Below is a recent article about the power of friendship and camaraderie in the success of initiatives. Doesn't matter if it’s a diet, sales goal, or chance to stop smoking; the results are significantly better when those around you also subscribe to the same belief. The results in these studies really are astounding. 36% of people are more likely to stop smoking if surrounded by non-smokers, diets are 80% more effective when done with others, and sales increase significantly when groups share results.
Harnessing the power of groups and turning it into successful results is not new but putting research to the results obviously is significant enough to finally make us believe that the buddy system works.
Does it work? Let's look at some results. At our NY headquarters this past weekend 4 people did triathlons and in the past year more than 75% of our office has done one. This is obviously not scientific but still pretty good results.
At Signature Community earlier this year we started having everyone in the organization engage in one common goal for the quarter. Last quarter it was leasing and this quarter it is cost cutting/ income maximization and the results of this group focus have been phenomenal. Our occupancy shot up by 5% nationwide and we are now operating at occupancy rates far above our peer group.
This quarter we are focused on initiatives to reduce expense and increase revenue generating at the company's management level. In just a few days after I briefly mentioned this program to our team I have received a deluge of ideas at our ideas@asignaturecommunity.com email site. I welcome everyone to share their ideas.
As the article states when people work together and have common goals the rewards can be substantial.
Thanks for making it happen!
Nick
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-10/ff_christakis?currentPage=all
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Expect More Rental Homes with Federal Policy Shift
A major federal shift on housing policy will likely increase the number of rental homes and other rental units, making it easier for renters to find a place to live.
Abandoning the home "ownership society" of George W. Bush's presidency, the Obama administration has plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units around the country, including rental homes, according to a recent story in the Boston Globe.
The money would pay for building low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, and buy foreclosed homes that can be refurbished and turned into rental homes for low- and moderate-income families at affordable rates.
The ideological shift from Bush's emphasis on encouraging home ownership acknowledges that not everyone can or should own a home. The shift is also a response to skyrocketing foreclosure rates, tight credit and the recession.
The federal Housing and Urban Development Department will still be in the business of helping people buy homes with existing lending subsidies, Carol Galante, HUD's assistant secretary for multifamily housing, told the Globe.
Homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure are turning into renters themselves, and sometimes renting back their own homes from the bank.
Foreclosure notices nationwide increased 9 percent during the first half of the year, while nationwide vacancy rates for homeowner housing crept up for the second consecutive quarter, the Globe reported.
"People who were owners are going to be renting for a while," said Margery Turner, vice president for research fro The Urban Institute, a Washington think tank that studies social and economic policy.
"There is a housing stock that is sitting vacant. There is a real opportunity here" to use those homes as rental property and solve both problems, Turner said.
President Obama's budget also seeks $1.8 billion for the construction of rental housing, which is the same amount Congress approved last year.
For a list of some of the best cities to rent in, check out this story.
Abandoning the home "ownership society" of George W. Bush's presidency, the Obama administration has plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units around the country, including rental homes, according to a recent story in the Boston Globe.
The money would pay for building low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, and buy foreclosed homes that can be refurbished and turned into rental homes for low- and moderate-income families at affordable rates.
The ideological shift from Bush's emphasis on encouraging home ownership acknowledges that not everyone can or should own a home. The shift is also a response to skyrocketing foreclosure rates, tight credit and the recession.
The federal Housing and Urban Development Department will still be in the business of helping people buy homes with existing lending subsidies, Carol Galante, HUD's assistant secretary for multifamily housing, told the Globe.
Homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure are turning into renters themselves, and sometimes renting back their own homes from the bank.
Foreclosure notices nationwide increased 9 percent during the first half of the year, while nationwide vacancy rates for homeowner housing crept up for the second consecutive quarter, the Globe reported.
"People who were owners are going to be renting for a while," said Margery Turner, vice president for research fro The Urban Institute, a Washington think tank that studies social and economic policy.
"There is a housing stock that is sitting vacant. There is a real opportunity here" to use those homes as rental property and solve both problems, Turner said.
President Obama's budget also seeks $1.8 billion for the construction of rental housing, which is the same amount Congress approved last year.
For a list of some of the best cities to rent in, check out this story.
Real Estate: Real Money And Real Problems
Real Estate: Real Money And Real Problems
ALTERNATIVE INVESTING, REAL ESTATE, REITS, ETFS, INVESTING, MORTGAGES, HOUSING
CNBC.com
| 31 Aug 2009 | 02:22 PM ET
The last property Giovanni Isaksen bought to fix up and resell was a “nice house in a nice neighborhood.” An independent real estate investor in the Seattle area, Isaksen and his partner figured they could sell the house for about $850,000, so they budgeted for renovation accordingly.
But the market was strong, and soon it seemed they could sell the house for $899,000, so they decided on more improvements.
“By the time we got to market, people were going crazy,” he says. “Some said we could get $1.2 million.”
In the summer of 2006, the house sold for $920,000—more than they initially expected, but at little or no profit.
“If we had stuck to the original plan, the thing would have sold in a week and we would have ended up in the same or a better financial position,” Isaksen says. “After we backed out the carrying costs, it was within dollars of where we originally planned to be.”
The lesson, he says: “Plan your work and work your plan.”
Real estate is a common means of diversifying a portfolio and hedging against inflation.
“As inflation occurs the value of your property will go up,” says Todd Huettner, president of Huettner Capital, a Denver-based real estate financing brokerage. “Then there’s the financing. You’re borrowing dollars when they’re cheap today and paying them back when they’re worth less.”
But depending on how you get into real estate, it can be a time consuming, complex and (as the recent bust proves) risky proposition.
There are many ways to invest—in properties or funds; in commercial, residential or industrial; in single-family homes or condos. Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages, but experts say there are a few principles that hold true across the board.
First, do your homework. “Don't feel obligated to do the deal if you don't have all the information you need,” advises Gregor Watson, managing partner at McKinley Capital Partners, a $30-million dollar real estate fund in California. “Just because it's free doesn't mean it's a good deal.”
That means examining market dynamics for the segment you’re considering, knowing how financing works, understanding all the aspects of the deal. “If it's outside your area of expertise, hire professionals,” Watson says.
Be skeptical of deals that seem too good to be true.
“Be careful of the real estate agents—they're out to make a sale,” says Marty Sumichrast, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and real estate investor.
And finally, expect things to go wrong. “What if you had a vacancy and needed a new roof and a water heater, all in 30 days?” Huettner asks. “If you see all the things that could go wrong, you’ll usually end up being okay.”
With those principles in mind, you need to figure out how you want to invest. That choice will depend on your personal and financial goals and predilections.
REITS And ETFS
George Van Dyke, an independent financial consultant in Towson, Maryland, advises his clients to use real estate investment trusts, EITS, and exchange-traded funds, ETFs, to diversify into real estate. The vehicles are fast and easy ways to get into different properties, geographical areas and real estate classes.
“With publicly traded securities you can remain liquid,” he says. “If you can't tolerate the risk, you’re not forced to go and sell a physical piece of real estate, which could take months.”
It’s also relatively simple to limit risk by using a trailing stop loss order, which automatically sells an asset if it drops below a certain predetermined price.
“If the real estate investments we utilize go up for an extended period of time, it is possible to lock in years of gains,” Van Dyke says.
With REITs and ETFs, you don’t have any of the hassles or liabilities that come with being a landlord or a property owner. But some investors are looking to be more hands-on. And, Van Dyke notes, you may be missing out on some money.
“The returns that you would get on a physical piece of real estate would exceed what you would get on a publicly traded security,” he says.
Residential: Single Family
For many, the next step up is investing directly in a property.
“Residential is the easiest and lowest risk,” Huettner says. “You don’t have to have a few million bucks to get involved, and you can get a 20-year fixed-rate loan at a really low rate, putting down 20 or 25 percent.”
The simplest approach is to buy a house or apartment unit to rent, especially since most of us are familiar with home ownership.
“If you're starting in single family, buy in the neighborhood you're working in,” Isaksen suggests. “You’ll know about the area. You’ll be able to get there easily.”
When looking for properties, consider how the home fits into the neighborhood and the current housing market. If a property is dirt cheap, ask yourself why.
“Is it because it's a three-story townhome in suburbia?” Watson says. “Don't just look at price. Make sure the product matches the market.”
Isaksen advises making sure you’re in the middle tier of the neighborhood in terms of size and price.
“You don't want to be the highest end home on the block,” he says. “You don’t want to have to lead the market.”
Keep in mind that single-family homes require hands-on management, and so are difficult to run from afar. Also, make sure you’re okay with being a landlord.
“Some people aren’t cut out for it,” Huettner says. “They don’t feel comfortable telling someone they’re behind on their rent.”
Another potential downside: cash flow is all or nothing. If you lose your tenant, it drops to zero.
Residential: Multifamily
On the other hand, if you have 20 tenants and one moves out, you still have 19 others paying the rent, Isaksen says.
Other pluses of investing in this category: your rentals are all in one location, so there is one lawn to mow and one roof to repair; if the property is large enough—over 80 or so units—you can hire a professional manager.
“Then you're not in the landlording business—you're in the property ownership business,” Isaksen says. “You're not getting called at two in the morning to fix that toilet.”
On the downside multifamily properties are often more expensive than single family homes, and the financing is different.
For one, loans are based on debt service ratios—an assessment of the cash flow rather than an appraisal of the resale value. There are more financing options for loans over $1 million, Huettner says.
Local bank loans will typically be portfolio loans, and be 10- to 15-year fixed rate loans, which means high payments, or 20-year loans with balloon payments.
Commercial
“A lot of the residential investments on the market are foreclosures,” says Tim Grizzle, author of Creating Wealth in a Turbulent Economy, a CPA and a commercial real estate broker, registered investment advisor. “I just don't want that karma.”
Another reason he invests in moderate-sized commercial properties is that the rents are generally higher than with residential properties.
Lending for commercial properties is based on the income the properties produce.
“Generally the income the property produces needs to be 1 1/4 times the debt service,” Grizzle says. Financing can be difficult to obtain these days, but private investor groups are a common option. “Basically you call everybody you know and ask if they know anyone who has money to invest.”
When seeking out potential properties, research local market dynamics—the commercial real estate saw is, “Retail follows rooftops.”
Shari B. Olefson, author of "Foreclosure Nation" and an attorney with Florida-based law firm Fowler White Boggs, suggests strip shopping centers as an investment.
Though retailers are not doing well currently, grocery stores, discount stories and drugstores are.
“Look for a local strip venture that you’re familiar with and has local businesses that people use and need,” she says. Also be aware that they need to be renovated every five to ten years.
But no matter what you’re considering, don’t be afraid to walk—for any reason.
“The best investment decisions are usually the properties that you turn away,” Huettner says. “There will always be other great deals.”
ALTERNATIVE INVESTING, REAL ESTATE, REITS, ETFS, INVESTING, MORTGAGES, HOUSING
CNBC.com
| 31 Aug 2009 | 02:22 PM ET
The last property Giovanni Isaksen bought to fix up and resell was a “nice house in a nice neighborhood.” An independent real estate investor in the Seattle area, Isaksen and his partner figured they could sell the house for about $850,000, so they budgeted for renovation accordingly.
But the market was strong, and soon it seemed they could sell the house for $899,000, so they decided on more improvements.
“By the time we got to market, people were going crazy,” he says. “Some said we could get $1.2 million.”
In the summer of 2006, the house sold for $920,000—more than they initially expected, but at little or no profit.
“If we had stuck to the original plan, the thing would have sold in a week and we would have ended up in the same or a better financial position,” Isaksen says. “After we backed out the carrying costs, it was within dollars of where we originally planned to be.”
The lesson, he says: “Plan your work and work your plan.”
Real estate is a common means of diversifying a portfolio and hedging against inflation.
“As inflation occurs the value of your property will go up,” says Todd Huettner, president of Huettner Capital, a Denver-based real estate financing brokerage. “Then there’s the financing. You’re borrowing dollars when they’re cheap today and paying them back when they’re worth less.”
But depending on how you get into real estate, it can be a time consuming, complex and (as the recent bust proves) risky proposition.
There are many ways to invest—in properties or funds; in commercial, residential or industrial; in single-family homes or condos. Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages, but experts say there are a few principles that hold true across the board.
First, do your homework. “Don't feel obligated to do the deal if you don't have all the information you need,” advises Gregor Watson, managing partner at McKinley Capital Partners, a $30-million dollar real estate fund in California. “Just because it's free doesn't mean it's a good deal.”
That means examining market dynamics for the segment you’re considering, knowing how financing works, understanding all the aspects of the deal. “If it's outside your area of expertise, hire professionals,” Watson says.
Be skeptical of deals that seem too good to be true.
“Be careful of the real estate agents—they're out to make a sale,” says Marty Sumichrast, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and real estate investor.
And finally, expect things to go wrong. “What if you had a vacancy and needed a new roof and a water heater, all in 30 days?” Huettner asks. “If you see all the things that could go wrong, you’ll usually end up being okay.”
With those principles in mind, you need to figure out how you want to invest. That choice will depend on your personal and financial goals and predilections.
REITS And ETFS
George Van Dyke, an independent financial consultant in Towson, Maryland, advises his clients to use real estate investment trusts, EITS, and exchange-traded funds, ETFs, to diversify into real estate. The vehicles are fast and easy ways to get into different properties, geographical areas and real estate classes.
“With publicly traded securities you can remain liquid,” he says. “If you can't tolerate the risk, you’re not forced to go and sell a physical piece of real estate, which could take months.”
It’s also relatively simple to limit risk by using a trailing stop loss order, which automatically sells an asset if it drops below a certain predetermined price.
“If the real estate investments we utilize go up for an extended period of time, it is possible to lock in years of gains,” Van Dyke says.
With REITs and ETFs, you don’t have any of the hassles or liabilities that come with being a landlord or a property owner. But some investors are looking to be more hands-on. And, Van Dyke notes, you may be missing out on some money.
“The returns that you would get on a physical piece of real estate would exceed what you would get on a publicly traded security,” he says.
Residential: Single Family
For many, the next step up is investing directly in a property.
“Residential is the easiest and lowest risk,” Huettner says. “You don’t have to have a few million bucks to get involved, and you can get a 20-year fixed-rate loan at a really low rate, putting down 20 or 25 percent.”
The simplest approach is to buy a house or apartment unit to rent, especially since most of us are familiar with home ownership.
“If you're starting in single family, buy in the neighborhood you're working in,” Isaksen suggests. “You’ll know about the area. You’ll be able to get there easily.”
When looking for properties, consider how the home fits into the neighborhood and the current housing market. If a property is dirt cheap, ask yourself why.
“Is it because it's a three-story townhome in suburbia?” Watson says. “Don't just look at price. Make sure the product matches the market.”
Isaksen advises making sure you’re in the middle tier of the neighborhood in terms of size and price.
“You don't want to be the highest end home on the block,” he says. “You don’t want to have to lead the market.”
Keep in mind that single-family homes require hands-on management, and so are difficult to run from afar. Also, make sure you’re okay with being a landlord.
“Some people aren’t cut out for it,” Huettner says. “They don’t feel comfortable telling someone they’re behind on their rent.”
Another potential downside: cash flow is all or nothing. If you lose your tenant, it drops to zero.
Residential: Multifamily
On the other hand, if you have 20 tenants and one moves out, you still have 19 others paying the rent, Isaksen says.
Other pluses of investing in this category: your rentals are all in one location, so there is one lawn to mow and one roof to repair; if the property is large enough—over 80 or so units—you can hire a professional manager.
“Then you're not in the landlording business—you're in the property ownership business,” Isaksen says. “You're not getting called at two in the morning to fix that toilet.”
On the downside multifamily properties are often more expensive than single family homes, and the financing is different.
For one, loans are based on debt service ratios—an assessment of the cash flow rather than an appraisal of the resale value. There are more financing options for loans over $1 million, Huettner says.
Local bank loans will typically be portfolio loans, and be 10- to 15-year fixed rate loans, which means high payments, or 20-year loans with balloon payments.
Commercial
“A lot of the residential investments on the market are foreclosures,” says Tim Grizzle, author of Creating Wealth in a Turbulent Economy, a CPA and a commercial real estate broker, registered investment advisor. “I just don't want that karma.”
Another reason he invests in moderate-sized commercial properties is that the rents are generally higher than with residential properties.
Lending for commercial properties is based on the income the properties produce.
“Generally the income the property produces needs to be 1 1/4 times the debt service,” Grizzle says. Financing can be difficult to obtain these days, but private investor groups are a common option. “Basically you call everybody you know and ask if they know anyone who has money to invest.”
When seeking out potential properties, research local market dynamics—the commercial real estate saw is, “Retail follows rooftops.”
Shari B. Olefson, author of "Foreclosure Nation" and an attorney with Florida-based law firm Fowler White Boggs, suggests strip shopping centers as an investment.
Though retailers are not doing well currently, grocery stores, discount stories and drugstores are.
“Look for a local strip venture that you’re familiar with and has local businesses that people use and need,” she says. Also be aware that they need to be renovated every five to ten years.
But no matter what you’re considering, don’t be afraid to walk—for any reason.
“The best investment decisions are usually the properties that you turn away,” Huettner says. “There will always be other great deals.”
Monday, September 21, 2009
Keep Going
I recently read the attached article in an adventure magazine. I am always interested in hearing the stories of success and failures of adventurers, as I often try to relate them to my life and business. Many of the traits required to climb a mountain, explore the arctic or just finish a challenging race are the same traits that business leaders need to survive in these trying times.
The article simply illustrates that optimism is the number one requirement for success. How can someone survive a 480 mile trek in temps of 60 below without being optimistic. Business is no different. These are trying times for everyone in just about every industry. For those that see these times as a challenging opportunity, to better ourselves and our companies, are the ones the will thrive, not just survive.
Getting Focused
Think Small. When running a marathon, if you focus on mile 26 while at mile 20 you will never see the finish line. You need to think in small steps. Let's make it to mile 21. When there, go for mile 22, when things get really tough aim for the next telephone pole. Step by step is the only way to finish. The business world is no different. People often get distracted by trying to do 20 different things or trying to get everything perfect. You need to think small. Pick one or two short term goals, hit them and then move to the next one. The momentum and sense of accomplishment from hitting these short term wins will propel you and your team to the next one. Before you know it, you've reached your goal and are ready to begin work on new goals.
After action review. What worked, what didn't. Failures can be as valuable as successes. Sure its great to succeed, but with failure your are able to look into yourself and really get a grasp of what your limits are. This is the only way to get better. In business its the same way. Need to fail, but fail fast and cheaply. Learn from the mistakes and rally the organization around the failure to be better equiped next time. If you are a growth company, the failure was likely smaller than some of the future opportunities you will be confronted with. Remember, you have to take risks to succeed and with risk will inevitably come failure.
Celebrate the finish. Doesn't matter if you just finished a walk to the north pole or a 5 mile race. If you worked your hardest you deserve a reward. Doesn't have to be extravagant, just make it special. Maybe a meal at a restaurant you wouldn't typically go to. A movie on a work night. Whatever it is, make a mental connection between the recent success and the reward. Business is no different when you and your team hit a goal, celebrate. Again, keep it simple, but make it special. Ice cream at lunch time, drinks after work, a tailgate party for the local team. It doesn't need to be extravagant, but does need to follow the recent success.
Business life today is about survival and the lessons learned in the Artic cold are usefull. Keep up your optimism, focus on the task at hand, shoot for small wins, evaluate failures, celebrate wins.
At Signature Community we have been in an Artic environment for the past 12 months, but we are making the most of it. We are optomistic that we will make it out stronger than before. We have focused our attention on the items that we can control (occupancy rates, customer satisfaction, cost controls) and not dwelling on the unknows (global economic distress), we shoot for short term wins ( 97% occupancy, acting with urgency, manager empowerment) not confusing long term ideas, we fail and learn from our failures, we celebrate our wins, and we will not stop until the finish line.
No More Bad Days
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/08/performance-bright-side-andrew-tilin-text
Thanks for making it happen.
Nick
The article simply illustrates that optimism is the number one requirement for success. How can someone survive a 480 mile trek in temps of 60 below without being optimistic. Business is no different. These are trying times for everyone in just about every industry. For those that see these times as a challenging opportunity, to better ourselves and our companies, are the ones the will thrive, not just survive.
Getting Focused
Think Small. When running a marathon, if you focus on mile 26 while at mile 20 you will never see the finish line. You need to think in small steps. Let's make it to mile 21. When there, go for mile 22, when things get really tough aim for the next telephone pole. Step by step is the only way to finish. The business world is no different. People often get distracted by trying to do 20 different things or trying to get everything perfect. You need to think small. Pick one or two short term goals, hit them and then move to the next one. The momentum and sense of accomplishment from hitting these short term wins will propel you and your team to the next one. Before you know it, you've reached your goal and are ready to begin work on new goals.
After action review. What worked, what didn't. Failures can be as valuable as successes. Sure its great to succeed, but with failure your are able to look into yourself and really get a grasp of what your limits are. This is the only way to get better. In business its the same way. Need to fail, but fail fast and cheaply. Learn from the mistakes and rally the organization around the failure to be better equiped next time. If you are a growth company, the failure was likely smaller than some of the future opportunities you will be confronted with. Remember, you have to take risks to succeed and with risk will inevitably come failure.
Celebrate the finish. Doesn't matter if you just finished a walk to the north pole or a 5 mile race. If you worked your hardest you deserve a reward. Doesn't have to be extravagant, just make it special. Maybe a meal at a restaurant you wouldn't typically go to. A movie on a work night. Whatever it is, make a mental connection between the recent success and the reward. Business is no different when you and your team hit a goal, celebrate. Again, keep it simple, but make it special. Ice cream at lunch time, drinks after work, a tailgate party for the local team. It doesn't need to be extravagant, but does need to follow the recent success.
Business life today is about survival and the lessons learned in the Artic cold are usefull. Keep up your optimism, focus on the task at hand, shoot for small wins, evaluate failures, celebrate wins.
At Signature Community we have been in an Artic environment for the past 12 months, but we are making the most of it. We are optomistic that we will make it out stronger than before. We have focused our attention on the items that we can control (occupancy rates, customer satisfaction, cost controls) and not dwelling on the unknows (global economic distress), we shoot for short term wins ( 97% occupancy, acting with urgency, manager empowerment) not confusing long term ideas, we fail and learn from our failures, we celebrate our wins, and we will not stop until the finish line.
No More Bad Days
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/08/performance-bright-side-andrew-tilin-text
Thanks for making it happen.
Nick
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
You Made it Happen!!
You made it happen!!!
97 % Occupancy for Signature Community!!!
Richmond, V A = 0% vacant market=10%
Albuquerque = 2.2% vacant market = 9%
Philadelphia = 1.35% vacant market = 5/7%
Kansas City = 5% vacant market = 9%
Indianapolis = 6% vacant market =10%
EL Paso = 9% vacant
we started at 30% vacant occupancy 4 months ago
Real Estate companies nationwide are at a 90% occupancy level Signature Community is at 97%!
Great job everyone
97 % Occupancy for Signature Community!!!
Richmond, V A = 0% vacant market=10%
Albuquerque = 2.2% vacant market = 9%
Philadelphia = 1.35% vacant market = 5/7%
Kansas City = 5% vacant market = 9%
Indianapolis = 6% vacant market =10%
EL Paso = 9% vacant
we started at 30% vacant occupancy 4 months ago
Real Estate companies nationwide are at a 90% occupancy level Signature Community is at 97%!
Great job everyone
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Opportunity Revealed
We are continually presented with great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as (un)solvable problems.
Modified quote from Lee Iacocca, Business Leader
Job loss, deficit spending, unexpected capital expenditures, loan capital calls, lawsuits, more lawsuits, higher market vacancies, bad credit reports, midnight move-outs, a fire, another fire, foreclosure threats, higher taxes, insurance company fights, escrow release restrictions, lower appraisals, lender re-negotiations what a year we've had.
Can't say that its been fun, but I have to admit, it has been educational for me and our leadership team. Two years ago, none of these problems were on our radar screen. Now we deal we these items every day and have been very successful in solving most of them.
In 2007 it seemed like the only issue in real estate, was to see how fast you could refinance into a higher leverage loan and how much cash can come out of it. Today its the opposite. How much cash do you need to put in to keep the thing afloat. How much more will be needed if things get worse or when the loan comes due. We now live in very different times than 2007. For the real estate industry as well as many other industries, this is a time of major adjustments.
The positive: Over the past year, we have learned things in our business, that will allow us to be a much more sustainable company for the future. No more borrowing to survive. Today, it comes down to operating profitably.
It seems like every industry is adjusting to this new reality. And I expect that this reality will be the norm for quite some time to come, possibly decades.
At Signature Community we have taken the past 12 months to stay focused on one goal - profitable operations. Coming off of some expensive years, this was a very big goal. Our company was staffed for growth (which had been put on hold by the economy) and had a good deal of inefficiencies and overlap in the operations. Over the past 12 months we cut down expenses, reduced redundant positions, slashed our corporate overhead and substantially changed our reporting structure. The results are nothing short of amazing. (An unfortunate testament to the slow, jobless economic recovery). Our manager in the past would fill out a couple page form each week, that would be reviewed by the asset management dept. Now the managers engage in a DAILY huddle with their region and discuss what is going on DAILY. Regionals then get on a call with corporate and filter up the information. The process is daily, its collaborative, interactive and very effective. You may ask - "Show me the money?". The results speak for themselves. Our company wide occupancy on September 1st 09 is 97% -- 6% points above the national average and in some markets we are leading the average by more than 10% points. Our gross collections overall are 2% higher than in 08 (not bad in a down year). And our resident retention rates are almost 15-20% points higher than the industry.
At the end of the day it's pretty simple, empower good people to consistently hit a few common goals at a time, while always keeping the customer in mind. We did it last quarter through consolidation, standardization and maximizing of operating efficiencies.
Thanks everyone at Signature Community for making it happen and continuing to make our communities better than the rest.
Modified quote from Lee Iacocca, Business Leader
Job loss, deficit spending, unexpected capital expenditures, loan capital calls, lawsuits, more lawsuits, higher market vacancies, bad credit reports, midnight move-outs, a fire, another fire, foreclosure threats, higher taxes, insurance company fights, escrow release restrictions, lower appraisals, lender re-negotiations what a year we've had.
Can't say that its been fun, but I have to admit, it has been educational for me and our leadership team. Two years ago, none of these problems were on our radar screen. Now we deal we these items every day and have been very successful in solving most of them.
In 2007 it seemed like the only issue in real estate, was to see how fast you could refinance into a higher leverage loan and how much cash can come out of it. Today its the opposite. How much cash do you need to put in to keep the thing afloat. How much more will be needed if things get worse or when the loan comes due. We now live in very different times than 2007. For the real estate industry as well as many other industries, this is a time of major adjustments.
The positive: Over the past year, we have learned things in our business, that will allow us to be a much more sustainable company for the future. No more borrowing to survive. Today, it comes down to operating profitably.
It seems like every industry is adjusting to this new reality. And I expect that this reality will be the norm for quite some time to come, possibly decades.
At Signature Community we have taken the past 12 months to stay focused on one goal - profitable operations. Coming off of some expensive years, this was a very big goal. Our company was staffed for growth (which had been put on hold by the economy) and had a good deal of inefficiencies and overlap in the operations. Over the past 12 months we cut down expenses, reduced redundant positions, slashed our corporate overhead and substantially changed our reporting structure. The results are nothing short of amazing. (An unfortunate testament to the slow, jobless economic recovery). Our manager in the past would fill out a couple page form each week, that would be reviewed by the asset management dept. Now the managers engage in a DAILY huddle with their region and discuss what is going on DAILY. Regionals then get on a call with corporate and filter up the information. The process is daily, its collaborative, interactive and very effective. You may ask - "Show me the money?". The results speak for themselves. Our company wide occupancy on September 1st 09 is 97% -- 6% points above the national average and in some markets we are leading the average by more than 10% points. Our gross collections overall are 2% higher than in 08 (not bad in a down year). And our resident retention rates are almost 15-20% points higher than the industry.
At the end of the day it's pretty simple, empower good people to consistently hit a few common goals at a time, while always keeping the customer in mind. We did it last quarter through consolidation, standardization and maximizing of operating efficiencies.
Thanks everyone at Signature Community for making it happen and continuing to make our communities better than the rest.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The New American Dream: Renting
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350432677038184.html
By THOMAS J. SUGRUE
Suburban sprawl in Placer County, Calif.
'A man is not a whole and complete man," wrote Walt Whitman, "unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on." America's lesser bards sang of "my old Kentucky Home" and "Home Sweet Home," leading no less than that great critic Herbert Hoover to declaim that their ballads "were not written about tenements or apartments…they never sing about a pile of rent receipts." To own a home is to be American. To rent is to be something less.
Every generation has offered its own version of the claim that owner-occupied homes are the nation's saving grace. During the Cold War, home ownership was moral armor, protecting America from dangerous outside influences. "No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist," proclaimed builder William Levitt. With no more reds hiding under the beds, Bill Clinton launched National Homeownership Day in 1995, offering a new rationale about personal responsibility. "You want to reinforce family values in America, encourage two-parent households, get people to stay home?" he said. George W. Bush similarly pledged his commitment to "an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, 'welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.'"
Surveys show that Americans buy into our gauzy platitudes about the character-building qualities of home ownership—at least those who still own them. A February Pew survey reported that nine out of 10 homeowners viewed their homes as a "comfort" in their lives. But for millions of Americans at risk of foreclosure, the home has become something else altogether: the source of panic and despair. Those emotions were on full display last week, when an estimated 53,000 people packed the Save the Dream fair at Atlanta's World Congress Center. Its planners, with the support of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, brought together struggling homeowners, housing counselors, and lenders, including industry giants Bank of America and Citigroup, to renegotiate at-risk mortgages. Georgia's housing market has been devastated by the current economic crisis—6,605 homes in the Peachtree state went into foreclosure in May and June alone.
Atlanta represents the current housing crisis in microcosm. Since the second quarter of 2006, housing values across the United States have fallen by one third. Over a million homes were lost to foreclosure nationwide in 2008, as homeowners struggled to meet payments. The number of foreclosures reached an all-time record last month—when owners of one in every 355 houses in the country received default or auction notices or were seized by creditors. The collapse in confidence in securitized, high-risk mortgages has also devastated some of the nation's largest banks and lenders. The home financing giant Fannie Mae alone held an estimated $230 billion in toxic assets. Even if there are signs of hope on the horizon (home prices ticked upward by 0.5% in May and new housing starts rose in June), analysts like Yale's Robert Shiller expect that housing prices will remain level for the next five years. Many economists, like the Wharton School's Joseph Gyourko, are beginning to make the case that public policies should encourage renting, or at least put it on a level playing field with home ownership. A June 2009 survey commissioned by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, found a deep-seated pessimism about home ownership, suggesting that even if renting doesn't yet have cachet, it's the only choice left for those who have been burned by the housing market. One third of respondents don't believe that they will ever be able to own a home. And 42% of those who once purchased a home, but don't own one now, believe that they'll never own one again.
A family house-hunting
Some countries—such as Spain and Italy—have higher rates of home ownership than the U.S., but there, homes are often purchased with the support of extended families and are places to settle for the long term, not to flip to eager buyers or trade up for a McMansion. In France, Germany, and Switzerland, renting is more common than purchasing. There, most people invest their earnings in the stock market or squirrel it away in savings accounts. In those countries, whether you are a renter or an owner, houses have use value, not exchange value.
For most Americans, until the recent past, home ownership was a dream and the pile of rent receipts was the reality. From 1900, when the census first started gathering data on home ownership, through 1940, fewer than half of all Americans owned their own homes. Home ownership rates actually fell in three of the first four decades of the 20th century. But from that point on forward (with the exception of the 1980s, when interest rates were staggeringly high), the percentage of Americans living in owner-occupied homes marched steadily upward. Today more than two-thirds of Americans own their own homes. Among whites, more than 75% are homeowners today.
Yet the story of how the dream became a reality is not one of independence, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurial pluck. It's not the story of the inexorable march of the free market. It's a different kind of American story, of government, financial regulation, and taxation.
We are a nation of homeowners and home-speculators because of Uncle Sam.
It wasn't until government stepped into the housing market, during that extraordinary moment of the Great Depression, that tenancy began its long downward spiral. Before the Crash, government played a minuscule role in housing Americans, other than building barracks and constructing temporary housing during wartime and, in a little noticed provision in the 1913 federal tax code, allowing for the deduction of home mortgage interest payments.
Until the early 20th century, holding a mortgage came with a stigma. You were a debtor, and chronic indebtedness was a problem to be avoided like too much drinking or gambling. The four words "keep out of debt" or "pay as you go" appeared in countless advice books. As the YMCA told its young charges, "If you can't pay, don't buy. Go without. Keep on going without." Because of that, many middle-class Americans—even those with a taste for single-family houses—rented. Home Sweet Home didn't lose its sweetness because someone else held the title.
In any case, mortgages were hard to come by. Lenders typically required 50% or more of the purchase price as a down payment. Interest rates were high and terms were short, usually just three to five years. In 1920, John Taylor Boyd Jr., an expert on real-estate finance, lamented that "increasing numbers of our people are finding home ownership too burdensome to attempt." As a result, there were two kinds of homeowners in the United States: working-class folks who built their own houses because they couldn't afford mortgages and the wealthy, who usually paid for their places outright. Even many of the richest rented—because they had better places to invest than in the volatile housing market.
The Depression turned everything on its head. Between 1928, the last year of the boom, and 1933, new housing starts fell by 95%. Half of all mortgages were in default. To shore up the market, Herbert Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in 1932, laying the groundwork for massive federal intervention in the housing market. In 1933, as one of the signature programs of his first 100 days, Frankin Roosevelt created the Home Owners' Loan Corporation to provide low interest loans to help out foreclosed home owners. In 1934, F.D.R. created the Federal Housing Administration, which set standards for home construction, instituted 25- and 30-year mortgages, and cut interest rates. And in 1938, his administration created the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) which created the secondary market in mortgages. In 1944, the federal government extended generous mortgage assistance to returning veterans, most of whom could not have otherwise afforded a house. Together, these innovations had epochal consequences.
Easy credit, underwritten by federal housing programs, boosted the rates of home ownership quickly. By 1950, 55% of Americans had a place they could call their own. By 1970, the figure had risen to 63%. It was now cheaper to buy than to rent. Federal intervention also unleashed vast amounts of capital that turned home construction and real estate into critical economic sectors. By the late 1950s, for the first time, the census bureau began collecting data on new housing starts—which became a leading indicator of the nation's economic vitality.
It's a story riddled with irony—for at the same time that Uncle Sam brought the dream of home ownership to reality—he kept his role mostly hidden, except to the army banking, real-estate and construction lobbyists who rose to protect their industries' newfound gains Tens of millions of Americans owned their own homes because of government programs, but they had no reason to doubt that their home ownership was a result of their own virtue and hard work, their own grit and determination—not because they were the beneficiaries of one of the grandest government programs ever. The only housing programs prominently associated with Washington's policy makers were underfunded, unpopular public housing projects. Chicago's bleak, soulless Robert Taylor Homes and their ilk—not New York's vast Levittown or California's sprawling Lakewood—became the symbol of big government.
Federal housing policies changed the whole landscape of America, creating the sprawlscapes that we now call home, and in the process, gutting inner cities, whose residents, until the civil rights legislation of 1968, were largely excluded from federally backed mortgage programs. Of new housing today, 80% is built in suburbs—the direct legacy of federal policies that favored outlying areas rather than the rehabilitation of city centers. It seemed that segregation was just the natural working of the free market, the result of the sum of countless individual choices about where to live. But the houses were single—and their residents white—because of the invisible hand of government.
But by the 1960s and 1970s, those who had been excluded from the postwar housing boom demanded their own piece of the action—and slowly got it. The newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development expanded home ownership programs for excluded minorities; the 1976 Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to channel resources to underserved neighborhoods; and activists successfully pushed Fannie Mae to underwrite loans to home buyers once considered too risky for conventional loans. Minority home ownership rates crept upward—though they still remained far behind whites. Even at the peak of the most recent real-estate bubble, just under 50% of blacks and Latinos owned their own homes. It's unlikely that minority home ownership rates will rise again for a while. In the last boom year, 2006, almost 53% of blacks and more than 47% of Hispanics assumed subprime mortgages, compared to only 26% of whites. One in 10 black homeowners is likely to face foreclosure proceedings, compared to only one in 25 whites.
During the wild late 1990s and the first years of the new century, the dream of home ownership turned hallucinogenic. The home financing industry—at the impetus of the Clinton and Bush administrations—engaged in the biggest promotion of home ownership in decades. Both pushed for public-private partnerships, with HUD and the government-supported financiers like Fannie Mae serving as the mostly silent partners in a rapidly metastasizing mortgage market. New tools, including the securitization of mortgages and subprime lending, made it possible for more Americans than ever to live the dream or to gamble that someone else would pay them more to make their own dream come true. Anyone could be an investor, anyone could get rich. The notion of home-as-haven, already weak, grew even more and more removed from the notion of home-as-jackpot.
And that brings us back to those desperate homeowners who gathered at Atlanta's convention center, having lost their investments, abruptly woken up from the dream of trouble-free home ownership and endless returns on their few percent down. They spent hours lined up in the hot sun, some sobbing, others nervously reading the fine print on their adjustable rate mortgage forms for the first time, wondering if their house is the next to go on the auction block. If there's one lesson from the real-estate bust of the last few years, it might be time to downsize the dream, to make it a little more realistic. James Truslow Adams, the historian who coined the phrase "the American dream," one that he defined as "a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank" also offered a prescient commentary in the midst of the Great Depression. "That dream," he wrote in 1933, "has always meant more than the accumulation of material goods." Home should be a place to build a household and a life, a respite from the heartless world, not a pot of gold.
—Thomas J. Sugrue is Kahn professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is writing a history of real estate in modern America.
Corrections & Amplifications:
Home mortgage lenders acquired 6,605 properties in Georgia through foreclosure in May and June 2009, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate data provider. An earlier version of this essay incorrectly said 338,411 homes went into foreclosure in Georgia in May and June.
By THOMAS J. SUGRUE
Suburban sprawl in Placer County, Calif.
'A man is not a whole and complete man," wrote Walt Whitman, "unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on." America's lesser bards sang of "my old Kentucky Home" and "Home Sweet Home," leading no less than that great critic Herbert Hoover to declaim that their ballads "were not written about tenements or apartments…they never sing about a pile of rent receipts." To own a home is to be American. To rent is to be something less.
Every generation has offered its own version of the claim that owner-occupied homes are the nation's saving grace. During the Cold War, home ownership was moral armor, protecting America from dangerous outside influences. "No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist," proclaimed builder William Levitt. With no more reds hiding under the beds, Bill Clinton launched National Homeownership Day in 1995, offering a new rationale about personal responsibility. "You want to reinforce family values in America, encourage two-parent households, get people to stay home?" he said. George W. Bush similarly pledged his commitment to "an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, 'welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.'"
Surveys show that Americans buy into our gauzy platitudes about the character-building qualities of home ownership—at least those who still own them. A February Pew survey reported that nine out of 10 homeowners viewed their homes as a "comfort" in their lives. But for millions of Americans at risk of foreclosure, the home has become something else altogether: the source of panic and despair. Those emotions were on full display last week, when an estimated 53,000 people packed the Save the Dream fair at Atlanta's World Congress Center. Its planners, with the support of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, brought together struggling homeowners, housing counselors, and lenders, including industry giants Bank of America and Citigroup, to renegotiate at-risk mortgages. Georgia's housing market has been devastated by the current economic crisis—6,605 homes in the Peachtree state went into foreclosure in May and June alone.
Atlanta represents the current housing crisis in microcosm. Since the second quarter of 2006, housing values across the United States have fallen by one third. Over a million homes were lost to foreclosure nationwide in 2008, as homeowners struggled to meet payments. The number of foreclosures reached an all-time record last month—when owners of one in every 355 houses in the country received default or auction notices or were seized by creditors. The collapse in confidence in securitized, high-risk mortgages has also devastated some of the nation's largest banks and lenders. The home financing giant Fannie Mae alone held an estimated $230 billion in toxic assets. Even if there are signs of hope on the horizon (home prices ticked upward by 0.5% in May and new housing starts rose in June), analysts like Yale's Robert Shiller expect that housing prices will remain level for the next five years. Many economists, like the Wharton School's Joseph Gyourko, are beginning to make the case that public policies should encourage renting, or at least put it on a level playing field with home ownership. A June 2009 survey commissioned by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, found a deep-seated pessimism about home ownership, suggesting that even if renting doesn't yet have cachet, it's the only choice left for those who have been burned by the housing market. One third of respondents don't believe that they will ever be able to own a home. And 42% of those who once purchased a home, but don't own one now, believe that they'll never own one again.
A family house-hunting
Some countries—such as Spain and Italy—have higher rates of home ownership than the U.S., but there, homes are often purchased with the support of extended families and are places to settle for the long term, not to flip to eager buyers or trade up for a McMansion. In France, Germany, and Switzerland, renting is more common than purchasing. There, most people invest their earnings in the stock market or squirrel it away in savings accounts. In those countries, whether you are a renter or an owner, houses have use value, not exchange value.
For most Americans, until the recent past, home ownership was a dream and the pile of rent receipts was the reality. From 1900, when the census first started gathering data on home ownership, through 1940, fewer than half of all Americans owned their own homes. Home ownership rates actually fell in three of the first four decades of the 20th century. But from that point on forward (with the exception of the 1980s, when interest rates were staggeringly high), the percentage of Americans living in owner-occupied homes marched steadily upward. Today more than two-thirds of Americans own their own homes. Among whites, more than 75% are homeowners today.
Yet the story of how the dream became a reality is not one of independence, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurial pluck. It's not the story of the inexorable march of the free market. It's a different kind of American story, of government, financial regulation, and taxation.
We are a nation of homeowners and home-speculators because of Uncle Sam.
It wasn't until government stepped into the housing market, during that extraordinary moment of the Great Depression, that tenancy began its long downward spiral. Before the Crash, government played a minuscule role in housing Americans, other than building barracks and constructing temporary housing during wartime and, in a little noticed provision in the 1913 federal tax code, allowing for the deduction of home mortgage interest payments.
Until the early 20th century, holding a mortgage came with a stigma. You were a debtor, and chronic indebtedness was a problem to be avoided like too much drinking or gambling. The four words "keep out of debt" or "pay as you go" appeared in countless advice books. As the YMCA told its young charges, "If you can't pay, don't buy. Go without. Keep on going without." Because of that, many middle-class Americans—even those with a taste for single-family houses—rented. Home Sweet Home didn't lose its sweetness because someone else held the title.
In any case, mortgages were hard to come by. Lenders typically required 50% or more of the purchase price as a down payment. Interest rates were high and terms were short, usually just three to five years. In 1920, John Taylor Boyd Jr., an expert on real-estate finance, lamented that "increasing numbers of our people are finding home ownership too burdensome to attempt." As a result, there were two kinds of homeowners in the United States: working-class folks who built their own houses because they couldn't afford mortgages and the wealthy, who usually paid for their places outright. Even many of the richest rented—because they had better places to invest than in the volatile housing market.
The Depression turned everything on its head. Between 1928, the last year of the boom, and 1933, new housing starts fell by 95%. Half of all mortgages were in default. To shore up the market, Herbert Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in 1932, laying the groundwork for massive federal intervention in the housing market. In 1933, as one of the signature programs of his first 100 days, Frankin Roosevelt created the Home Owners' Loan Corporation to provide low interest loans to help out foreclosed home owners. In 1934, F.D.R. created the Federal Housing Administration, which set standards for home construction, instituted 25- and 30-year mortgages, and cut interest rates. And in 1938, his administration created the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) which created the secondary market in mortgages. In 1944, the federal government extended generous mortgage assistance to returning veterans, most of whom could not have otherwise afforded a house. Together, these innovations had epochal consequences.
Easy credit, underwritten by federal housing programs, boosted the rates of home ownership quickly. By 1950, 55% of Americans had a place they could call their own. By 1970, the figure had risen to 63%. It was now cheaper to buy than to rent. Federal intervention also unleashed vast amounts of capital that turned home construction and real estate into critical economic sectors. By the late 1950s, for the first time, the census bureau began collecting data on new housing starts—which became a leading indicator of the nation's economic vitality.
It's a story riddled with irony—for at the same time that Uncle Sam brought the dream of home ownership to reality—he kept his role mostly hidden, except to the army banking, real-estate and construction lobbyists who rose to protect their industries' newfound gains Tens of millions of Americans owned their own homes because of government programs, but they had no reason to doubt that their home ownership was a result of their own virtue and hard work, their own grit and determination—not because they were the beneficiaries of one of the grandest government programs ever. The only housing programs prominently associated with Washington's policy makers were underfunded, unpopular public housing projects. Chicago's bleak, soulless Robert Taylor Homes and their ilk—not New York's vast Levittown or California's sprawling Lakewood—became the symbol of big government.
Federal housing policies changed the whole landscape of America, creating the sprawlscapes that we now call home, and in the process, gutting inner cities, whose residents, until the civil rights legislation of 1968, were largely excluded from federally backed mortgage programs. Of new housing today, 80% is built in suburbs—the direct legacy of federal policies that favored outlying areas rather than the rehabilitation of city centers. It seemed that segregation was just the natural working of the free market, the result of the sum of countless individual choices about where to live. But the houses were single—and their residents white—because of the invisible hand of government.
But by the 1960s and 1970s, those who had been excluded from the postwar housing boom demanded their own piece of the action—and slowly got it. The newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development expanded home ownership programs for excluded minorities; the 1976 Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to channel resources to underserved neighborhoods; and activists successfully pushed Fannie Mae to underwrite loans to home buyers once considered too risky for conventional loans. Minority home ownership rates crept upward—though they still remained far behind whites. Even at the peak of the most recent real-estate bubble, just under 50% of blacks and Latinos owned their own homes. It's unlikely that minority home ownership rates will rise again for a while. In the last boom year, 2006, almost 53% of blacks and more than 47% of Hispanics assumed subprime mortgages, compared to only 26% of whites. One in 10 black homeowners is likely to face foreclosure proceedings, compared to only one in 25 whites.
During the wild late 1990s and the first years of the new century, the dream of home ownership turned hallucinogenic. The home financing industry—at the impetus of the Clinton and Bush administrations—engaged in the biggest promotion of home ownership in decades. Both pushed for public-private partnerships, with HUD and the government-supported financiers like Fannie Mae serving as the mostly silent partners in a rapidly metastasizing mortgage market. New tools, including the securitization of mortgages and subprime lending, made it possible for more Americans than ever to live the dream or to gamble that someone else would pay them more to make their own dream come true. Anyone could be an investor, anyone could get rich. The notion of home-as-haven, already weak, grew even more and more removed from the notion of home-as-jackpot.
And that brings us back to those desperate homeowners who gathered at Atlanta's convention center, having lost their investments, abruptly woken up from the dream of trouble-free home ownership and endless returns on their few percent down. They spent hours lined up in the hot sun, some sobbing, others nervously reading the fine print on their adjustable rate mortgage forms for the first time, wondering if their house is the next to go on the auction block. If there's one lesson from the real-estate bust of the last few years, it might be time to downsize the dream, to make it a little more realistic. James Truslow Adams, the historian who coined the phrase "the American dream," one that he defined as "a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank" also offered a prescient commentary in the midst of the Great Depression. "That dream," he wrote in 1933, "has always meant more than the accumulation of material goods." Home should be a place to build a household and a life, a respite from the heartless world, not a pot of gold.
—Thomas J. Sugrue is Kahn professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is writing a history of real estate in modern America.
Corrections & Amplifications:
Home mortgage lenders acquired 6,605 properties in Georgia through foreclosure in May and June 2009, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate data provider. An earlier version of this essay incorrectly said 338,411 homes went into foreclosure in Georgia in May and June.
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