Envy Apartment

Last year, the Miami- Dade County Commission shot down a plan that would have forced local developers to include some affordable apartments in every new project. Commissioner Javier Souto claimed the idea was "social engineering," one of the most profoundly stupid things said in South Florida politics this decade. According to the study, almost two-thirds of Miami's poor are stuck spending more than half of their income on rent or living in roach-infested hellholes. "These households are defined as very low-income renters who do not receive government housing assistance and who paid more than one-half of their income for rent, lived in severely inadequate conditions , or both," HUD's researchers write. "High rents in proportion to renter incomes remain dominant among households with worst-case needs, leaving these renters with substantial, unmet need for affordable housing." Larger cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, techn...

Morningside Park, a Kushner Companies- owned housing complex , in Middle River, Maryland (Philip Montgomery for The New York Times) Maryland’s two U.S. senators and four of its U.S. House representatives , all Democrats, sent a letter today to the large real- estate company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump ’s son-in-law and senior adviser, demanding information about the company’s management of 17 apartment complexes it owns in the state. The letter to Kushner Companies came in response to a May 23 article co-published by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine investigating management practices at the rental complexes, most of which are in the suburbs of Baltimore, as well as an article this week in The Baltimore Sun that revealed additional details . The original story described the highly aggressive legal tactics that Kushner Companies has used to pursue tenants who owed back rent or had left their leases early — even tenants who left the complexes...

Property owners are costing the city of Madison millions of dollars by taking advantage of a loophole in a state law created in 2001. By registering the property as a limited-liability corporation, such as Steve Brown Apartments , LLC, rather than as a parcel of land, owners are allowed to sell property without filing the selling price with the city of Madison. The owner is then automatically exempt from real estate transfer fees and can easily avoid high property taxes because no sale price is recorded and the city does not know the property’s actual value. Shielding the actual value often results in an underestimation by the city of the property assessments and a lowering of the amount owners must pay in property tax. “It reduces taxes paid to Madison Area Technical College , the Madison School District and various entities on the property tax bill . Theoretically they’re getting away with not paying their fair share,” said City Council President Mike Verveer . Verveer said th...

A few dozen people spent their lunch hour Aug . 22 discussing City of Carmel projects as part of the Carmel Small Business Network . Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard spoke in the city council chambers about issues such as property taxes, debt and proposed projects such as purchasing an antique carousel and constructing a luxury hotel. Brainard told the group of business owners he’s sending his 2018 budget to the Carmel City Council and that he expects the tax rate to remain flat. He defended his plan to spend approximately $5 million to acquire an antique carousel built in 1907. “It will make it a more interesting visit to Carmel,” he said. Brainard also explained how it makes financial sense for the city to become part owners of a luxury hotel in the Carmel City Center area . He said most hotel chains wants to see big returns on investment, and the city is happier with smaller profit margins from the hotel because of what it will mean for economic development. “If we’re going to g...

Margaret Watson is the new CEO for Madison- based Steve Brown Apartments . Steve Brown, who founded the company in 1980, plans to step away from day-to- day management of the business but will remain active as chairman of the board. Brown’s wife, Laurel, who owns the design and architectural firm Brownhouse , 220 W. Gorham St., will continue to run her business while also working with her husband on a new Madison-area foundation. Details about the foundation’s mission and scope will be released in late spring or early summer, Steve Brown said. Brown, a graduate of Michigan State University and the UW- Madison Law School , has supported or served on many housing industry- related nonprofit boards and advisory committees, among other community involvement. Watson has been with the company for more than 20 years, Brown said. “She understands the housing market better than anyone I know and helped us grow SBA into one of the largest and most successful property manageme...

by Jimmy Thomson With a Sydney University report this week claiming that holiday rentals are having a significant negative impact on the residential housing market , whether you're a resident owner of an apartment or an investor, you should be concerned about what is happening with holiday rental laws in Australia. NSW and Victorian state parliaments have already had one shot at devising legislation on holiday letting and fluffed it. Now they are having another go. For many MPs, it's irrelevant. But for a minority in popular holiday areas , it's the poisoned chalice of pulling in tourists while driving out locals. And in apartments, it's about some investor owners boosting rental income while residents wonder who will be living next door from one weekend to the next. The Sydney University Urban Housing Lab report claims that holiday letting, predominantly though Airbnb, has taken 6000 homes out of the Sydney residential market . Airbnb disputes the findings. Mea...

One day in August, 2016, the financier Carl Icahn made an urgent phone call to the Environmental Protection Agency . Icahn is one of the richest men on Wall Street, and he has thrived, in no small measure, because of a capacity to intimidate. A Texas- based oil refiner in which he had a major stake was losing money because of an obscure environmental rule that Icahn regarded as unduly onerous. Icahn is a voluble critic of any government regulation that constrains his companies. So he wanted to speak with the person in charge of enforcing the policy: a senior official at the E.P.A. named Janet McCabe . Icahn works from a suite of offices, atop the General Motors Building , in midtown, that are decorated in the oak-and-leather fashion of a tycoon’s lair in a nineteen-eighties film. During that decade, Icahn made his reputation as one of the original corporate raiders , pioneering the art of the hostile takeover and establishing himself as a human juggernaut—a pugnacious deal machine ...