MyNewPlace Blog

In California yesterday, renters left their apartments in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco to protest the Governor's elimination of the Senior Citizens Property Tax Assistance Program, a state program that helps senior low-income senior, blind and disabled renters in California.

Defunding the renter assistance program put the State of California $191 million closer to balancing its $15.4 billion dollar deficit and was the single biggest line item veto on the budget, leaving many needy California renters wondering what cuts they would be needing to make in order to pay rent. Read the rest of this entry »

We have been digging through our internal search data lately and we've added Q3 2008 to our library of rental search trends. One of the most notable trends is the national increase of searches for homes for rent.

As the graph above illustrates, there is a Quarter by Quarter increase in the national average, as well as in several major cities in the U.S.

The interesting anomaly is in Phoenix, which witnessed a decrease in searches for home rentals. We included Phoenix because it had displayed a particularly high search rate for single family homes for rent. In a previous blog post regarding Phoenix rental trends, we had focused on the local foreclosure rate as a driving factor.

If we can explain the high rental home search rate in Phoenix in virtue of its struggling for sale market, then perhaps Q3 data indicates that the Phoenix for sale market is bottoming out.

Serendipitous legal circumstances may have contributed to the establishment of a new legal precedent in one northern California town located east of the San Francisco Bay; citizens of Dublin, CA may now be eligible to file temporary restraining orders to escape secondhand smoke.

(photo courtesy of Mia Mabanta)

From an article in the Contra Costa Times, we learned that an Alameda County Court judge granted a temporary restraining order to a couple who complained that their downstairs neighbor had violated a town nuisance ordinance by smoking near their residence. Read the rest of this entry »

(picture courtesy of Mia Mabanta)

Unlike finding an apartment for rent on MyNewPlace, renting a car is a logic defying process of truly stultifying proportions. What capricious madman makes up these rates, why do they change so much and why can't you return a car on a Sunday night?

For example, in San Francisco, if you are renting a car for the weekend, it is actually cheaper to take a cab (which is $40) down to San Francisco International Airport and rent a car there rather than rent a car from within city limits. You can save even more money if you take the BART (the San Francisco Bay Area's subway) down to the airport, which costs $6.

Although this is a wicked inconvenience, with all things considered it is still far superior to actually owning your own car in the city. Part of the appeal of moving into an apartment downtown or close to public transportation is that you can get around pretty easily without the expense and hassle of owning a car. For some, jettisoning the costs and responsibilities of owning a car is quite liberating. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, we have really rolled up our sleeves and began to sift through our internal search data 8 to compare what renters are searching for in different cities around the nation.

As the 3rd largest apartment rental site on the web, we can get a pretty clear statistical view of what features renters are looking for in different cities. Since searches for pet friendly apartments are particularly popular on MyNewPlace, we took a closer look at that data and noted a few interesting facts. Read the rest of this entry »

With all the news about the $700 Billion dollar federal bailout of the mortgage industry, and the stock market's reaction to the initial failure of its passage in the House of Representatives, many have forgotten all about how difficult it was for Congress to agree upon HR 3221, the Housing and Recovery Act of 2008 this past summer. We covered the bill's development into law this summer in our political corner.

One of the more contentious provisions, one that the White House had originally planned to veto, was the $4 billion dollar Community Development Block (CDB) grant. Since the bill was passed into law on July 30 HUD has had 60 days to come up with a plan on how to distribute the funds to state and local governments.

HUD Secretary Steve Preston announced the allocation plan on September 26, under the new Neighborhood Stabilization Program; we are sure that officials and technocrats at HUD were logging long hours and are glad they made the Congressional deadline with 4 days to spare. Let's see how they came up with the numbers in the above chart. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, you may have noticed an additional tab on the top of our search results page called “Roommates." Now you can search for roommates at the same time you are looking for apartments and homes for rent.

Some people want to live with roommates and some people need to live with roommates. Whatever the case may be, we added this functionality in order to help you move into the apartment you want as efficiently as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

After examining our internal search data, we discovered a 20 percent increase in the percentage of renters looking for 3 bedroom apartments between Q1 and Q2 this year. We fully expect this number to increase in the coming months, as renters start looking for ways to cut costs as the economic crisis accelerates towards uncharted territory.

As renters move out of studios and 1 bedroom apartments and into 3 bedroom apartments and homes for rent, one question to be considered is how many bathrooms you will need to accommodate the morning routines of residents.

Most apartments that have at least 3 bedrooms have at least 1 full bathroom and one half bathroom. This is usually adequate for 3-4 people at most times of the day, but in the morning, things can get pretty busy, especially if there is only one shower available and everyone has to be at work around the same time.

It's usually stressful enough waking up in the morning and dealing with the treacheries of the morning commute, be they waiting for intermittent buses, crowded subways, excruciating traffic or bad weather for those who rely on our legs to get to work. Everything must be perfectly timed to balance the maximization of available sleep with a timely work arrival.

These People All Share One Shower

Given the goal, or rather, necessity of an efficient at home morning routine, the ratio of bathrooms to renters is not as crucial as the ratio of showers per rent.

Taking this all into consideration, it is an absolute amazement that a San Francisco apartment with 5 permanent, employed residents are able to share only one shower and all manage to simultaneously remain hygienic and punctual in the mornings.

Not only do these 5 permanent residents share one shower, but their apartment typically hosts a wide variety of “friends in transition," which of course can also mean lovable scamp or delightful vagabond. This apartment has been known to house up to 8 people simultaneously, all during the working week.

How is all this even possible? Perhaps they have all lived in hostels and are accustomed to communal living. If I had to share one shower with my three other roommates, riding the bus would be an absolute pleasure compared to the shower line. There would also probably be upwards of 25 bottles of what appear to be the same thing in one shower.

What are your experiences with the shower to bedroom ratio and the morning routine?

Would you move into an apartment with 3 or more bedrooms with only one shower?

Well, this is our first time hosting the Carnival of Real Estate and we are very happy to be participating. Be sure to submit to the CORE next week, which will be hosted at VARbuzz.

Reading through all the posts this week was especially informative for us, since MyNewPlace focuses on homes and apartments for rent and the bulk of submissions invariably discuss the for-sale market.

Since the current credit crisis will now be addressed by Congress, (the House just defeated the bill while I was writing this post) we wanted to focus on posts that deal with the massive government intervention spearheaded by U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Now, onto the posts. Read the rest of this entry »

NAA and NMHC Joint Legislative Program to End

On Monday, the National Apartment Association and the National Multi Housing Council announced that they would end their Joint Legislative Program. The organizations announced the split in press releases on their respective websites.

For the past 17 years, the NAA/NMHC Joint Legislative Program has represented the apartment industry before Congress, federal agencies and the judicial branch. They have worked effectively together to bring the concerns of the rental industry to the attention of policymakers in Washington.

The stated goal of the Joint Legislative Program is to assure “that owners and managers of multifamily rental units are able to engage government officials in constructive, ongoing dialogues and participate in policy decisions affecting their ability to providing housing to millions of Americans."

Now it seems that the NAA has become large enough to support its own legislative outreach efforts on behalf of its members. The two organization plan on continuing to work together after the program officially ends on March 1, 2009. Read the rest of this entry »