Envy Apartment

September 27, 2005 | By Joe Newman, Sentinel Staff Writer When Lesley Brown got her first job out of college, she figured it was time to move out of the cramped house she shared with three other people. But finding something Brown, 22, could afford near the Lockheed Martin facility on Sand Lake Road was another matter. At $950 a month, even a small one-bedroom apartment was out of reach for the University of Central Florida graduate . At that price, she would have been spending much more than a third of her salary on rent. "I was definitely surprised by the prices," Brown said. "The market soared out of my reach." Finding an affordable rental in Central Florida is becoming a Herculean challenge. Two of every five renters in Orange, Seminole, Polk and Volusia counties spent 35 percent or more of their monthly income on housing in 2004, according to a recent U.S. census report. The bureau did not track Osceola County . More than half of all renters in Orange, Semi...

Rents in the Vallejo area, while the lowest in the Bay Area, are rising faster than in most other places, even as the number of renters increase, driving some people out of the area, a new study found. A firm called Apartment List conducted the study to try and get a handle on the challenges renters face , spokeswoman Sydney Bennet said. “In the Vallejo metro, the number of renter households has increased by 30 percent since 2005,” she said. “However, there was insufficient data and research into the challenges renters face . To address this, Apartment List set up its data science program in 2014.” That research leverages proprietary rental unit and survey data, she said. “We also invest significant resources into gathering and analyzing Census and other publicly available data,” she said. The resulting study found that the Vallejo area’s 5 percent year-over- year rent increases , leads the national and state averages. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom unit in Vallejo t...

At the ribbon cutting this month for the Wesley Village affordable housing complex in Garden Grove, Laura Archuleta couldn ’t resist referencing Joni Mitchell ’s 1970 environmental protest “Big Yellow Taxi.” Built on underused land that’s part of the Garden Grove United Methodist Church campus on Main Street, Wesley Village offered Archuleta , president of the nonprofit community organization Jamboree Housing Corp ., a chance to riff on one of Mitchell’s most famous lyrics. Where Mitchell sang “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot,” Archuleta told about 300 people packed into the steamy church sanctuary on a hot afternoon that “Today we are going to learn how a group of dedicated organizations and individuals re-purposed a parking lot and put up a paradise.” Then she and others who spoke, including a single mom with six children who now reside at Wesley Village , told how the project became reality through a unique collaboration that involved the church, Jamboree and other...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The Orlando tourist strip known most for attracting conventioneers and thrill-seeking visitors — International Drive — is getting another identity. In recent years, thousands of full-time residents have moved into apartments built on the southern end of the 11-mile corridor, which has been renowned for industry gatherings, shopping and attractions. Plans call for thousands more renters — and schools. "It's kind of the rebranding of I-Drive right now," said Luann Brooks, executive director of the I- Drive Business Improvement District . "We've turned into a live and work environment, which has never been seen here before." The I-Drive area has been a permanent address for renters — and also homeowners on Lake Willis — for years. But a transformation is underway with more than a half-dozen multi- story apartment complexes , some upscale and trimmed in stacked stone with resort-style pools. The south-central area of Orlando that includes ...

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com Ann Arbor’s Hidden Valley Club apartment complex is a local example of a $ 70 billion national real estate problem : Securitized commercial loans that are in default. A foreclosure notice on the 324-unit complex near Briarwood was filed in late April, despite months of ongoing conversations initiated by the owner to modify the loan. The loan itself - which totals $18.1 million - is complicated, since it’s one among billions in real estate investments that were repackaged and sold to Wall Street investors during years of peak real estate prices . So are the circumstances behind the loan default, said Hidden Valley Club co- owner Jeff Starman . The most obvious is the drop in the property’s value as rental rates fell below levels to cover loan payments . Other factors include a national real estate climate in which banking consolidations after the lending crisis and the sheer volume of properties in securitized loans - known as Commercial Mortgage B...

DENVER – The rising cost of housing in Denver is prompting many renters to search for new opportunities in different cities. That’s according to the latest analysis from rental listing website ApartmentList , which asked its users if they were looking to relocate and why. Nationally, survey respondents said job opportunities were the biggest reason for moving to a new city or state, but in Denver, affordability was key. Sixty-seven percent of Denver renters surveyed said they wanted to relocate to a new city, with 48 percent citing affordability as the biggest reason for wanting to leave, according to ApartmentList. Twenty-two percent said job opportunities were taking them elsewhere. The next biggest reasons – safety and commute time – each accounted for just 6 percent of responses. Rents have been steadily climbing in Denver and the surrounding area. The median cost of a 2-bedroom apartment or house in Denver proper rose to $1,350 in July, up 2.7 percent compared to the same time ...

The iconic London landmark uses its public spaces to counterpoint the unbridled growth of London’s luxury private structures I recently found myself staring into a stranger’s living room, waiting for something beautiful to happen. I was standing on the 10th- floor viewing terrace of the Tate Modern’s new wing, a twisting ziggurat of perforated brick and mortar that rises above the museum’s home in the old Bankside Power Station . The terrace allows for 360-degree views of the building frenzy that has consumed much of London’s skyline. Cranes dip and dive in every direction; to the east, the Shard, an overwhelming ice pick of a skyscraper, dwarfs the Victorian roofs of the surrounding neighbourhood; to the west, the pregnant monolith of One Blackfriars, a 50-storey mixed-used building, looms over the Thames like an alien mothership. As is the case all over the city, many of its £4 million (Dh19 million) apartments will be scooped up as investments, only to stand empty. Idle butlers ...

A new, luxury, green apartment community is coming to downtown Baltimore. Time Group Investments has turned the former main warehouse of the Hochschild Kohn department store chain into 171 luxury apartments and is now getting ready to receive tenants. Located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood , the property is now a blend of historic charm and modern design. It features a mix of studio, one- and two- bedroom apartment units with 14- foot exposed ceilings , oversized windows, hardwood floors, and many other amenities. According to the property’s website , rents at 520 Park range between $1,095 and $1,865 per month. 520 Park also includes underground parking , bicycle storage, fitness center, business center, dog wash station , electric car charging stations , and rooftop solar array . But its most unique feature is the interior landscaped courtyard . As the old warehouse had no such interior courtyard , the developers had to cut a 5,000-square-foot hole right in the middle of the bui...

Last week, we sponsored the 11th annual Points Summer Book Club , a community discussion of Matthew Desmond's piercing Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City . We debated the causes of eviction, the effect on children, how to view landlords' role, and what this discussion means for a city like Dallas. The book club also included an event with the author, in a partnership with Southern Methodist University 's SMU Reads program . On Thursday, Desmond spoke to a crowd of more than 900 people, laying out his research and his experience with evictions' damaging effect on people's safety, family, jobs and mental health. "When you add all that up, we have to conclude that eviction -- which used to be rare in this country, which used to draw crowds — it's not just a condition of poverty, it's also a cause of it. And it's making it worse. It's leaving a deep and jagged scar on the next generation — which means that we can't fix poverty in A...