The 234 Apartment

Home-sharing services such as Airbnb are great for homeowners looking to make extra money by renting out properties, but for people living in apartment buildings it’s a bit more tricky. Apartment construction has been booming in recent years. Now, a handful of startups are aiming to wring even more money out of that market, both for the building owners and tenants. “Right now, it’s the wild, Wild West when it comes to short-term rentals,” said Sean Conway, the CEO of Pillow Residential, a company which is trying to make it easier to rent apartments on Airbnb. Most big apartment buildings have rules barring Airbnb , so Conway asked property owners what it would take to change that. “And they told us transparency, control, and profit sharing,” Conway said. Pillow, which is now in 12 cities, lets building owners track and control how much tenants use Airbnb. It also gives building owners a cut of the profits — between 5 and 15 percent. Conway said it’s also a way to for tenants to ...

WALTHAM — The massive fire that destroyed a big apartment complex under construction in Waltham in July was caused by arson, investigators said Thursday, with damages estimated at $110 million. Initially, fire officials had said they did not believe the 10-alarm fire was suspicious. But once they began investigating the charred remains in detail, they began to rethink the cause, Fire Chief Paul Ciccone said. Advertisement “We systematically eliminated all possible causes,” said the state’s fire marshal, Peter J. Ostroskey. “That led us to this point.” The blaze began in the early morning on Sunday, July 23, and demolished the five-building complex on Cooper Street near the Charles River. The 264 units were scheduled to open next year. Get Fast Forward in your inbox: Forget yesterday's news. Get what you need today in this early-morning email. Citing the ongoing investigation, neither Ciccone nor Ostroskey would shed any light on a specific cause or potential motive for settin...

By Craig Young Reporter- Herald Staff Writer concrete slab foundation Monday at a new apartment complex under construction on" alt="Jaime Lupian with M&R Concrete, left, puts some finishing touches on a concrete slab foundation Monday at a new apartment complex under construction on" style="border: 0px;" /> Jaime Lupian with M&R Concrete, left, puts some finishing touches on a concrete slab foundation Monday at a new apartment complex under construction on the northeast corner of Southeast 14th Street and Lincoln Avenue in Loveland. The project, Pinyon Pointe, is directly west of Waterford Place Apartments , seen in the background. ( Jenny Sparks / Loveland Reporter-Herald ) LOVELAND -- The residents of Waterford Place Apartments in south Loveland will be getting new neighbors by the end of the year as the first units in a new complex open. Pinyon Pointe, a 166-apartment project at 451 SE 14th St ....

T wo weeks ago, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge handed down a decision designed to strike fear in the hearts of landlords. Justice James d’Auguste ordered that an independent receiver be appointed to manage two Midtown residential buildings where the landlords allegedly allowed illegal Airbnb rentals to occur. The case, which began when the city sued the landlords in February 2015, has become one of the battlegrounds in a larger war between city enforcement agencies and short- term rental sites like Airbnb. Airbnb, which was recently valued at $31 billion, refuses to release the exact addresses of hosts who break the law by renting their entire apartment for less than 30 days without being present. Without the addresses and names of Airbnb violators , the city mostly targets the owners of buildings that rack up the most illegal hotel complaints from 311 calls and the New York City Department of Buildings. “This entire model—and it was intentional [by the city]—is complaint-drive...

KATHLEEN KINNEY Last updated 14:23, August 16 2017 level penthouse apartment on Manhattan's 5th Avenue near Central Park? It'll set you back US$100k ..." title="" src="https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/l/0/k/n/u/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.1l0ism.png/1502850240399.jpg" class="photoborder" /> CORCORAN GROUP Want to rent this two- level penthouse apartment on Manhattan's 5th Avenue near Central Park? It'll set you back US$100k per month. Manhattan's Central Park is surrounded by opulent apartment buildings , and 988 Fifth Avenue is known as one of the Upper East Side 's most exclusive addresses. In fact, actress-turned- princess Grace Kelly called the building home for a few years. The 1925 14-floor building was designed in an Italian Renaissance -palazzo-style and had just one apartment per floor. But decades later,  Italian businessman Pier Guerci created a new, two- level penthou...

WITH the median price of an apartment in Manhattan topping $1,000 a square foot, homeownership is often far out of reach. But there are options for those who cannot afford the market rate, including co-op apartments for buyers who earn a certain percentage of the area median income , or A.M.I. These buildings are scattered all over the city. Some date to the 1950s; others are brand-new and still looking for buyers. Some are limited to those who earn less than the median income -- 60 or 80 percent, for example (the median for a family of four in New York City is $83,000). Others have apartments for those earning a bit more than that sum. Many new developments try to bring in owners from different economic backgrounds, and are likely to include market-rate units as well. At one recent development, Atlantic Terrace, near the new Nets arena in Brooklyn, similar one-bedroom apartments were priced at $85,000, $113,000 and $232,000, depending on the buyer's income. A market-rate one-be...

A group of small ISPs is asking America's broadband watchdog to ban exclusivity deals that lock apartment buildings to a single broadband provider . Incompas, a Washington DC advocacy group for ISPs and telcos, told the FCC in a filing [PDF] that it should end the practice of landlords and building owners making deals with a single internet provider to have exclusive access to multi-tenant environments (MTEs) like apartment buildings and condos. The group argues that such deals, which often include payments or kickbacks to landlords when their tenants sign up for service, harm consumer choice in America, and unfairly let large telcos freeze out smaller ISPs. "The considerable barriers to entry faced by competitive providers seeking access to MTEs imperils the business case for the deployment of next-generation networks and services to the thirty percent of American consumers who live in multi-unit premises," Incompas says in the filing, submitted yesterday. ...

( College Park Fire Department/YouTube) COLLEGE PARK, Maryland (NBC Washington) - A five-alarm fire at a College Park, Maryland, apartment building burned much longer than it should have, putting firefighters and the public at unnecessary risk, according to College Park Fire Chief Bill Corrigan . The Fuse 47 building on Berwyn House Road was still under construction at the time of the fire. FirefighterNation: Multiple-Alarm Fire at Maryland Apartment Building Construction Questioned in Maryland Five-Alarm Fire Corrigan told the News4 I-Team the standpipe valves firefighters typically use to pump water up through a building in an emergency were left in the "closed" position. The design of the building limited firefighter access to the structure, Corrigan said, and the sheer size also hampered firefighter efforts . "This building was 100 percent within the allowable parameters, but it was built to the absolute max," Corrigan said. "Probably to within ...

Another program, run by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board , works with the city on co-op conversions of buildings taken over from delinquent landlords. Tenants help with renovations and can eventually buy the units for low prices. About 30,000 apartments are in the program, which is administered by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Since 2003 the city’s Housing Development Corporation has also been partnering with both for-profit and nonprofit developers to create new affordable apartments — 1,767 units in 21 buildings. The benefits of promoting homeownership in this way extend far beyond the individual owners, said Andrew Reicher, the executive director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board . “In the Lower East Side , in Harlem, in Bed-Stuy,” he said, “these owners stuck it out and struggled to improve their block, and improvements spread from their work. And they are not displaced when the neighborhood turns around.” Of course, the question fo...