As reported in Realtor.com’s RealtorMag  and the New York Times, NYC apartment leasing agents and brokers are being fined for showing apartments and subleases that meet the definition of illegal dwelling.  In New York City, agents and companies are now culpable when dwellings that fall out of code are shown to prospective tenants; as of April 29th, ten agents in NYC were fined thousands of dollars for doing so.

While there is plenty of argument about what constitutes code compliance and many REALTOR voices decrying what they see as added unfair responsibility to determine that compliance, the bulk of the fines given were for dwellings that did not have two means of egress.

When a leasing agent professional says she can’t know if the plumbing or electrical in a building is up to code, that makes a lot of sense. Buildings potentially hide a great number of flaws that can escape the agent’s notice just like they escape the landlord’s.

But when the bulk of the issued fines, as reported, are for showing properties that fail to have two means of egress — e.g. no back door — the complaints about unfairness become a little harder to swallow.  How exactly does that escape notice during a showing?

The Worst Room

How small can it get in an NYC apartment?  That happens to be the very subject of a fascinating new real estate blog The Worst Room featuring photos of eye-popping dwellings complete with sublet prices.  Strap yourself in:

East New York, Brooklyn. $600.00 “NO STOVE POWERFUL MICROWAVE ONLY” “FOR SINGLE MAN ONLY”

Union Square, Manhattan. $1000.00
“I am looking for someone to move into a large closet space in one of the three bedrooms of my apartment. The bedroom has two closets but there is no need for it so we are looking to sublet it as a living space to a 4th roommate. The closet is about 5 feet wide and 7 feet long. It has no windows and think it would be ideal for a twin size bed and small night stand.”
“Amazing Location”

Upper East Side, Manhattan. $1600.00 (Twin bed with Fax Machine)

This one’s not as crazy as it seems.  If the heat in the place isn’t what it could be, just have someone send you some faxes until you’re blanketed in paper.

Check out the entire The Worst Room site here.  If you can stand the claustrophobia, I mean.

Related articles

• Chronicling NYC’s Most Dismal, Expensive Apartments on Tumblr
• Fines for Agents Who Show Illegal Apartments
• NYC – You should know me by first name by now!
• Moving and Need a Short-Term Place to Stay?
• Weekly Apartment Rentals in NYC

The West Metro Board of REALTORS®  is hosting its first Commercial Real Estate Networking event.

A great opportunity to meet with other commercial practitioners.

Location:

West Metro Board of REALTORS

• Phone770-832-0804
• Thursday, May 23 at 8:15 AM to 9:30 AM
• Where: West Metro Board of Realtors
  154 Bankhead Highway
  Carrollton, GA 30117

Commercial Brokers are invited to  join for a Chick-Fil-A breakfast and presentation by Guest Speaker Dr. Joey Smith of the University of West Georgia who will give a brief update on the West GA Commercial Real Estate Market.

Bring a list of your commercial listings and commercial needs to discuss at a roundtable discussion following the presentation.

Free w/RSVP by May 20th.

For more information or to RSVP contact wmetro@bellsouth.net

Presenting the latest press release from Realtor.Ccom about the continuing provision of commercial listings onto the single largest real estate website on the internet.  The bottom line: CommercialSearch.com listings data from Xceligent will be available to Realtor.com users come 3Q 2013.

SAN JOSE, Calif. and INDEPENDENCE, Mo., May 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Realtor.com^®, operated by Move, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOVE), and Xceligent, Inc., a leading provider of proactively researched commercial real estate information and marketing, today announced a strategic agreement to launch enhanced commercial search functionality on realtor.com^® the official website of the National Association of REALTORS^®.

As a result of this agreement, in the third quarter of 2013, Xceligent-owned site CommercialSearch.com (“CommercialSearch”) will begin powering amplified commercial functionality on realtor.com^®. Realtor.com^® users will have access to the hundreds of thousands of commercial listings Xceligent has aggregated into CommercialSearch from multiple sources including: its fully-researched markets, hundreds of MLSs, CIEs (Commercial Information Exchanges) of every market size, and the majority of the top 50 companies who provide commercial listings in the country. This combined information availability has made CommercialSearch one of the largest content sources of any public facing commercial real estate marketing site.

“Over the last few years, we have seen increased investor activity in the residential housing market.  Many career real estate investors begin by investing in residential and eventually transition into commercial as they expand their portfolios,” commented Errol Samuelson , president of realtor.com^®. ”Enhancing our commercial real estate search bridges the information gap for residential real estate investors who cross over into the commercial space. CommercialSearch’s robust data set and primary sourced data made it a natural fit with realtor.com^® and its commitment to accuracy and the industry.”

That primary sourced data that will soon be available to realtor.com^® users comes from Xceligent’s flagship research product, CDX, which relies on hundreds of researchers proactively gathering information on every commercial building in a market. Currently in over 40 markets and rapidly expanding into the largest 65 markets, this data has helped create the foundation of CommercialSearch’s national listing content. Additionally, any agent in any US market can currently contribute listings directly to CommercialSearch, thereby adding to the content that Xceligent’s research team is providing to CommercialSearch as a marketing benefit for the members of its main research system.

“Realtor.com^®‘s unparalleled credibility and reach paired with our unique ability to aggregate a national commercial inventory make this an alliance very powerful,” Xceligent CEO Doug Curry says. “We are confident that this agreement will provide an unrivaled value proposition through our new industry standard marketing platform and bring extraordinary exposure to the commercial listings marketed through CommercialSearch.”

Last year, the National Association of REALTORS^® announced a strategic alliance with Xceligent. As part of the REALTOR Benefits^® Program, Xceligent is the National Association of REALTORS’^® exclusive provider of commercial real estate information services. For more information about realtor.com^® commercial listings or CommercialSearch, please visit:

http://commercial.realtor.com/?iid=rdc_hdr_commercial and http://www.commercialsearch.com/.

Related articles

• Realtor.com To Provide Comprehensive Commercial Listings
• April’s new listings rose 3.12%, but more buyers began a search
• Realtor.com Launches Rentals App for iOS and Android
• Announcing the 2013 Innovation Grant Recipients
• Realtor.com Announces Favorite Pet-Friendly Rental Markets and Otis, the Scene-Stealing Dog, as Its Rental Listings Spokesdog

This year NAR Commercial has the pleasure of announcing the following boards/associations and the title of their submissions as recipients of the 2013 Innovation Grants:

South Texas Commercial Association of REALTORS® (TX)

Commercial Membership Information Marketing Video

New Hampshire Commercial Investment Board of REALTORS® (NH)

Commercial Education CE Course and Networking

Greater Tampa Association of REALTORS® (FL)

Commercial Ambassador Program

Greater Washington Commercial Association of REALTORS® (MD)

New Member Growth & Development Initiative

Scottsdale Area Association of REALTORS® (AZ)

1st Annual Scottsdale Commercial Real Estate Summit

Arcadia Association of REALTORS® (CA)

Commercial Day at the Races Panel, Open Forum & Networking

Mississippi Commercial Association of REALTORS® (MS)

“Future of Commercial Real Estate” Panel, Education & Networking Event

Commercial Association of REALTORS® Wisconsin (WI)

CAR “Rainmaker” Series with professional development and networking

Rhode Island Commercial and Appraisal Board of REALTORS® (RI)

Defining Better Spaces: Collaboration within Public/Private Sectors in Retail Industry

Greater Columbia Association of REALTORS® (SC)

Commercial Education & Networking Event w/Livestream

Indiana Commercial Board of REALTORS® (IN)

Electronic CEU Tracking System for Annual Conference

St. Louis Association of REALTORS (MO)

New Commercial Member Orientation Digital Gaming Experience

Vermont Commercial Investment Board of REALTORS® (VT)

Commercial Networking & Signature Series Speaker Event

Memphis Area Association of REALTORS® (TN)

Commercial Day of Education

Southland Regional Association of REALTORS® (CA)

Investment Real Estate Symposium as FREE benefit to members

Sacramento Association of REALTORS® (CA)

Large-Scale Multi-Property Economic Forecast

Beverly Hills/ Greater Lost Angeles Association of REALTORS® (CA)

Business Roundtable for local businesses and REALTOR® members

Miami Association of REALTORS® (FL)

Member to Member Email Program

West San Gabriel Valley Association of REALTORS® (CA)

Livestream Commercial Day

Eastern Connecticut Association of REALTORS® (CT)

1st Annual Commercial Real Estate Education Conference

Charleston Trident Association of REALTORS® (SC)

Commercial Day of Education with CE as FREE benefit to members

Texas Association of REALTORS (TX)

Commercial Membership Outreach & Recruitment Campaign

Winston Salem Regional Association of REALTORS® (NC)

Commercial Membership Drive targeting non-members

REALTORS® Association of the Palm Beaches (FL)

Commercial Real Estate Symposium in collaboration with local CCIM chapters

Medina County Board of REALTORS® (OH)

“Open For Business” Community Event

We want to thank everyone who submitted an application and encourage them to do so when applications are accepted again. Want to find out more about the criteria for innovation grants? Click here.

Moody’s Q1 2013 US CMBS and CRE CDO Surveillance Review is out.  The verdict?  Somewhat slower commercial real estate improvement throughout 2013 but improvement nonetheless.

Sector fundamentals will drive improving market conditions, making a significant rise in losses on loans backing US commercial mortgage securitizations (CMBS) unlikely.

 ”Commercial real estate continues to benefit from limited construction and positive absorption, which have supported a positive market dynamic despite lingering concerns about the strength of the economic recovery” says Michael Gerdes, Moody’s Managing Director and Head of US CMBS & CRE CDO Surveillance.

 ”As in the fourth quarter of 2012, multifamily and hotel both performed strongly and will continue to do so over the next year, albeit at a more modest pace,” Gerdes adds. “The recovery of office and retail has been more muted, but performance will strengthen in tandem with employment and economic growth.”

 Moody’s central global scenario hasn’t changed.

 ”It calls for subdued GDP growth in the US of around 2% for 2013,” says Gerdes. “Business confidence will strengthen as the economy continues to recover at a slow but steady pace.”

[...]

Among the individual sector highlights:

- The retail sector will have modest gains, with positive rental growth by the end of 2013. Consumers still appear cautious because of slow economic growth, but the sector is showing signs of life. Vacancy rates declined 30 basis points, the largest drop since 2005.

- Office vacancy and rental rates will improve moderately in 2013, with market performance differentiating according to regional employment growth. In addition, absorption is likely to continue to outpace completion in the next few months, which will assist in the sector’s continued slow but steady recovery.

- Hotel will continue to grow, but at a slightly slower pace. Year-over-year RevPAR (revenue per available room) was up 6.4% in first-quarter 2013 from first-quarter 2012, with the greatest increases in both chain scale and luxury and hotels. The top market performers were Oahu Island, Hawaii, and Miami-Hialeah, Florida.

- Multifamily will also continue to perform well. Absorption continues to outpace completions, and vacancy rates remain low. Rents are still growing but at a slower rate. Fifteen markets had vacancy rates below 4.0%, including Miami and Newark, both of which boasted vacancy rates of less than 3%.

The full report is available for Moody’s subscribers at http://www.moodys.com/research/Q1-2013-US-CMBS-and-CRE-CDO-Surveillance-Review–PBS_SF327646.

Related articles

• A humorous look at how Washington’s commercial real estate executives are surviving sequestration (Video)
• Newest Fed Beige Book: Commercial Real Estate Improved Markedly
• Metro Denver’s commercial real estate starting 2013 strong
• Commercial real estate market improves in Colorado Springs
• What commercial real estate is telling Utah’s economy

The Center Building at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. Like most buildings at St. Elizabeths, this one has been abandoned. The Center Building is one of the oldest buildings on the campus, dating to the American Civil War era. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The deadlocked Congress and the sequestration notwithstanding, there are at least some commercial real estate signs of life in the nation’s capital.  Two major redevelopment projects are on the drawing board, aiming to repurpose two massive complexes into nearly eight million square feet of office space, multifamily residence and retail.  As yet a further dimension of the massive changes working their way across the health care space, both projects are repurposing of former massive hospital complexes, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

Former Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Private developer partners are being assembled for 67 acres of the former Walter Reed military hospital that has been transferred to the control of DC government following the consolidation of Department of Defense healthcare operations in Bethesda and elsewhere. Closed for only a year, the center plans are expected to include a mixed-use profile of office, retail and multifamily.

After making a first cut of interested developers, the five left in the running as of the beginning of this month are:

• Forest City Washington
• Hines • Urban Atlantic Joint Venture: recently completed a retail and apartment project on Rhode Island Avenue.
• Roadside Development
• Walter Reed Associates, LLC (The Wilkes Company, Capstone Development LLC, and Quadrangle Development Corporation)
• Western Development:  headed by Herbert S. Miller, co-developer of Gallery Place.

Development website for the project is after the jump.

DHS Development of St. Elizabeth’s Campus: 4.5 Million Square Feet

The Department of Homeland Security, which currently houses its operations in 40 buildings across the city is underway on a project to move into the abandoned western campus of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in the Anacostia neighborhood.

The Final Master Plan provides the development framework for accommodating 4.5 million gross square feet of office space for the DHS headquarters on both the St. Elizabeths West and East campuses. The Final Master Plan outlines 3.8 million gross square feet of office space on the West Campus and 750,000 gross square feet of office space on a portion of the East Campus (identified as East Campus, North Campus Parcel). The development will be consistent with a DHS Interagency Security Committee (ISC) Level V campus to house mission-critical Federal agencies. Part of the master planning process includes an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and compliance with the Section 106 regulations under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

Related articles

• Will DHS ever move to St. Elizabeths?
• Teams Assemble!: These Five Developers All Want a Shot at 67-Acre Redevelopment
• 9 Famous Authors Who Did Stints in Mental Institutions
• Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex
• Office, residential project proposed for Congress Heights Metro

The brick and mortar retail business just saw a major development in its pricing disadvantage vs. internet retailers.  A change may be underway in the tax charged to its online competition, if the big hurdle crossed this week is any indication. By a 2-to-1 margin — an unusual outcome for such a historically deadlocked Congress — the US Senate this week passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to levy sales taxes on internet purchases.

Long advocated by NAR in coalition with other industry groups, S.743 (formerly S.336) the bipartisan bill was introduced by Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Dick Durbin (D-IL).

Who Gets The Win?

NAR was vocal and in front of this push to restore a level playing field to the retail industry – but far from alone.  Signatory the March 2013 letter to the Senate  were a veritable who’s who of national and state trade associations, each of whom depend upon face-to-face transactions

American Apparel and Footwear Association
American Booksellers Association
American Farm Bureau Federation ®
American Independent Business Alliance
American Specialty Toy Retailing Association
American Veterinary Medical Association
Association for Christian Retail
California Association of College Store
Campus Stores of New England
Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute
College Stores Association of North Carolina
Consumer Electronics Association
Consumer Electronics Retailers Association
Food Marketing Institute2
Heating, Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI)
Independent Running Retailer Association
Institute of Real Management
International Council of Shopping Centers
International Downtown Association
International Economic Development Council
Jewelers of America
Middle Atlantic College Stores
NAIOP, Commercial Real Estate Development Association
NAMM, National Association of Music Merchants
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
National Association of College Stores
National Association of Electrical Distributors
National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
National Association of Realtors
National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors
National Bicycle Dealers Association
National Grocers Association
National Home Furnishings Association
National Retail Federation
National Sporting Goods Association
North American Retail Dealers Association
Outdoor Industry Association (OIA)
Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council
Professional Beauty Association
Real Estate Roundtable
Realtors Land Institute
Retail Industry Leaders Association
Soccer Dealer Association
Society of Industrial and Office Realtors
Southwest Association of College Bookstores
Tri-State Bookstore Association
World Floor Covering Association

Related articles

• Senate advances online sales tax measure to House: Durbin votes yes; Kirk no
• CNET – Steven Musil – Senate Passes Internet Sales Tax Bill By 2-To-1 Margin – 7 May 2013
• Senate passes internet sales tax bill amid opposition from conservatives
• Senate Signs Off On Marketplace Fairness Act; Online Sales Tax Inches Closer To Reality

Localism alert: While shopping at the downtown Chicago Macy’s the other week, I noticed a small line of customers queued up in a corner of the store.  The line led not to a counter and a salesperson but to an automated kiosk for a skin care product.

Maybe I’m not the most dedicated shopper, but I had never seen anything resembling a large vending machine in a top-end retail store before.  I was curious, so I came back to Macy’s a few days later to take another look.  Same line – if anything, it was longer.   Ladies and men were feeding credit cards into the machine – more like an automated booth –  and watching branded video displays on skin care as the machine dispensed packages of product.

With no salesperson, and (apparently) no Macy’s stock-keeping requirements, plus a modest space requirement in a off-center location in the store, I imagined the net revenue dollars per square foot on this approximately 3×8′ kiosk was a pretty impressive number — even more so when compared to what stood there before: effectively nothing.

The product was Proactiv.  You can find these kiosks around the country here.

What also struck me about the  machine was how little it clashed visually and experience-wise with the surrounding sales floor.  Situated at the edge of the cosmetics section, the kiosk’s video display and favorable lighting reflected the kinds of tones you expect from a cosmetics counter. The fit was excellent.

But still: a vending machine?  In a top-end store?  It nagged at me for an explanation.

In the end, I thought what I was seeing was in part explained by the nature of the product.  Because Proactiv is aimed at skin problems, maybe, I thought, the kiosk afforded shoppers a kind of privacy.

And that’s what I imagined until I saw this today: luxury menswear kiosks.

Quattro Clothiers, a Toronto-based luxury menswear shop, is using an automated retail kiosk by Signifi to dispense designer Italian shirts, according to a news release.

The SpotShop kiosk uses a tray system to carefully handle the shirts, which carry price tags ranging from $225 to $395. The solution can be custom designed to each brand and features a digital display screen to promote the products. Quattro intends to use the machines to drive traffic back to their brick-and-mortar store by placing units within a three-to-four-mile radius, according to the release.

Well, there goes the idea that privacy alone drives kiosk sales.  There’s nothing sensitive about designer Italian shirts.

At April’s Healthcare Real Estate Conference in Chicago, the panel on “Strategies In Medical Office Space” included notable comments from Michael Noto, SVP Management Services Group at Healthcare REIT.  Since the REIT space is where a property business sector overlaps with finance, it’s a great place to find important perspectives on history and the trends either supported or broken by that history.

In the case of healthcare office space,  Mr. Noto’s  own career history, which includes 13 years as an executive in banking, helped to contribute a compelling forecast concerning the culture of healthcare as an industry and its parallels to banking.  Consolidation, cultural shifts, and the rising role of competition in healthcare come together here:

In a question posed to the panel concerning Chicago’s position in the reconversion market – a key to the retailization of healthcare lies in the reutilization of existing office inventory for outpatient services – Mr. Noto took the angle of consolidation to describe the market:

“I agree that [consolidation trends mean there is] going to have 50 healthcare systems in this country.  I have the perspective of being in banking for 13 years.  When I started in banking there were 13,000 banks.  Today there are 4,000.  The concentration of assets in the top ten is overwhelming.  Back in those days, banking was a gentleman’s game.  Very little competition – believe it or not, in New York if you wanted to open a branch across the street or next to a competitor, you’d actually call them up and ask “is it okay to open up a branch over here?” To move it to health care:  hospitals have been run by gentlemen.  Suddenly, a lot of community hospitals, facing what is happening around us in terms of the economy, health care reform.

“Another analogy is that banking is a highly regulated industry.  Suddenly hospitals have to respond to what’s going on around them, so they decide to plant the flag close to a competitor.  That has now ramped up big-time. To the point where you see all over the country billboards sitting out in front of competitor’s hospitals touting the emergency room waiting time.  competition has driven the tremendous growth of outpatient healthcare facilities .  Given what’s happened in the retail real estate business over the past 5-6 years, there are lots of opportunities for highly visible locations that tout that brand.

Healthcare And Finance Property: Not The Best Neighbors

“There are challenges. Retail space is not usually built to the same quality as is needed when you would build a medical building, and when you get past all the physical challenges that exist, in terms of converting either general office or retail, on the general office side, the biggest challenge we’ve had is tenant relation management.  Because if you have a general office building full of accountants, in the case of Florida, a lot of wealth management companies, retirees are visiting their financial advisor every day – the last thing they want to see when an elevator door opens is someone in a wheelchair with an oxygen hose in their nose.”

Related articles

• Healthcare Marketers Report on mHealth Tools for Physicians and Patients
• Healthcare Real Estate: The “Retailization” Of Healthcare
• Rade | Eccles Expands Office Space to Accommodate Growth In 2013
• Serviced Offices in London: Expectation vs. Reality by LondonOffices.com
• Office Space: Office Furniture Manufacturing in the US Industry Market Research Report from IBISWorld has Been Updated

Speaking of tips, a tip of the hat to Jan Hope, VP of NAR Commercial Division for forwarding this neat clip of time-saving tips for smart phones and computers.

Did you know that you don’t need the mouse to read a web page, even if you have to scroll down?

David Pogue is the personal technology columnist for the New York Times and a tech correspondent for CBS News. He’s one of the world’s bestselling how-to authors, with titles in the For Dummies series and his own line of Missing Manual books. And this clip contains ten awesome time saving tips that plenty of people don’t actually know – myself included.

How many did you already know?   The big revelation for me was the AWESOME spacebar trick for ending sentences in an SMS message.  Thanks Jan!

Related articles

• Because it’s Friday: Ten Tech Tips from David Pogue
• TED: David Pogue: 10 top time-saving tech tips – David Pogue (2013)
• David Pogue, New York Times: Put down the pitchforks on SOPA
• DAVID POGUE: Galaxy S4 plays it safe, not scrappy
• Clay Shirky: Pick up the pitchforks: David Pogue underestimates Hollywood