We are pleased to announce the full lease-up of 1325 Sutherland St in Echo Park, located one block north of the very popular Sunset Junction. The property is located steps away from Echo Park’s most popular and hippest restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, including Sunset Beer (named the 2^nd best bar in Echo Park), Ostrich Farm, and The Echo! Walking distance also to Lassen’s Natural Food Store, Short Stop Bar, and El Compadre restaurant!

1325 Sutherland demonstrates PMI’s Creative Multifamily strategy. Creative Multifamily is a new line of small low rise apartments that are stylish, contemporary, and playful but yet still affordable. Residents here want to walk to amenities and identify with the artistic flavor of the neighborhoods. The property is located just steps from upscale dining, wine bars, boutiques, farmers markets, specialty food stores, and much more!

In early 2016–the S&P fell almost 10% while NASDAQ fell over 20%. Due to he disappointing IPO performance of some technology companies–venture capital companies declared a cutback  of venture funding and a revaluation of technology startups.  Boards began to encourage management to refocus on profitability over growth to minimize future capital requirements.  Future capital may need to be raised at lower valuation and therefore dilute stockholder values.  In turn,  this new paradigm caused some startups to cut back space requirements and put space onto the sublease market.

Recently, the S&P recouped much of the losses, and NASDAQ has reduced it loss to 6.5% from its end of the year close.  As shown by the chart,  San Francisco office rents tend to lag NASDAQ performance by six to twelve months.  If NASDAQ can hold or gain ground–tenant pull back will be relatively modest.    Other technology companies will have the capital to buy up weaker companies and continue to invest even if at more reasonable valuations.

There is lot that goes into determining excess utilities given the increased densities of tenants. Sometimes, we are unable to install emon meters to track excess electric use. However, you will need to find ways to track excess water, trash, sewer, and gas. A certified energy analyst will count machines, appliances, and devises to figure out a tenants electric use. Headcounts will be used to estimate other over standard use. From this information, a certified energy auditor will help you  determine excess tenant utility billings.

We always ask our tech startup tenants what they would do if funding dried up.  When tenants are burning cash, they must rely on a new infusion of cash to sustain operations before an exit or attempt to achieve a positive cash flow. To date, this has been a hypothetical question. For the past few years, firms with clever technologies or growing users and revenues could easily raise capital at enhanced valuations. Firms focused on growth and market share. Most firms answered our question by saying that they could be cash flow positive if they needed to. To accomplish this — the firms would lower their research and development as well as their marketing and sales expenses. Even if the firm could lower these expenses, their business probably could not sustain such reductions very long without severely hurting their future.

Suddenly, capital providers are reevaluating their valuations and stiffening their capital requirements. Funding has not dried up but has become more difficult to obtain. Now our question will be more relevant and topical and will be met with less disdain.

The finishing touches can make a big impact on the curb appeal of an apartment renovation.  Here is an example of one of our recent renovations.

Here is a picture of the exterior landscape. Unfortunately, at the completion, a beautiful tree lost its leaves for the winter. We were left with the tree below.

Before

We were forced to remove the tree and put in new timber bamboo to create the curb appeal needed for marketing the space.

Also we had not finished our side entry corridor to the units before we started to market the units.

Before Landscape

We quickly painted the concrete, put a new cabinet to hide the water heaters, and installed landscape.

I

After

These are small items but do create a first impression and set the stage for the  interior that transformed your typical 1960s dingbat garden apartment into a contemporary hip Echo Park loft like apartment.

Renovated Interior