From around the web.

Celtics fans, your boy Delonte West should be coming back.  On Wednesday, the Herald first reported that West was apartment hunting in Waltham.  ESPN has confirmed the move yesterday.  West was originally drafted by the Celtics and Celtics' GM Danny Ainge said "He was one of the toughest guys for me to trade."  Knicks fans, there's news for you too:  LBJ consolation prize Amare Stoudamire just looked at an apartment in the Flatiron. 

Ashley Greene of Twilight fame is moving into Cooper Square in Manhattan according to The Post.  Tiger Woods - will he or won't be getting an apartment in NYC?  No one seems to be sure but there's a lot of speculation.

So we're not the only ones who think apartment hunting can make you go insane.  Blogger Soup Jackie from Ottawa is on the hunt and notes:

Cooking really relaxes me a lot more than parking lot[s] and apartment hunting, and if I don't keep at it, I don't keep sane- and that's no good.

Blogger, Venus 87 considers a move across the bay to Oakland from SanFran:

Also, apartments in the east bay tend to have more square footage than apartments in San Francisco, with possibilities for having a second bedroom (though lofty possibilities at this point.) to be converted into a work out room, (private clients?) Or just enough space to be able to maintain and execute my own work out regimens including yoga and light lifting. So a large living room or a patio of some sort. Also, I have a higher likely-hood of finding a place where i could potential start a garden, for vegetables and herbs, than i could in the city. So the upsides continue to make themselves known to me, and I'm reconsidering a San Fransisco Address, for an East Bay destination. Again still toying with possibilities here. I may find the "perfect" apartment in SF, but what I've seen of the apartment offerings of San Francisco, I'm curious as to how much convincing I'll need to STAY in San Francisco.

Good points.  What do bay area readers think?  Theorizing is all good and well but there's no substitute to getting out there and seeing a bunch of places.  The way to do it unofficially is of course to get invited to a bunch of house parties.

The Bowie Bride has been spending considerable energy into putting her wedding together.  Now that it's done, she's doing what all young people in LA do - watching mindless TV and working on her scripts.  She's also apartment hunting and lays down the challenges she and her new husband are finding:

We are in the midst of post-wedding apartment hunting -- which is exciting, yes, but also frustrating because there are a million factors that go into finding a great place in Los Angeles. Neighborhood, commute, ammenities, size, etc. And do we want to live within walking distance of the metro? Yes of course we do, but then we'd have to move farther east and we both work on the westside. GRRRR.  As of now, we live in a great neighborhood.  The only problem is that the actual apartment we've been living in for the last three years charges us shitty rent when we could have cheaper rent in comparable apartments nearby -- on the same street even. SO. That hunt is on. Plan for the move is October. Fingers crossed we find something off the chain.

It's labor day weekend everyone.  Pause the hunt and celebrate the end of summer.  If you are still apartment hunting though, wear white.

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When you watch the history channel or read your favorite history books, you learn about great empires and kingdoms; the glory of revered kings and the giant palaces they built; and wars that bent the arc of history and touched hundreds or thousands of lives.  Your 8th grade history textbook did leave out a lot of details about the lives of everyday members of society though.  For example, how do they go apartment hunting?  Bless your middle school teacher's heart if she covered this topic.

Author Tony Perrottet tackles this exact point in a great blog post about some way back in the day apartment hunting.  It's a lesson in empathy for those of us who complain about the modern apartment hunting/renting process (and are also big history nerds).  You think your landlord doesn't do enough for you?  Maybe you're locked into a two-year lease you wish you hadn't signed and the upholstery by the kitchen needs drastic remodeling.  Well, imagine you were renting a one-bedroom mud-hut in ancient Babylon around 2000 B.C.  According to Perrottet, "Tenants had to do their own carpentry, even fitting their own doors and windows.  Rents were payable in advance every six months."

After reading this, do you think "We are not so different Ancient Romans and I!"

Renters may complain today about the rates in New York, London, and Paris, but things were even harsher in ancient Rome. From the first century A.D., more than a million low-income citizens were crowded into the first great imperial city, and property developers made a killing: Landlords threw up hundreds of six-story tenements called insulae (islands) which were broken into apartments of barely 100 square feet each. And much like today, rates were always being pushed to the limit: “Ever-rising rent was the subject of eternal lamentation in Roman literature,” notes the historian Jerome Carcopino.

Fun fact: the first professional real estate agents were from the Roman empire and were called "extractores".

Fun fact #2: used cart salesmen shared the name.*

Read all about it here.

*Missing Reference but obviously had to be true

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According to CNN contributor Amy Gehran, "Hunting for apartments can be exhausting and confusing, but you can make it a bit easier with the help of Google Maps on your smartphone."  Amy goes on to outline how she built custom maps on Google Maps on her laptop and then viewed it on her Android phone while she was visiting them.  She's a pseudo-savvy apartment hunter - she'd be truly savvy if she were using MapThatPad.  This is how she describes the benefits of map based mobile apartment hunting:

Then, when I'm out, I'll be able to view this custom map as a layer in the Google Maps app on my Android phone. It'll tell me where I need to go next, by what time and how to get there. If I have trouble finding a building, I can pop into street view to check what my destination building looks like. And if I want a quick refresher on the rent, deposit and other details before viewing a rental, I can jump right into the Craigslist listing for that property.

MapThatPad Mobile helps you do exactly this.  Except with MapThatPad, you end up saving time up front as you're setting up your map.  Your map is created automatically when you plug in the Craigslist URL or click on the bookmarklet and all of the relevant information (rent, contact info etc.) is pulled in automatically as well.

Amy points out that she "tend[s] to form a more cohesive sense of context" when managing information through a map.  We agree completely.  This not only gives you a sense of where the place is so you don't get lost when you go visit but also a sense of what the neighborhood might be like before even heading out there.  This is a great article that expresses our own thought process in creating MapThatPad:  Mobile maps make apartment-hunting easier

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Apartment Hunting Tales is a series of essays written by actual people on their experiences apartment hunting. This particular essay was written by one of the founders of MapThatPad.

I recently did the coast-to-coast migration moving from the city I have been in since high school, NYC, to San Francisco. Coming from New York and having lived in many neighborhoods (and apartments), I am quite aware of how tedious, frustrating, and annoying of a process it is. That is of course the reason we built MapThatPad! Having been through those stressful episodes of apartment hunting in NYC, I was a bit more prepared for what we (my girlfriend and I) encountered than most.

I had two big shocks while apartment hunting in SF.  First, the face that all listings for apartments are found in one place and one place only: Craigslist.  Secondly, that there are no brokers in this city. I know the latter point is a shock to only us traumatized individuals who are from New York City and it is a bit refreshing to not have to deal with brokers. But the lack of having a broker to work with further necessitates the need for a tool like MapThatPad to help you organize your apartment hunt.

Because we were on a time crunch to find a place, we had to be very efficient and try to see as many apartment as possible in a short amount of time.  Doing this, we quickly got up to speed on the local real estate rental market in terms of prices, apartment types, sizes, etc.  Also, it gave us a good sense of the city and its various neighborhoods and helped us narrow down our desired neighborhoods.

Here is a list of a few things that helped us/things we could have done to make the apartment hunt easier:

• Make a list of what you want in your next home. This could be a list of Must Haves, Nice To Haves and Do Not Wants. Having this list in writing ingrains it in your head and also lets you refer back to it at any time. This way you can be sure you do not compromise on things that are most important to you, no matter how good a deal you are getting.
• Go prepared! Bring a letter stating your current bank statements, a credit report that you can get for free thanks to the FTC, and your last 3 paystubs. Since apartments go fast, if you see one that really resonates with you, you should be prepared to fill out an app.
• Because the only way to view apartments are via appointments or open houses, make sure you have a at least 3-4 appointments/open houses scheduled for the next day. This will give you enough to keep yourself busy for the day so that you're not just sitting around waiting for people to call.  As you meet landlords and property managers or hear back from inquiries you made, you can fill in the rest of the day with more appointments. MapThatPad Tip: Using the add to Google calendar feature is pretty handy as you have all your appointments and listing information pushed to your calendar that you can access as on your smartphone. Works great also if you are hunting with another person as they automatically receive all appointment information on their Google calendar as well.
• Make sure you take pictures of the apartments you're visiting. This may not seem necessary at first but once you've seen a few apartments they all tend to get mixed up in your mind.  Recalling each apartment and what it looked like is much easier when you have the images to look at. It's also great if you want to get a friend or family member's opinion.
• Talk to the landlords and property managers you meet. They will most likely have other properties that are not on the market yet or have just come on the market minutes ago.  Or, they may know of places that are coming up for rent that they can show you. You get to see a place way before anyone else and have time to decide whether or not you want to take it. This is how we found our current place and I highly recommend it.
• Take notes as you are visiting the apartment. It's always good to put down your first impressions of a place and revisit them later in the day. MapThatPad Tip: You can quickly jot down notes for an apartment on your list via the MapThatPad mobile site.
• For pet lovers out there, San Francisco is surprisingly not a very pet friendly city. Majority of landlords do not allow tenants to have pets (largely because if they allow one tenant, they have to allow all tenants) and I guess its easier to not let anyone keep pets. They however might be willing to make exceptions if you talk to them and plead your case (especially if you have a small dog/cat). So don't filter on the "pets OK" criteria on craigslist when you look as you won't see many listings that meet your needs. Rather find an apartment that you like and talk to the landlord.

Hope you find these tips helpful as well while you are apartment hunting in Fog City. Let us know what worked for you or if you have any tips that you'd like to share as well.

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Scribbling notes side-ways on three-weeks worth of a ripped calendar?  There's gotta be a better way to stay organized on your apartment hunt!  Oh yea, there is, and it's called MapThatPad.  Hey, MacGuyver, we love your ingenuity but the episode about you using a brand new January calendar (yeah, we've got skills too even though you tried to cover up MLK Day on the 17th) to organize your apartment hunt was kinda boring and was never released.  Besides, if you're going to read an Oprah Book Club book, you better be using a licensed Oprah bookmark as you go along.

Just add your listings onto MapThatPad with the click of a button.  Then share it with your friends on Facebook and ask them for advice and to comment on your options.  Now, you're ready to contact all your listings with the click of one button and sync up all your appointments with your google calendar.  Now you're ready to visit a bunch of apartments and you can take MapThatPad with you on the go.  Of course, if you and your girlfriend get stuck with a horrible broker trying to sell you a pad in an airport, you can bust out of there and add a note in MapThatPad that says "cheap walls".  When all's said and done, you'll have found a sweet pad and your name will go down in the books for the ages.  So use your quick-thinking improvisation on what matters, leave the apartment hunting to us, and you will be flattered in the sincerest form possible.

PS - Check out Forgotten Bookmarks where we found this bookmark.

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The US Department Of Energy has a great blog giving folks tips on saving energy.  They recently wrote a post about ways you can include energy savings into your calculus as you go apartment hunting.  In his post, Kyle Rudzinski, talks about how car-free living can make a big impact on your carbon footprint and your wallet.  He talked about how he ditched his car's payments, maintenance costs, gas costs, toll costs, and insurance cost for life in a "connected community".  Anyone who owns a car can attest to the fact that all of these costs do add up to a significant amount of your monthly spend.  Moreover, if you own a car in an urban area, you have to add in the costs associated with constantly having to comply with street cleaning regulations, getting the occasional ticket, and worst of all getting your car towed.  Instead, Kyle focused on these qualities for his new neighborhood:

I wanted to be connected to my community—including parks, schools, nightlife, shops, libraries, cafés, and everything else—but I didn't want to drive. My new apartment would have to be within walking distance of a grocery store, a gym, and other community businesses like a bank, dry cleaner, and retail stores. Every place I visited was within five blocks of a subway station and multiple bus routes, too.

Maybe you're ready for a lifestyle change too?  You've thought about moving into a connected, urban area.  You've balked at the higher cost of living always seen in great urban neighborhoods as the one described above in Kyle's utopia.  But maybe you haven't considered the savings gained by ditching your car - and saving some energy for mother earth can be just a cherry on top.  Read the full entry here.

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Taking a quick look at the steep growth of existing home values throughout the 2000s and reading a little bit about what's behind the graph in the blurb above, you get the sense of how over-inflated home values were/are.  There are those that think the index simply has to come crashing down to a level in-line with the previous 100 years - somewhere around say 120 - about where the index ended up at the peak of the late '80s boom.  This means that there should be about a 40% decrease in home values on average in the USA over the few years after 2006 (which is what this graph goes up to).

So what's actually happened to this graph since 2006?

Ka-boom!  Yes, obviously there's been a drop since.  First of all, you say, the numbers and the baseline are different and to that I say, yes, that's an astute observation.  This is an image taken of the Case-Shiller index for the top 10 major cities maintained by Standard & Poors since 1987.  Starting in 2000, they started maintaining an index of the top 20 major cities which is the thicker line.  This index has in real-time measured existing home values while the previous image was based on an economic model developed by Professor Shiller to measure real prices going back into the 1800s.

We can still compare the two based on the relative price levels.  We see that the latest boom started in earnest in about 1997 - about 110 in the first chart and 75 on the second.  As we see in the second chart, it's come back down to about 150 which is around the same price level we saw in mid-2003.  The historic index in chart one happens to be at about 150 in 2003 as well.  This means that prices have come back down about 25% - not the full 40% as predicted earlier to be in line with historic averages.

So, this begs the question: Where will the Case-Shiller Index go next?  First of all, note that the index has been moving more or less sideways since 2009.  That's a full 18 months where home prices have been holding their value.  In the few years before that, we saw clear price decreases year over year.  Have a lot of homes that needed to be sold for liquidity purposes (including foreclosures) been sold off already such that the homes that are being sold now are generally more valuable and are therefore retaining their price in the market?  Have increased urbanization and job concentration in the top 20 cities fueled a new stasis point at 150?  Does the population increase of the USA (~70 Million in 1890 to ~310 Million in 2010) point to a sustainable non-bubble price level a full 50 points higher than that of 120 years ago?

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From around the web.

John Mazerolle from The Metro in Canada gives some sage advice: "Apartment hunting can be a slow and frustrating ordeal, or a rushed and unsatisfying one.  The choice is yours."  His question checklist includes "Are the mice friendly?"  For him, it's the little things that count.

Blogger Fayonara had an interesting day in Portland, the first step of which was summarized like so: "Morning started out good. Apartment hunting. Cosigning I can do, Mom will cosign. WHAT? Cosigning has to be in PERSON? GRAH-FLARGLE-BROO-ARGGHHHHH! *gnashing of teeth, screams of the damned, wails of 1000 grieving widows*  Read the dirty details here.

Interior designer Stephanie Sabbe of Boston looked back on her apartment hunt where she saw an incredible 17 apartments and finally shows us all what good interior design can do to transform a place!  Check it out.

Erin in the Real World says "I'm still torturing myself by looking at places to live online, finding awesome spots, then reminding myself they're available immediately or for September move-in and will not exist in October.  Damn."  That's like going to the museum to check out extinct animals - except they're alive.  Trippy.

"Craigslist is a labrynth of listings.  I especially love the trick where the EXACT SAME APARTMENT is listed three times in one day, each time with a slightly different description." says Ertennyson in a slightly wistful entry about apartment hunting in NYC.

Casey Matthews has a plan to get ready for his hunt in NYC. It includes "All Black Clothes (so I don't look like I live in Florida)".  Ok, you want to blend in with the New Yorkers.  I get it.  "Attitude".  Still with it.  And then, "Laminated map (because I am a dork)".  Yeah, now you really fit in.

Happy Hunting!

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Late 2006 was incidentally the time when the mega-deal of all mega-deals in real estate went down: the $5.4 Million sale of Stuyvesant Town & Peter Cooper Village.  The largest real estate deal.  Ever.  Check the tone and all out embrace of the deal in the title of this New York Times article - Megadeal: Inside a New York Real Estate Coup.  Clearly, bigger is better.  However, it was the year of the pivot, and the author did acknowledge a shift in financial practices and pointed out some potential risks of such a deal:

"For all of the deal’s accolades, it also illuminates the financial leaps of faith that real estate buyers are increasingly taking. Once, buyers priced properties based on existing cash flow. Real estate executives say that calculus would have generated a $3.5 billion price for the two Manhattan complexes that Tishman Speyer bought. But buyers are now looking to the future, building models of anticipated cash flow when determining how much to bid. The Stuyvesant Town deal, with its $5.4 billion price tag, reflects the new math, and analysts and rival bidders say the hefty price means that the deal will not show a profit for as many as six years."

You read that right.  The geniuses at Tishman Speyer properties (and their financial backers) bet on being able to replace World-War II vets and teacher-fireman-blue-collar types who lived in rent controlled apartments with new tenants who would pay market prices.  Moreover, they bet that those market prices would continue to go up.  And with those assumptions, they expected to break-even in six years.  Now, several years later, we know how that story ended.  A microcosm of the real estate bubble in one (GINORMOUS) deal, it was over-leveraged and eventually went belly-up earlier this year: Tishman Venture Gives up Stuyvesant Project.  While they had some initial success in kicking out some tenants, it halted as many more tenants went to court.  Then, the tenants who were paying market rates for their apartments realized they were being overcharged as Tishman was simultaneously charging market-rates and reaping the benefits of city tax benefits reserved for owners offering rent-stabilized apartments.  Tishman was ordered to pay about $200 Million to the tenants of about 4,000 apartments in October 2009.  A few short months later, they defaulted on their loan.

So, long story short, that's how God lost money by betting on Real Estate.

We'll live through another bubble in New York.  Hopefully some of us will remember what happened in the 2000s.  Nahh...I'm thinking we'll all get our's while the going is good.  We just gotta time it right.  Right?

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