All Forum Posts by: Kevin Dickson

I should add what a neat market research tool that padmapper can be. When you click on an ad, it compares the rent to the average asking rent of nearby places of similar size.

That can save you a lot of time trying to figure out what rent to charge for your place. As usual, take it with a grain of salt, and don't be afraid to push your rents in this market. Many landlords don't watch rents that closely, they're just happy that it rented in one hour and they got 20 calls the first day. (RED FLAG)

These codes were written in the 1950s when 60% of the households were traditional families. Now it's closer to 20%, so these laws should be reexamined.

Imagine a 5 bedroom 3 bath house inhabited by two unmarried couples. What, really, is the harm? Why in the heck is that illegal? (It is, in most cities, but I bet not S.F.)

Now, if the landlord is letting his property slide, and it's degrading the immediate neighborhood, I say report him on anything you can find. Use the City to help you get him to keep his property looking good, with respectful tenants.

I'm going to post a few generalizations about advertising your rental property. I've found these to be true in Denver, at least:

1. Craigslist is really the only game in town.
2. Craigslist sucks for search and requires too much manual "filtering" by apartment seekers.
3. Craigslist has historically blocked 3rd party attempts to improve user friendliness.
4. As recently as last fall, Padmapper was disappointing because it didn't appear to contain real time feeds from CL.
5. As of now, Padmapper ROCKS, is free, and is a nearly perfect automatic search tool for apartment seekers. CL management isn't blocking Padmapper yet.
6. Postlets have historically provided the best way to post an apt. on Craigslist.
7. Padlister may be better than Postlets because it is linked directly to Padmapper.
8. With Padlister and Padmapper, landords and apt. seekers don't need to mess with the clunky CL user interface, even though CL is still the underlying software.

Does anyone disagree with me or have other comments?

These guys are successfully building and selling homes in a gritty walkable Philadelphia neighborhood.

They have apparently correct decision in all aspects of their design, price point, and the market sector to target. Now they have rolled out a strategy to attract acquistion capital.

http://www.100khouse.com/2009/02/18/invest-postgreens-residential-project-investment-program/

Just posting here to:

1. See if anyone has seen or is doing similar strategies
2. If you like this strategy
3. If you agree that site-built is better than prefab
etc.

Financial troubles for a year now, apparently. Out of business completely. Google for more