MEBlog

Big Week For MEB Tail Wags!

2011-11-11T12:13:00.004-07:00

At MEB, we try recognize top performance with a "tail wag". This expression comes from an old saying that I heard from my Grandmother when I grew up in West Texas. She would always say "It's a sorry dog that don't wag its own tail!". So, when we receive compliments and kudos, we like to recognize the Mebbies that inspired the feedback.

There was a great tailwag yesterday for our site team at Crosswinds Apartments. This team had set up a canned food exchange for residents and they were also observed helping an elderly resident to balance his checkbook. A prospective resident was so impressed with the customer service they observed that they let us know about it!

Here's our latest Tail Wag regarding Eli and our staff at Sunpointe. Christy Alvarado emailed this to us:

Tail Wag for Eli at Sunpointe!!!
This morning I had to call a business, not in the apartment industry, for some follow-up and spoke to a woman named Margaret. I have never met or spoke to Margaret before today. During our conversation Margaret asked me for my contact information including my email. When I gave Margaret my work email, Margaret said, "MEB?? My brother lives at an MEB community.". I asked her which community and she said Sunpointe and that her brother is so happy with MEB and thinks the world of Eli. She went on to say that Eli is a breath of fresh air and that she is so happy that he is there managing the community. She also said that the other staff are wonderful as well.

Eli - Great job to you and your team on how you all are managing Sunpointe!!!!! Margaret's brother's name is Essie.

Have a great day. Christy.

Thanks, Christy, for sending this in. Thanks to Eli and our staff at Sunpointe for making a difference in their residents lives! It's the service that really adds value to a resident's experience at our communities! And we always keep in mind that adding value for our residents also adds value for our client.

Focus on Creating Value

2011-10-19T14:20:00.005-07:00

All of us at MEB are focused on creating value for our clients. In the works is a training program for our team members to learn more about how even a small increase in NOI can make a significant increase the value of the asset being managed.

Andrew Titche, VP of Strategic Systems, developed a great tool for our team members to calculate the value of their apartment community by using cap rates.

To check out Andrew's Powerpoint Presentation, just go to our website and click on the Market Info. It's listed as "Calculating Apartment Values".

The 7 P's of Revenue Management

2011-10-03T15:04:00.001-07:00

LRO Mebbies-
Below is a link to an article from the Apartment Revenue conference that I attended last month. There is some great information on how we can get away from concessions by using some effective conversations with not only our teams, but with our residents and perspective residents.

http://www.multifamilyrevenue.com/2011/apartment-revenue-management-conference-brainstorming-pricing-tactics-offers-recap/

I love the last item where the writer talks about the P’s of Revenue Management. There are usually 4 to focus on… PRODUCT, PEOPLE, PROMOTION and PRICE.
However, in the conference 7 P’s were talked about.

PRODUCT: How does are community look? How does our Model or sharp unit look? What does our curb appeal say about us?

PEOPLE: Do we have a well trained leasing team? How do existing residents and new prospects feel when we are assisting them?

PROMOTION: How do we promote our community, MEB, ourselves?

PERCEPTION: What is our reputation in our neighborhood? Is there a false perception of our team, company, community?

POLICY: Do we have policies in place that are preventing us from being successful?

POST SELLING: How is our follow up? Have we created/maintained a good relationship with our residents after their move in?

PRICE: If we have every P on the list covered, then let’s talk about price…

AZ August 2011 Employment Numbers

2011-09-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

The Arizona seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped one tenth of a percentage point from
9.4% in July to 9.3% in August. The U.S. rate remained unchanged at 9.1%. Total Nonfarm
employment in Arizona gained 52,600 jobs for the month. The Private Sector job gains (+0.6%)
were above the 0.5% average from 2001-2010. All but one of the eleven major sectors gained
jobs. Government (40,200) led all sectors for gains, with most of the gains in Public Education.
The 11.2% gain in Government was above the 2001-2010 average of 6.8%. Part of the larger
gains could be attributed to deeper than average cuts in the preceding summer months and some
shifting of the calendar year. Educational and Health Services was a distant second with 4,600
jobs gained. Leisure and Hospitality gained an above average 3,800 jobs for the month.
Construction (+1,000) added jobs for the sixth month in a row.
Over the year total nonfarm employment was up 40,700 jobs or 1.7%. Most of the increase was
from the unusual gains in Public Education, but some other sectors also had better than average
increases. All of the major sectors except Professional and Business Services (-400) were positive
over the year. Educational and Health Services (+14,900) and Leisure and Hospitality (+10,300)
had the most private sector gains.

Weidner Nears 5,000 Apartments In Phoenix Area With Purchase Of 298-Unit Project

2011-09-26T07:46:00.001-07:00

From The Brew & Orionires:

WEIDNER NEARS 5,000 APARTMENTS IN PHOENIX AREA WITH PURCHASE OF 298-UNIT PROJECT
Phoenix - A company formed by Weidner Apartment Homes in Kirkland, Wash. (Dean Weidner, principal) paid $22.65 million ($75,923 per unit) to acquire the 298-unit Hampton Square apartments located at 7205 W. McDowell Road in Phoenix. The seller was Hampton Square LLC, a company formed by developer Charles Heers of Inland Empire Builders in Las Vegas, Nev. The sale was brokered through Rue Bax, Doug Lazovick and Eddie Chang of ORION Investment Real Estate Solutions in Scottsdale. Records show Hampton on McDowell Apartments LLC (Weidner's company) acquired Hampton Square by assuming $20 million in loans owed to Principal Life Insurance Co. and a commercial mortgage backed security (CMBS) marketed by Bear Stearns. The multi-family community was developed by Inland Empire Builders in 2005. With the acquisition, companies formed by Weidner now own 22 multi-family properties in the Phoenix and Tucson areas totaling 6,365 units. Of those apartments, 4,980 units are located in 15 Valley projects and 1,385 units are located in 7 communities in the Tucson area. Weidner recently foreclosed on notes secured by 5 apartment projects in Tucson totaling a combined 881 units. The multi-family communities in Tucson were collateral on a group of loans Weidner purchased for $15.15 million ($17,196 per unit). Weidner is under contract to buy a 400-unit multi-family project in Mesa in a deal set to close next month. No further details on that transaction. The privately-held Weidner Apartment Homes owns roughly 30,000 multi-family units in Arizona, Washington, Alaska, Colorado, Texas and western Canada. Kevin Colard, senior acquisitions manager at Weidner, says while the company has reached its goal in owning 5,000 units in the Phoenix area, it will buy more apartments in the Valley if the right deal comes along. “We will be more selective, but we are looking to grow in Phoenix,” says Colard. Learn more from Collard at (425) 821-3844. Call Heers at (702) 792-9315. Reach the ORION agents (480) 694-6934.

Property Performance to Diverge Further; Job Stagnation Continues

2011-09-22T07:56:00.004-07:00

Great link to Blog of Hessam Nadji, managing director, research and advisory services, for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services:

AMA Perspective & Projections Conference

2011-09-21T09:48:00.002-07:00

AMA Perspective & Projections Conference
This year's Perspectives & Projections conference will take place on November 10th. Come hear from industry experts who will give answers to the most pressing questions for the multihousing industry today. Find out where the market is headed, how current inventory is being financed, who is buying and selling in Arizona and what the status is of multifamily foreclosures.

More info: http://azama.org/events/?event_id=2450

Property Solutions

2011-09-20T11:10:00.001-07:00

Our new MEB websites are coming soon! Great capabilities including an improved online payment interface! 10/1/11!

Yardi new initiatives

2011-03-24T11:04:00.004-07:00

Hey Mebbies-

Great news on the Yardi front. We have so much going on it is unbelievable. Something to talk about...

1- LRO. We have had great success with our testing. The success is absolutely due to the excellent managers that have been great sports when it came to change, not only in their normal office procedures, but with the whole concept of how to lease apartments. Thanks to them for all of their hard work. We have just added 2 new communities to our program and may be adding up to 8 additional communities in the next few months.

2- Collections. We have been fortunate to team up with a new collection agency that uses the Yardi interface to submit collection accounts. We believe this will be a huge time and paper saver for our on-site teams. We will be transitioning our all of our properties over to the new interface.

3- Rentpayment.com. This has been a great effort by our friend Kira. Many months of research and planning has gone into this transition. We have many communities already aboard with the new payment system and will transition an additional 30 properties April 1st.

4- Purchase orders. Tanya has been conducting some specialized trainings regarding only purchase orders. Let us know if you are interested in a class.

5-Utility Billing. We have set up the utility billing interface through Yardi to post your utility bills for you. This is great for our team since we will no longer have to do a manual upload for each property. Right now we are working with conservice, but hope to have comptrol on board by May.

6-Yardi upgrade. We are in the testing phase for updating some new Yardi functionality, report menus, etc. we are looking forward to using the latest and greatest Yardi has to offer.

7- Support requests. Soon we will be asking each property to log into our new service request center and enter in your own requests to our team. This will be a great way to track your request, see what the corrections were and follow up when needed.

Wow! I think that is it! What a list.

Everything Yardi-

2009-06-05T08:23:00.001-07:00

Helpful Blog

2009-04-01T16:03:00.003-07:00

Here is an address to a blog that Christy Alvarado found www.creativityforrent.blogspot.com. There are some great ideas on there that can help us to continue to outperform the market!

TAIL WAGS!!!

2009-03-26T08:22:00.001-07:00

Here's an opportunity to wag your tail (or give kudos to someone who deserves it)!

Outperforming The Market

2009-03-25T15:39:00.001-07:00

Jodi, Lib and I just want to take a moment and thank everyone involved in a great achievement this week. Most of you may know by now that MEB was awarded the management of 7 of the Bethany portfolio of properties in Phoenix. This is especially meaningful for us because we are able to welcome back to the MEB family many of our previous team members who stayed on to manage these properties when they were sold by our client, Bascom Arizona in 2007. We're really happy to have these team members re-join us, so please welcome them.

As you also may know, these properties are really in tough shape. The team members who stayed on for the last month really deserve great credit for their loyalty to their residents and their commitment to customer service. They really exemplified the MEB core values in hanging in there on these properties and going the extra mile to take care of their residents.

Everyone worked hard to earn this business. MEB was in competition with many management companies (local and national!) It's quite an accomplishment to have been awarded this contract.

We have all of you who work so hard to thank for that. Because of your dedication to our core values and your ability to outperform the market, the Receiver heard from many of our clients and industry partners that MEB was the best company for the job. We are outperforming the market and it's clear that our industry partners know this because they went to bat for us!

Thanks especially to Andrew, Suzanne, and Mark for the extra hours in getting the proposal information together and selling MEB to our new client, the Receiver on these properties.

Thanks for outperforming the market in tough times. We all share in this accomplishment. Way to go, Mebbies!!!

Jodi, Libby & Melanie

Yardi P.O. System

2009-03-25T09:12:00.002-07:00

Please post your comments on the new P.O. system