The Bosshardt Blog

The Northside Shopping Center is Under New Management!

Bosshardt Property Management, Inc. has taken over the management of the Northside Shopping Center as of February 1st. The shopping center features Anchor tenants Winn Dixie, Big Lots and Harbor Freight. Other tenants include Lee's Nails, Gatorland Laundromat (more on this), Advance America, Jackson Hewitt, Dr. Becker, Sprint and Cox Communications.

Bosshardt was selected over other local firms because the previous international management company was unable to provide full scale service and lacked a local presence that is crucial in monitoring the day to day operations of a retail center.

It has been customary for regional firms to focus on the asset management side of things, and then sub contract out the property management to vendors who aren't property managers. When times were good, the ends justified the means and owners were happy because they got a nice net check. Now the checks are going the other way and everything is under the microscope.

The day before Bosshardt Property Management took over, Gatorland Laundromat's owner turned over the keys of a successful business. So currently we are working with Leasing Agent Bruce Rider on re letting that space and should be signing a lease on Monday. 

Other immediate projects are underway. The largest issue the center currently faces is releasing in part or whole the 38,000 square feet space that was previously occupied by Ashley Furniture.

Contact Bruce RIder for information regarding leasing at Bruce@ridercommercial.com and Aaron Bosshardt with questions regarding the management at Aaron@bosshardtpm.com

This week in Gainesville Real Estate...

Posted by Aaron Bosshardt, President, Bosshardt Property Management, 11/13/2009

Hey guys, I am glad to be back in Gainesville. If you followed my inane rantings on Twitter, you would know that last week I was in Jacksonville working on the final leg of my CPM designation through IREM. Gainesville is great, but I'm off to San Diego tomorrow to work the National Association of Realtors Expo for the National Association of Residential Property Managers. I know what you're thinking: that's a lot of words to say nothing. Thanks to Lem Purcell for covering the blog last week and doing it better than myself.

While I'm out in San Diego, I am going to meet with a potential retail center client, and I might even reconnect with an old GHS alum for a Laker's game, so the trip is looking fairly sunny.

It looks like I leave Gainesville for a week and the market falls apart! Seriously, November was our worst month last year and things right now for November look better than last year, but not by much. If I didn't tell you, September was the first year over year monthly increase in sales volume that we have seen since 2006 (up 15 percent over Sep 2008). October, unfortunately, wasn't so good. The market was back to old tricks, and at this point, I would guesstimate that when all is said and done 2009 will be down 15 percent in the sheer number of transactions and down 20 percent in total volume of sales (dollar price of all sales combined).

On Monday, I was scrambling to catch up when one of my top producers came in and told me he immediately started receiving calls from "shadow sellers" once the tax credit was extended. It is his opinion that the unintended consequence of the rollover is a spike in supply as sellers move to get their homes sold prior to April 30, 2010. We also got the news on Monday that, on January 1, a client wants us to take over management of their 131 unit busted condo. Good thing I've been working on my CPM! More on those pesky condos later.

At our sales meeting on Tuesday we had Aaron Prida from Entrust Freedom present to us on the topic of owning real estate in your 401(K) and/or IRA. An interesting topic, especially considering the deals out there in real estate right now. I was extremely happy to find out that "technically" you must have a professional Property Manager manage the asset. My wife and I were pretty intrigued though. Let's say that buy an investment property for $100,000 cash. If you net $600 per month after taxes and insurance, you would be getting a 7.2 percent cash on cash return. If you were depositing those monthly payments into a mutual fund, the potential could be pretty fantastic.

Wednesday, we got some great news that FHA was gong to be relaxing condo guidelines on FHA mortgages. I've said it before and I'll say it again while condos are frowned upon right now, the groundwork is being laid for the condo comeback. I also don't believe the single-family home market can right itself until after a condo comeback. Just under the radar, a lot of little things have been happening to right the ship in the condo market. This new from FHA is certainly promising. Some highlights from FHA:

• Increase from 30 percent to 50 percent the number of units in a project that can be financed with FHA loans. FHA, however, will make exceptions, even allowing up to 100 percent, when buildings meet an additional set of more stringent criteria.

•Require at least 50 percent of units in a complex to be owner-occupied or sold to owners who plan to live in the units. Bank-owned units may be disqualified from the percentage calculation.

• Reduce a presale requirement in new construction to 30 percent, compared to 70 percent for loans from conventional lenders.

Tommy Williams hosted a dirt turning event at his new zero energy home in Belmont. It was a great event and Tommy is excited to see the end results. This will actually be his second zero energy home to be completed. It was nice to see Tommy thanking all of his past buyers who have helped him lay the groundwork. "You probably could have found a cheaper home; instead you choose a green home." It was a classy event and co-sponsored by Alarion Bank and Bosshardt Title.

Right before I headed out this morning, I got this Florida Asset review report through Q3 of 2009. It generally shows that charge-offs (loans written off) for banks are up fivefold, and non-performing assets (Loans that default) are continuing to accelerate in Florida. The good news for our area is for now we are outperforming the rest of the state. I'm not so sure that will continue in 2010. Nine Florida banks have closed their doors this year.

Have a great weekend and Go Gators!

What's happening in real estate: The week in review

On Monday Bosshardt Property Management got eight of us back from the NARPM national convention. We started implementing our plans to further improve our organization and enhance our customer and client services. Settling back in from an event like this can be pretty tumultuous at best. Lots of changes in store!

On Tuesday, at the Bosshardt Realty Services Sales Meeting, we broke out into a raucous debate when Alarion Banker and Elite Gainesville Mortgage man Mike Jones told us that area appraisers are now using foreclosures in their appraisals where they previously would ignore them. "In the final analysis, foreclosure sales are driving market prices. Combined with short sales, they represent almost 40 percent of our deals now," said Jones. Look for real estate prices to fall. Jones also mentioned that Gainesville is one of the few areas left in the nation denoted as a "severely declining market." Only a month ago or so we asked how low will prices go.

Wednesday, the Gainesville Sun published an article that the "Big Chill" might be back in Real Estate. Based on Tuesday's discussion, this was no shock. "It's all about supply and demand," said Craig Wilburn. "We still have three times the supply we did back in 2002." Wilburn has moved his own personal forecast for a bottom and recovery out to 2011. Yikes!

Speaking of Craig Wilburn, it seems the marketing event has returned to Real Estate. On Thursday, Craig had all of us out to a new listing of his in Balmoral. The event was co-hosted by Two Men and a Truck, Aaron Bailey Photography, American First Mortgage, and Bosshardt Title.

   
I met the owners of Two Men and a Truck and the name should be Two Men, One Woman, Two Sweet Kids, and a Truck. Nice folks. I bet the most common question those kids hear is, "Do you get to drive the truck?"

Kim Bosshardt of Bosshardt Title had chocolate macaroons from Too-Jays there. Craig had a blackjack table manned by Gator voice-man Tom Collete. Wilburn gave away numerous door prizes. Harold Monk with Gator Wine and Spirits played bartender and served a fruity wine tasting. Wilburn called the event a "tremendous success. We had 50 to 60 people in attendance. Realtors in attendance said that the house was showcased well and would be the first home they showed to their buyers. Most people commented they couldn't believe the home was priced under one million."

On Friday, we awoke to see Realtor and Koppers Activist Cindy Harrington on Page 5A of the newspaper. The online article is here, but the black and white print photo is even more chilling I think. I've cut this one out and plan to frame it. My first thought was "Wouldn't you be afraid to tell this Realtor no deal? " Good for you, Cindy!

By the way, if you didn't believe that Google was now indexing Tweets in their searches, just Google "Bosshardt and NARPM" and see what comes up first. Have a great weekend and Go Gators!

Despite what skeptics thinks, Property Managers are leading the green movement

One of the interesting topics at the 2009 NARPM national convention was energy efficiency and emissions. Most property managers have already adopted green practices both for themselves and for educating their clients, but the perception may not meet the reality. I recently asked a local area green expert and contract worker for the Department of Energy if a few of my owners could hire him to do some energy evaluations of their properties. He just about flat out refused! He even went so far as to say that he worked on a municipal committee and they all agreed that landlords would be too cheap to make green improvements. Two days later, my owner just went ahead and put in an $8000 Energy Star 15 Seer AC unit without an energy study on his building. If he had an energy study would he have considered other improvements? Absolutely.

Bosshardt Property Management recently asked our landlords if they would be interested in some type of green evaluation or measurement of their property. Most replies were that they were in fact interested, but had already made substantial improvements to their homes. The reality of the situation is that it's often up to the tenants to make decisions and lifestyle changes that reduce energy usage. "Property Managers have to green the planet, one tenant at a time," said Sina Sheku, activist and founder of Propertyware.

The truth is there are a lot of things we can do to educate our tenants on how slight changes might just make a big impact. For years, we have pushed tenants to change air filters monthly from a maintenance aspect, which can increase the lifespan of A/C units and decrease costs. We haven't ever really pushed it from the perspective of saving energy, which feels good and should put more money in our tenants pocketbooks. 

 

Pictured above is our complimentary tenant move in package. We've added a CFL light bulb to illustrate the point that reducing energy use can be easy, cheap, and fun for all of our tenants. In the very near future, we will have our properties categorized by their level of green improvements. "We are making improvements to both our tenant education and marketing efforts. This is really a two pronged effort from our owners and our tenants," said General Manager Ashley Morrell.

 

Bosshardt Property Management sends eight to NARPM Annual Convention

Capitalizing on the proximity of NARPM's 21st Annual Convention, Bosshardt Property Management sent eight employees from Gainesville and Ocala to this year's convention in Orlando, Florida. "The number of employees that went shows how comitted we are to being the best trained and educated management force in our area," said Daisy Leal, Portfolio Manager. "We have a group of people that are passionate about property management. When you want to be the best you have to be willing to do what it takes to get there," added Garry Griffin, who manages the Ocala Property and CAM divison.

From left to right: Denise Furlong, Brenda Prater, Daisy Leal, Garry Griffin

On tap for the convention are a variety of courses directed towards owning, running. and operating a Property Mangement company efficently: Paperless office, Going Green, Social media for property mangagers, maximizing the bottom line, understanding people, etc. For live updates check out NARPM's webblog at http://www.propertymanager.com/2009/10/live-from-2009-narpm-21st-annual-convention-trade-show/

Eileen Spinosa and Paula Jones From the Ocala Office