Earlier this week, we presented our first Apartment Life 2.0 article, which addressed two pillars of the new apartment living idea — being resourceful and increasing the spectrum of activities that apartment dwellers consider entertainment. Also prominently featured in last week's article was a cover from the now defunct Apartment Life magazine, which features Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone in their wonderfully convenient and modern apartment home.

Each cover is reminiscent of the liner notes on Led Zeppelin's 1976 album Presence, the art direction of which was itself a parody on Stanley Kubrick's epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. The intended joke being something in the way of the ‘domestic obelisk,' wherein each family has their very own commemorative replica of the alien device, which by catalyzing a long evolutionary process, engendered the happy circumstances of contemporary human civilization.

One particular pillar of contemporary civilization that we'd like to knock down is Cable television. Originally a benign source of entertainment and information TV quickly evolved into an expensive, commercialized, collective generic memory for all of its many subscribers.

(illustration provided by Ben S. Johnson Graphic Design)

At six pm every night, 3 distinct sounds are common to most apartments and households in every city: first, the sound of a person delivering a veritable punch in the stomach to the couch by plopping down his/her weight and worries, the click of the remote and the muted buzz of a TV powering on but not yet showing picture. Even that simple description may elicit a yawn of comfortable recognition…don't do it! Break that conditioning!

The whole idea here is not spurn all of modern technology, the point is to fill those after work before sleep hours with something more engrossing and interesting, as well as save some money; the best way to do this is to get rid of paying for a service that invariably turns you into a couch potato.

Instead, ditch the expensive cable television, dial in some high speed internet and hook up that computer to your Television. Additionally, you can sign up for Netflix's 1 DVD at a time plan for $4.99 and use their Netflix player to stream a pretty decent selection of movies.

This way, you can still watch the news, TV shows from Hulu or other sources, when you want to, but the internet doesn't really let you browse, or flip through all the channels. The difference here is that you know the movie, show or program that you want to see and you sit down and watch that show, instead of bemusedly flipping through all the channels and settling on the least offensive.

Now, getting rid of cable without completely isolating yourself from the rest of the world is the first step; we've still to replace those hours of TV watching with other activities. Not necessarily things that are more intellectual or healthier, but things that are way more fun and memorable and exciting than sitting down and staring at something for 4 hours. Even throwing a baseball against a wall for 4 hours, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape is more entertaining than watching flimsy TV shows saturated with commercials.

Next week, we'll go over the technical ramifications of actually hooking up your computer to your TV, as it can be a little tricky and may require some diagrams.

Remember, you just need to get rid of Cable to avoid being a couch potato, not your TV. Or, I suppose you could get rid of the couch, but then it you'd need to find a place to put dirty dishes.

Consider the differences between the scenarios; a New Year's Resolution is basically promising your present self that your future self will take care of whatever is afflicting your present self based on the facts that 1) the holiday season has perhaps highlighted some personal areas of self-consciousness and 2) the number of revolutions the Earth has made around the sun has very personal implications.

By contrast, moving into a new apartment is taking the first positive step towards eradicating at least some of the Pavlovian conditioning factors that engendered the bad habits that people tend to pick up and, at the same time opens up all sorts of wonderful ways to live a more resourceful, healthy lifestyle.

For example, the old apartment, it was located right next to the bar, Pizza Hut was on speed dial and the balcony was furnished with an all weather recliner for smoking. The new apartment, however, is within walking distance to the gym and the grocery store in addition to featuring the wonderful amenities of a patio grill and a pool for relaxing weekday nights.

With this concept in mind, we are going to concentrate, in the next few weeks, on ways to be a little more resourceful, to be a little healthier and to get more out of apartment life. Like these people, who despite personifying the elevator music version of Rockin' in the Free World, seem to be getting the most out of apartment life:

Issue Number 1: Cable? Get that Out of Here

When the roommate whose name was on the Comcast bill moved out last week, the remaining roommates agreed that television, not religion, was the true opiate of the masses, and we were going into detox. Now, this opens up a pretty large hole in the after work but before sleep schedule. We'll discuss creative things (aside from the obvious novel-a-week pipe dream) that are way more entertaining than your regularly scheduled programming. The indication that a need for change exists could very well be the uninspiring notion that watching a device that presents contrived stories with pompous life lessons is the most enjoyable way to spend your free time. We'll discuss ways to find better things to do during the week as well as ways to avoid completely revoking modern technology.

Issue Number 2: Use Every Part of the Buffalo

Start cooking for yourself in order to save money, learn the 2nd most practical skill in life and get healthier. Just picking up a cookbook can be very overwhelming, timely and costly. For example, it is useless and discouraging to return from the market realizing that you spent more money on meal provisions than you would have spent on a fancy dinner at a high class establishment, and all for exotic ingredients that you will never use again. We'll use some great online resources and helpful videos that will accomplish those three aforementioned goals. Videos tend to distinguish the difference between chopped and minced as well as how “brown" a lightly browned chicken breast is supposed to be.

Issue Number 3: TBD

I am sure that we'll think of something.

If someone could help me out with this, it would be much appreciated.

About one month ago, on a bright and calm, rather pleasant evening, I decided to stay at home watching movies on account of the fact that my roommates were all out of town, a strange and unsettling occurrence rattled my nerves and eventually prompted the purchase of a night light.

Now, this was not the type of situation where you are just kind of sitting around minding your own business when a ghost just shows up and starts haunting the hell out of you for some kind of mysterious transgression on the dead; rather, this was more of an eerie, gnaw at your subconscious and freak you out until your roommates think you are insane kind of situation.

This is exactly what happened that night:

I was watching a non scary movie in the front living room of our apartment. During a commercial, I walked towards the bathroom at the back of our apartment along the long hallway that runs alongside the living room, room of many functions and kitchen. Just as I reached the top of the stairwell, I distinctly heard a voice say “Matt!" The voice was curt and maternal, not forceful, but not without intent. One could compare it to the voice a teacher would use to both get your attention and begin a line of questioning.

My Apartment

I first assumed it was just a matter of coincidence and that the commercial happened to include my name or a similar sounding word. However, the voice was much louder and very different from a voice that you'd hear on TV, certainly not the typical voice that you'd hear on a commercial trying to sell something. Not only that, but for a solid ten seconds, no sound emanated from the television. After ten seconds of creepy silence, the TV zapped back on and I could clearly hear the contrived happy dialog present in most commercials.

I am not a supernaturally oriented person. My first thought was not “whoa that was weird," but “whoa that was weird, but I still need to go to the bathroom," and after checking to make sure that there was no one in the house, I continued on with my mundane activities. If it were not for what happened next, I probably would blamed that lousy Comcast and never given the voice much though and our power bill wouldn't be so high.

However, about a half hour later, I was in the front living room on the couch, a little on edge (that voice stubbornly stuck in my head) when a book on the mantle not 3 feet from where I sat fell on the floor. The book had been laying face down on the mantle and there is no way it would have fallen on its own. Also, on the mantle were many other items in much more precarious positions, but for some reason this book was knocked to the ground. The second arrow in the floor plan above shows the relative position of the fireplace, right next to the TV.

My defense consisted of turning on every single light in the apartment and grabbing a six pack from the fridge (as ghosts, bears and giving speeches are much less scary after a few casuals). Since the phenomena occurred on either side of the fireplace, I suspected it to be the residence of the unholy beast and I sat on the couch, opened a beer, turned off the TV and waited for any sign of an escalation in haunting tactics.

Since then, silence. No otherworldly encounters of any kind, no mysterious happenings, nothing. It's either the calm before the storm, I am beginning to lose my grasp on reality or we are paying way too much for rent.

Has anyone ever encountered any kind of haunting in their apartment? Has anyone every moved out of their place because of strange occurrences?

Census Bureau Reports Shift from Owning to Renting

Multi Housing News reports that The National Low Income Housing Council (NLIHC) recently released date from its 2008 American Community Survey, (conducted using data from 2006-2008) which showed that renters are paying an increasing percentage of their incomes towards rent. Not surprisingly the hardest hit group was families earning less than $20,000 per year as average national rents grew from $763 to $824. Additionally, the percentage of apartments under $500 fell .6 percent and, at the other end of the spectrum, apartments over $1500 a month rose 1.2 percent.

The report also indicates a fundamental shift from owning to renting since 2006, which has resulted in an increased average household size of renter-occupied units. This is a trend that we have also seen continue to the present, as search data has shown an increased demand for 3 bedroom apartments since the start of the recession at the end of 2007.

NLIHC President Sheila Crowley concisely summarized the findings, saying “More families are renting, rents are going up and the lowest income households are struggling to pay for the most basic necessities." She also emphasizes the discrepancy between the realities of the housing world and the ‘ownership first' policy that Congress has pursued lo these many years.

MPF Research Conducts 3rd Quarter Survey

Greg Willet's Market Dynamics page was updated this week with data from MPF latest survey of the apartment industry. According to his analysis, vacancy rates are decelerating, even showing improvement on a quarterly basis, though he interprets this to reflect the discounts and deals that apartment owners are offering to boost occupancy rates; that national average is 92.2 percent after projections from the 3rd quarter numbers.

Geographically, occupancy rates varied expectedly, with bottom performing cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Atlanta pulling down the national average. More recently, the Houston and Dallas markets are now showing occupancy softness, brought on by unemployment numbers and supply surpluses.

With rents and occupancy down, revenues are down about 7 percent across the nation and are not expected to recover until late next year.

The plaintiff has already moved out of the townhome, filed a restraining order on the smoking neighbor and submitted a complaint under the Texas Fair Housing Act, which, if granted would extend the same protections that disabled Americans receive.

If I am interpreting this last point correctly, recognition of the plaintiff's condition could set up a precedent whereby property owners are legally required to provide housing that would respect the specified condition. In this case, wherever the plaintiffs moved, that Dallas apartment would need to be smoke-free.

Now, we can certainly sympathize with renters who want smoke free apartments. If smoking is considered a right, then the same categorization must also extend to breathing clean air However, neither of them are rights, which unfortunately puts the landlord or property manager in the same position as the parent in the front seat of a car on a long road trip with two kids in the back trying to resolve the timeless, “Mom, Matt breathed on me!" debate. Not enviable, as instead of having to pay out in ice cream cones, property owners are liable for astronomical payouts.

We recently conducted a study of our internal search data, which we run each quarter. The report shows for which amenities and property features renters are searching. Below is the MyNewPlace search results page with amenity search filters highlighted below by the red circle as well as the major category filters of number of beds, number of bathrooms, property type (rental home, condo, apartment) and the filter to which this post is dedicated, pet friendly apartments.

So, if a renter searching for Atlanta apartments (pictured above) above wanted to filter their results to search for a pet friendly apartment with high speed internet, a dishwasher and a playground, the search results page and map would show only apartments that fit that criteria. Our amenity report can determine the number of these types of instances each quarter and then track how search trends are changing over time.

One especially interesting period that we wanted to track changes over was the time since the beginning of the recession, which technically began in December 2007. While we did see many changes in search trends from that time until our latest recorded data (Q2 2009), one of the most interesting changes was how the number of pet searches changed.

Taking both a national median value as well as examining trends in 35 of the nation's top metros, it appears incontrovertible that while searches for cat friendly apartments dropped across the board, searches for dog friendly apartments remained relatively stable.

The conclusions that can be drawn from this are pretty obvious. When faced with financial hardship and economic uncertainty, cats don't quite make it inside the wagon circle. Apparently dogs are considered more “family members" than are cats. A harsh reality, perhaps, but these numbers are difficult to dispute.

In somewhat related news, I am moving to a 3 bedroom apartment to save on rent, anyone want to adopt this cat?

Our data, which is how renters search, not occupancy rates, shows that there is in fact a significant uptick in demand for apartments with more bedrooms and a corresponding drop in demand for 1 bedroom apartments. It is important to remember that these two accounts do not conflict, as MPF Research reports occupancy data, whereas we are relying solely on renter search behavior.

Since millions of renters come to our site each month, we wanted to share some patterns that we have seen over the past year and a half regarding not occupancy rates according to MPF research (as is cited in the aforementioned article), but rather, how renters are searching. Renters are overwhelmingly using the internet as a primary resource for their apartment search; therefore, our search data is a good indicator of what renters are seeking.

The chart below documents all searches conducted on MyNewPlace and clearly shows that searches for 3 bedrooms gained at the expense of 1 bedroom searches:

The biggest shift occurred in Q1 2009, where searches for 3 bedroom apartments grew from a 22 percent share to a 31 percent share, 1 bedroom apartments dropped from a 32 percent share to a 25 percent share, and 2 bedroom apartment searches fell slightly from 46 percent to 44 percent.

We must assume that this trend is due to renters trying to find 3 bedroom apartments to save money. Initially, the patterns in the chart seemed intuitive. If you can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment, you probably cannot save that much money by moving into a 2 bedroom apartment; it is when you get into apartments with 3 or more bedrooms where the price per bedroom really begins to drop and renters can reduce their apartment budgets significantly.

Who are these renters, then, that are searching, but seemingly not moving into 3 bedroom apartments? Are they families who in the end opt for a single family home rental? Are they recent college students, who are researching places where they and their friend can afford to move into from their parent's houses?

This week's submissions were all very interesting, but we were able to narrow down our list of favorites to six; remember, posts should be somewhat current, we did receive a few from 2008 and 2007, which, however informative, will not be showcased here.

And now, for the winner:

Karen Goodman of Arch City Homes suggests a new approach to holding an open house: invite the neighbors! This may be counterintuitive, as neighbors are obviously not moving next door, but it does bring the real estate agent in close connection to that neighborhood in their city or territory, it brings about the possibility that the neighbors will have acquaintances looking and mention the listing to them, and if and when interested buyers do show up, they'll see a crowded house filled with what appear to be interested parties.

Karen's approach to inviting neighbors, “Choose Your New Neighbor," is outlined in the video above and we think it will be very successful. I know that on a Saturday afternoon many neighborhood people would be more interested than they'd like to admit in checking out the neighbor's house.

And here are the rest of the submissions in particular order:

The Real Estate Tomato gives great advice on the very first step that real estate agents need to take to get started reaching out to their online audiences, going to godaddy.com and buying a URL.

The Bigger Pockets blog (next week's host!) outlines a comprehensive list of costs that homeowners should be aware of before you try to flip that house.

Mortgage planner Dan Green at The Mortgage Reports blog shares how he quickly ballparks four different types of mortgage calculations, monthly mortgage payments on principal and interest, interest only, and how to calculate the amount of principal you pay for a given month or year.

Bob Schwartz at the Broker for You blog identifies an oft overlooked “rip-off" tactic occurring in the California short-sale market, where independent escrow companies, whose fees are not regulated, are trying to get a bigger piece of the pie.

And finally, The Housing Chronicles asks that age old question, is real estate a good hedge against inflation?

Of course, right before we sign off, we'd like to plug our CEO's latest whitepaper, Cost Effective Resident Acquisition, which helps real estate professionals develop a sound understanding of how to best leverage online advertising expenditures.

Thanks for reading to the bottom! Be sure to submit your posts for next week's Carnival of Real Estate, which will be hosted by the good folks over at Real Estate Investing for Real. Please leave us comments if you have questions or comments or contact MyNewPlace on twitter for a more interactive discussion!

Last week, some good news for the multifamily industry appeared in an article from Multifamily Executive article titled Apartment Firms Report Slight Upticks in Occupancy. The data primarily comes from REITs, who have ostensibly been reducing rents in an attempt to boost short term occupancy. REITs prices have taken it on the chin during the first two quarters on 2009, prompting an increase in dividends and more recently, it appears that many are undertaking the strategy (at least in soft markets) of getting renters into their properties and betting that it will be less costly to retain them at lower rents than wait for a market recovery to charge higher rents.

REITs like UDR have been able to increase occupancy by using investment capital to maintain properties while at the same time cutting rents, thereby becoming an attractive alternative to all renters. UDR's senior vice president of operations also credited that company's technology-based leasing initiatives with having a major impact on reaching out to potential renters. [Multifamily Executive]

San Francisco Apartment Rental Market Stabilizes?

In a related story, the cover of this morning's San Francisco Examiner featured a “Calling All Tenants" article, alerting renters around the city to the deals on San Francisco apartments. Luxury apartments and condo conversions that once had astronomical price tags are now desperate for tenants. Paying over a $1,000 for a room in a 3 bedroom apartment in Hayes Valley? You may be able to afford a luxury 1 bedroom less than a mile away.

Forcing vacancy rates up and effective rents down are the combined factors of a surplus of new development conversions in the SoMa district, a loss of 43,000 jobs between Septemeber 2008 and May 2009 and the high cost of living in San Francisco.

The interesting section of this article comes from a quote by International Colliers residential broker Stephen Jackson, who said, “The market, for the most part, has stabilized." Indeed, the figures show that the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment bottomed out at $1,874 in May 2009 (rising to $1,902 in June). Does this indicate equilibrium? [San Francisco Examiner]

Instead of taking the hit on the difference between what they had paid for it and the current market rate, they decided to hold on to the house and wait for it to increase in value. In the meantime, they are defraying some of the mortgage cost by renting their homes and waiting for a market recovery.

According to the article, there are an increasing number of families in this situation, as evidenced by the rising number of homeowners converting their insurance to landlord policies; Allstate reported a 27 percent increase over last year.

This story really drives home the potential consequences of not heeding the “five year rule," which cautions against buying a home unless you know that you'll be there for more than five years. Even in favorable market conditions, families that sell their homes within four years of purchase, typically pay 19 percent more as owners than they would have paid as renters. Transaction costs, property taxes, property insurance and the costs of maintenance all add up very quickly. Add to this a real estate market that has recently plummeted, this really puts some people in an extremely unenviable situation.