Aug 16

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/business/dealbook/adam-neumann-flow-new-company-wework-real-estate.html

Andreessen said in the blog post that he was interested in Flow because the rental real estate market is ripe for disruption. That’s especially true, Andreessen said, now that more and more people are working from home and “will experience much less, if any, of the in-office social bonding and friendships that local workers enjoy.” He also hinted that the company might try to address one of the biggest challenges renters face: “You can pay rent for decades and still own zero equity — nothing.” He added: “In a world where limited access to homeownership continues to be a driving force behind inequality and anxiety, giving renters a sense of security, community and genuine ownership has transformative power for our society.”

This will be interesting.  

Dec 01

News on Milwaukee’s Rental Housing Resource Center collaboration to help renters and housing providers. This was project was envisioned and started a couple of years ago. It became more relevant with the COVID economic crisis that has impacted the ability for folks to pay rent and avoid eviction.

The partners are a very diverse group: Community Advocates, Legal Aid, Legal Action, IMPACT, Mediate Milwaukee, Hope House, the City of Milwaukee, County of Milwaukee, and the Apartment Association.

The inclusion of the housing industry makes Milwaukee rather unique from other communities. Here we realize that housing and renters are two sides of a single coin. Both need the other to succeed so that they can succeed.

Here is yesterday’s news:

  • Milwaukee renters and landlords will have a central spot to get assistance with rent, part of an effort to reduce evictions.https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2020/11/30/milwaukee-rental-housing-resource-center-launches-site-plans-location/6437459002/
  • Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center Hopes To Reduce Evictionshttps://www.wuwm.com/post/milwaukee-rental-housing-resource-center-hopes-reduce-evictions#stream/0
  • Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center to launch Dec 1. 1https://www.tmj4.com/rebound/milwaukee-rental-housing-resource-center-to-launch-dec-1
  • Keeping the roof over your head: collaborative website helping those facing pandemic induced evictionhttps://www.tmj4.com/rebound/keeping-the-roof-over-your-head-collaborative-website-helping-those-facing-pandemic-induced-eviction

Mar 27

We have a list of resources to help tenants get through this if they do not know were to turn.

Here is information to help with money, food and other challenges:

https://apartmentsmilwaukee.com/r/

If anyone has more resources that should be added please let me know and I’ll add them.

Jan 31

Here s something that we as an organization had spoken of over the years.  Joe (Yusuf) Dahl, the former AASEW president, has made it a reality out east where he runs a school of entrepreneurship at Lafayette.  


Milwaukee needs this as well. Joe, are you coming back anytime soon?  😉

First-of-a-kind program aims to help people get into real estate

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – City Center Allentown and Lafayette College are coming together to launch a first-of-a-kind program to help people get into real estate. 

Yusuf Dahl’s life story took him from prison in Milwaukee to Princeton University, and now he wants to help others do the same.

“The goal of this program is to create a pathway to real estate entrepreneurship for people who have historically been excluded,” Dahl said.

Jul 03

Milwaukee Journal has an article about Milwaukee’s new ordinance that requires deconstruction, as opposed to bulldozing, pre 1929 single families and duplexes.

A Milwaukee ordinance went into effect in January requiring single-family homes and duplexes built in 1929 or before to be deconstructed.


The extended timeline and need for more workers causes deconstruction to often cost nearly twice as much as demolition.

Bloomberg just had a piece on how recycling in general is failing.

Similarly a decade ago or so one of the Milwaukee TV stations followed a couple of DPW trucks full of recycling bin plastics to a landfill. The response was they were ‘just storing them underground’ until they could reuse the plastic.

None of these well-meaning things work as government mandates, but often take off when they are profit motivated.

Look at the electric car. Great for the environment but little interest among the general population. Then along came Musk with his Tesla Roadster. Not a utilitarian, save the planet vehicle, but a quick, sharp looking sports car that enthusiast liked, oh and it also happened to be electric. That changed the topic. His later vehicles are like little high tech spaceships from the Jetsons. Today, there is even Formula E racing, similar to F-1. The buying public, including gearheads, is now getting excited about electric cars and all the major manufactures are racing to beat Tesla. Soon gas may be a thing of the past.

Deconstruction will only work well when there is similar economic motivation to do so, such as a marketplace for used lumber and consumer desire for the materials.

But deconstruction of older properties has the additional problem that many of the materials cannot be reused due to containing lead, asbestos and who knows what other chemicals that will prevent its direct reuse.

 

Jun 11
The New York Times has an interesting tale of mass produced, factory built housing.
 
I was always fascinated by modular building.  It kind of combines manufacturing, which was my career prior to rentals, with housing which has been my life’s calling, and robotics, which is the future.
 
Years ago we proposed an infill housing project using modular construction.  The process was too politicized for outsiders to succeed, but it would have been cool to do, and beneficial for the community.
 
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