental market is holding up pretty well, at least in the lower rent price-ranges, while the for-sale housing market has been getting [...]

Looking for Love? Try the laundry room!

Valentine’s Day is a time for love…Are you feeling left out because you haven’t found Mr or Mrs Right?

Maybe you aren’t looking in the right places…. have you tried hanging out in the laundry room of Apartment complexes?

All right, I know what you are wondering, what does this have to do with real estate and [...]

Will that be Cash or Credit?

Dennis Norman

If you are a small to medium sized landlord odds are you receive your rent payments in the form of cash or a check.  Why not accept credit cards and debit cards for rent payments in addition?  This is something I did for years and think for many landlords it is worth the effort to [...]

Unconventional thoughts on being a landlord

Shae Bynes, Good Faith Investing

I don’t blog much about my landlord experiences, but a conversation I recently had with an investor from St. Louis (with 30+ years of real estate investing experience) inspired this post. We were talking about our philosophy regarding landlording and it was a breath of fresh air to speak with [...]

Landlords Should Maintain High Credit Standards When Selecting New Tenants, Says The National Association of Independent Landlords

Landlords with empty properties should maintain stringent credit standards – even if it means foregoing rental income, according to The National Association of Independent Landlords.

With the nation awash in vacant properties, a significant number of landlords now say they are willing to consider applicants with poor credit. But lowering criteria just to sign a lease [...]

What do you mean I have to rent to a drug addict?

Dennis Norman

Fair Housing Laws are just one thing landlords need to be very familiar with in order to protect themselves and their businesses.  In addition, there is the Americans with Disabilities Act, application screening, lead-based paint and other disclosures,leases, state laws about security deposits,collection issues, criminal activity in your units and more…What’s a Landlord [...]

Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against TK Properties LLC for Violating the Fair Housing Act

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Friday, October 16, 2009

Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against TK Properties LLC for Violating the Fair Housing Act

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced this week that it has filed a lawsuit against TK Properties L.L.C., its officer, Scott Terveen, and [...]

Demand by tenants for 3 bedroom apartments on the rise; Roommates on the rise

Dennis Norman

According to a report just released by MyNewPlace.com , as a result of the bad economy, renters around the nation are saving money on their monthly housing costs by sharing apartments with roommates rather than opting for living alone in a one bedroom apartment.  As a result, demand for 3 bedroom apartments has been [...]

Justice Department Obtains $134,000 in Discrimination Settlement with Mobile Home Park in Daphne, Alabama

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
WWW.USDOJ.GOVCRT
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today jointly announced an agreement with the owners and managers of Pina’s Mobile Home Park in Daphne, Ala., to settle [...]

Rental Data and Resources for Landlords

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Over the past two years home prices have dropped throughout the country, rather significantly in some areas.  Falling prices have created opportunities for investors but have also created a challenge for landlords and property managers to keep up with changing rental markets.  Logic would dictate that if home prices in any [...]

“For Rent: No Kids!”

Dennis Norman

Hopefully every landlord that sees the title of this post will immediately know that to run an ad with that title to rent out their property would be in violation of the Fair Housing Laws.  Apparently not though unfortunately.

According to a recent report by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) there are literally thousands of illegal housing [...]

Commercial Real Estate Slowing; Apartments looking OK

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Today the National Association of REALTORS(R) published their Commercial Leading Indicator for Brokerage Activity for the second quarter of 2009 showing a decline of 1.3 percent to an index of 101.5, down from an index of 102.8 in the first quarter. At 101.5 the index for the second quarter of 2009 [...]

Where are the best investments in California and Florida?

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Today SmartZip, Inc. released it’s first release of the SmartZip Top 10 Markets™, a list of top-rated cities most likely to yield above-average investment returns over the next ten years.  The markets are hand-picked by SmartZip’s analysts in conjunction with local market experts. 

 

Presently SmartZip, which just launched its public Beta site in [...]

Discrimination in housing; people with disabilities

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

When we speak of discrimination in housing it seems many people think of it only in terms of discrimination based upon race.  However, landlords and other property owners need to remember that the Federal Fair Housing Laws that make it illegal to discriminate in housing based upon race also make it [...]

FBI issues alert warning of online rental scams

By: Dennis Norman

The FBI has issued a consumer alert warning of phony online rental ads. According to the alert, the scam goes like this:

 A prospective tenant can’t believe their good fortune-they find a rental home in a nice area through a Craigslist classified ad at an unbelievably low rate. The landlord-who had to leave the country and [...]

An Appraisers View of HVCC, sub-prime, the market and more – Final post of the series

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Monday I did the first post and yesterday the second post of my E-View with Frank Gregoire, a Florida appraiser and author of Appraiser Active.

Frank is often quoted as a source for nationally syndicated real estate columnists and appears as a

Francois (Frank) K. Gregoire, IFA RAA

speaker on appraisal and mortgage related [...]

New law gives tenants in foreclosed homes additional protection

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

If you buy a foreclosed home that has an existing tenant in it you need to be sure you are aware of and comply with  provisions of the “Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009″.  The act went into effect on May 20, 2009 and provides the following protections for the existing tenant:

For [...]

Are there too many rental properties in the market?

Dennis Norman

By: Dennis Norman

Since the real estate downturn reared it’s ugly head many builders, developers and speculators  have turned their “for sale” inventory into rentals.  At the same time many frustrated homeowners have rented their homes out after not being able to sell them after buying another home.

As this happened I wondered if all that was being done [...]