Apartment Look

View Comments Councilors concerned a sharper parks fee increase might raise home prices too high Instead of doubling deveopers' parks-related fees all at once Jan. 1, Forest Grove City Council members have decided to spread out the increase over three years. At its Aug. 14 meeting, councilors considered a proposal to double the city's System Development Charges (SDC), which developers pay when they apply for building permits. The idea is that this money helps pay to create certain services — in this case, parks — the eventual residents of these new homes will use. The current SDC for parks is $3,000 per unit. The new proposed rate is $6,010. These park charges will support the city's recently revised 10- year master plan for parks and recreation, which would enhance current parks as well as offer more recreational facilities. Forest Grove is expected to welcome hundreds of new houses and apartment units and thousands of new residents in the next 10 years. At the he...

This is Detroit, not Hobbiton. Just like the tiny homes of the hobbits in the "Lord of The Rings" series, the Cass Community Center Tiny Homes Project looks cute. But its small buildings house big hopes . Four years ago, Detroit became the biggest American city in history to file for bankruptcy, brought down by a snowballing financial crisis that followed huge layoffs at the city's major employers General Motors ( GM ) and Chrysler. Today, Detroit is in a period of economic recovery, yet many of its hardest hit residents still don't have adequate housing . The homeless population is around 2,000 and dwindling, according to city authorities. But uncertainty hangs over low-income earners, who struggle to keep up with the rising cost of living. "Purchase prices and rents are increasing faster than people's incomes," says Earl Poleski, executive director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority . "That's a manifestation o...

{Zillow} Great news? According to Zillow’s May 2017 Rental Market Overview , Skinker DeBaliviere has shown the largest increase of any St. Louis neighborhood in annual rents, a 12.9 percent gain. The only other neighborhoods where rents grew by more than 10 percent in the last year were Vandeventer (11.2 percent), and Tiffany (10.3). Notably, the increase in rents in our neighborhood was also higher than any town in the St. Louis Metro area , including towns in St. Charles County and Metro East in Illinois. People clearly want to live here, and we are on a roll. If you own rental properties in the neighborhood, this news might make you feel like breaking out the champagne. It also might give you some second thoughts about selling when you get those unsolicited letters from real estate operators asking to buy your home, as so many of us on my block seem to. If you own property in the neighborhood, then what’s not to like? {Zillow} Well, even if you like and will benefit from higher r...

The kids are not all right—or so the click-bait headlines would lead you to believe. There are countless stories about those flighty millennials who job-hop every year, are crazy-obsessed with their iPhone phablets and shell out too much on  Instagrammable avocado toast or kale smoothies to move out of their parents’ basements and ( gasp !) pay their own rent. There's more than a hint of truth to that last part. About 15% of 25- to 35-year-olds were still crashing with their folks in 2016, according to a  Pew Research study . And that leaves 85% either cramming into apartments with friends or living solo. The young-at- heart data team at realtor.com® decided to dig into these numbers. As it turns out, where millennials are living plays a big role in whether they   are   most likely to live alone, as opposed to with their folks. And there's a lot of variation across the country, we learned. Related Articles "We definitely see a larger percentage of millennials living at...

When it comes to condominium development , Cascadia’s two largest cities couldn ’t be more different. Last year nearly 60 percent of new housing starts in the city of Vancouver, BC , were condominiums; meanwhile, Seattle saw no new condominium buildings open . And that’s not changing anytime soon: less than 10 percent of all building slated for downtown Seattle in the next three years will be condos. What’s the difference—why the blossoming of condominium construction in one city and the almost complete dearth in the other? The short answer is economics. In Vancouver, apartments are saddled with an unfavorable tax code , making condos the more lucrative multi- family housing investment even despite high rental demand . In Seattle’s skyrocketing rental market , one that’s climbed even faster than the condo market in recent years, apartment buildings are much more financially attractive, while condos come with bigger risks and, typically, lower returns. Compounding this profit differe...