Apartment Choice

We’re a particularly strong and well-capitalized company with a very strong investment record . Joe Lubeck Executive chairman, Landmark Apartment Trust of America Inc. The recession and slumping housing market made the past few years a good time to invest in apartments — and Landmark Apartment Trust of America Inc. was poised to take action. By acquiring more than $1 billion in properties in 2013, Landmark now owns or manages almost 33,000 units, says Joe Lubeck, executive chairman. This correlates with increased interest in renting. “We see that a lot of people are more interested in job portability and the ability to relocate from one city based on job availability, and they also no longer perceive a house as being the solid investment that it once was,” Lubeck says. “As a result, we’re seeing significant growth in the household formative years , the 25- to 40-year-old market, where people are specifically looking to be renters by choice.” Targeting distressed properties that c...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...