Love Funding senior director Laura Saull-Smith of the Washington office secured the loan through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 232/223(f) loan program. Using the program enabled Saull-Smith to lock in a low fixed interest rate over a 35-year term.

HUD’s 232/223(f) loan insurance program allows for the purchase or refinance of senior housing properties that are at least three years old and have not undergone any substantial rehabilitation in the last three years.

The subject property is owned by Allegany Healthcare Group LLC and operated by Mid-Atlantic of Cumberland LLC.

In Amherst, Massachusetts, Love Funding closed a $6.56 million loan refinancing for Brandywine at Amherst Apartments, a 180-unit apartment complex. Saull-Smith secured the loan through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 223(a)(7) loan program. Using the program enabled Saull-Smith to lock in a low fixed interest rate and extend the loan back to its original 35-year term, generating more than $90,000 of annual debt service savings.

Brandywine consists of 60 one-bedroom units and 120 two-bedroom units. The complex was built in 1973 and has been refinanced by Love Funding twice before to secure a lower interest rate.

“We had such a great experience with Love Funding in the past, and we really benefited from coming back once again with essentially the same team in place,” said Erica Arbron, president of Snow Asset Management Inc. “It really couldn’t have gone any better.”

HUD’s 223(a)(7) program, which covers the refinancing of existing FHA-insured multifamily rental properties, allows up to 12 years to be added to the remaining term on existing HUD-insured loans, as long as it does not exceed the original term.

1. Create a Pinterest board of apartment-friendly decorating ideas for your residents.
2. Partner with a popular neighborhood restaurant to provide your residents with a Facebook exclusive offer.  Post a status update with coupon code to redeem 20% off.  It will make your fans feel really special.
3. Tweet street cleaning schedules to make sure your residents don’t get tickets.
   
4. Choose a resident to highlight as your Resident of the Month on Facebook in an effort to help everyone get to know their neighbors.
5. Start Trivia Tuesdays on Twitter and give away small prizes to your residents for correct answers.
6. Ask your residents to Like you and follow you on social media websites!  You would be surprised how simply asking will help grow your fan base.
7. Read multifamily industry blogs, like Multifamily Insiders and Apartments.com/blog, to stay on top of trends and news.
8. Start a blog that provides relevant apartment living, neighborhood and community information for your residents.
9. Create Facebook events for your community get-togethers, so residents have all the information on the website they check most often, as well as the ability to see who else is attending.
10. Tweet the weather forecast first thing every morning to help your residents decide what to wear.
11. Create a Facebook application with your leasing office and community staff photos and bios, so your residents know who to go to with questions, as well as the names of the people that make their community run smoothly.
12. Capture nice things your residents are saying about you online and repurpose them in marketing materials or in a slide show that plays on your lobby TV’s.

Visit Apartments.comBlog to continue reading and to learn more. And be sure to follow Love Funding on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

“At AVA, the folks who are working there are energized by the neighborhood,” says Deborah A. Coombs, senior vice president of property operations at AvalonBay. “They want a little bit different work experience. It’s a little more casual and a little more relaxed. There’s a social connection that is both the thing they used the tech whether it’s Facebook or Twitter.”

Personal expression is valued in AVA, but as companies are finding out, personal expression and access to legions of customers don’t always go well together. Just look at the recent lawsuit that pitted (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-23/twitter-account-lawsuit/53229408/1) Noah Kravitz against Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based PhoneDog, his former employer. Kravitz had compiled nearly 17,000 followers. PhoneDog is asking Kravitz to pay for that list. Kravitz argues that Twitter controls the list. The Kravitz case has made apartment owners take notice.

“We’re in the process of drafting guidelines that specifically state you’re prohibited from doing those activities [through social media],” said an executive at one apartment firm who didn’t want to be identified for this story. “It’s applying customer service to today’s digital environment. It’s the topic du jour.”

Julie Brawn-Whitesides, Executive Vice President at Folsom, Calif.-based FPI Management says her company developed a social media strategy to cover interaction blogs, personal websites, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, picture sharing and other interactive sites. The three-page document addresses issues like responding to media inquiries, competing with the company and responses to consumer posts, among other things.

“We implemented it in 2011 in an effort to provide clear guidelines to employees and ensure reputation management is handled appropriately for both FPI and owners of our managed buildings,” she says.The policy governs employee online behavior, both in and out of the workplace. “If you engage in online activity of which the company becomes aware that impacts your work performance or the interests of the company, its employees, products, customers, relationships, or reputation, this policy may apply, and discipline may result, even if the conduct occurred off-duty on your personal computer,” the policy reads.

Reprinted with permission from Multifamily Executive, a publication of Hanley Wood © May 2012

“The multifamily side is interesting. We are seeing a lot more new development. New construction is more specific to places like Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati There are spots of new activity in some of the outlying areas, like Youngstown, but not a lot. Cleveland seems to be extremely active because of the construction going on.”

Read the full article by Rania Oteify on Scotsman Guide.