In a message dated 7/28/2007 2:00:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On today's front page of the Inq., there is one of thos stories of a Penn real estate love in. You've read this crap many times, so I won't bore you with details. It was a newsmercial about Penn and campus apartment with 50 million dollar kisses, etc, etc. The part about a local realtor saying that the residents have never been so high (given that Sister Judith got rid of all the Clark Park drug pushers) wasn't what I found interesting about the pap that supposedly passed for news in the Inky. She says that isn't what she really said, anyway, and it probably wasn't. It was the questionable economics. 1) The Radian would have 150 units and cost $50MM. That's $314,465 per unit. Yet, the Wall Street Journal stated this past week,"Median prices for rental-apartment units based on deals valued at more than $5 million in the first quarter were $109,269 in Philadelphia compared with $381,254 in Manhattan and $316,251 in Washington, D.C., according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate research firm." So the average at the Radian would be almost triple the median for existing units in the area for "as-built" (as opposed to converted) multi-family dwellings. (OK, I know that average and median arne't the same, but even so...) Surely, this is not fiscally sound.. 2) The Inky's article stated, "The two other ritzy student apartment complexes near Penn are the Hub and Domus, where one-bedroom apartments can cost about $2,600 a month." There may be a few students at Penn who can afford $2,600 per month for a one-bedroom apartment. But not many. And the scions of genuinely wealthy families who go to Penn are probably going to want apartments that cost even more, but offer things like freedom from a bunch of noisy, immature undergraduettes and from the semi-structured "student government" environment typical of dormitories. comcierge service, room service, spa, pool, a doormam who does things for tenants who tip big other that check their IDs, etc. These points raise some serious issues as to whether the Penn administration and trustees are in touch with reality. Now, from a business standpoint, I'm certainly happy to see them going in this direction because they're not going to be competition form my rentals. "Let's see, should we rent a two-bedroom apt on 45th St from the greedy slumlord KRF for $850, or should we go for the 1-bedroom at Doofus with a dishwasher, disposal, and washer amd dryer in every apartmemt as well as a game room/pizza Hut downstairs, and something that apparently passes for public art commemorating the now defunct Stetson Hat Company of Philadelphia out in front for $2,600? Gimme a minute to call Daddy and ask him if we can still afford the extra money, or if the variable rate mortgage on our MacMansion in Scarsdale and the home equity loan on the Beach House in our gated enclave in East Hampton have gone up above 8% so he'll have to declare bankruptcy and send Mummy back to work selling orthopedic ladies' shoes at Wal-Mart." Still on the list because talking to ones' self can be even more tedious than deleting xxxx's posts without reading them. Al Krigman ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
