'GETTING BETTER EVERY DAY'

Our headline?s the way Charter Properties's John Porter put it to us yesterday, describing the multifamily operating market in Charlotte, adding: ?Things are filling up, rents are beginning to move.? Not to mention the earlier recovery of multifamily capital markets, due to ?people getting tired of low cap rates elsewhere. ?

?It's a good time to be an owner/operator,? says John, who joined the firm 12 years ago when he moved his family to Charlotte from Chicago, because his wife?s from Gaston County and "she could only take so much of northern weather." Plus, they decided it would be a better place to raise their kids, now 5 and 15. Living in the Cotswald area near South Park, John needs only 15 minutes to get to work among the renovated mills of South End. As for Charter, it's been around 40 years, a wholly owned sub of Springs Investment Co. Before his move here, John spent 15 years operating and developing 5,000 units in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison: housing for seniors, low income, market rate, FHA, HUD, conventional, ?in other words, whatever you could get financed.?

Charter just finished 250  market rate units in Fort Mill in March, and John says they are now 80% occupied, with rent-up done in-house.  Next up: 264 units at Northlake, anchored by Taubman?s North Lake Mall, where 77 and 85 come together making for a hot location. Charter has been selling a bit lately, he says, because it tries to operate not more than 2,000 units, with 900 to 1,500 units in the pipeline at any given time, taking marketing and construction risk and recycling capital between management and development.  

Originally from Waukesha, Wis., John was University of Wisconsin '83, moved to Chicago to be in a big city, but he remembers his roots and likes to hunt and fish. Here he is in Northwest Ontario in June with a Northern Pike. ?God?s country, truly,? he says. Which he might also define to include his beloved golf courses—Carolina Golf Club in Charlotte and Surf Club at Ocean Isle.  

Hear lots more from John, who will be among our all-star speakers at the Westin Charlotte on the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 24, for our First Annual Multifamily Summit. (Above is a picture of the 350 who joined us July 15 for our first event in Charlotte.) Please come for continental breakfast, pre-game schmooze, program, and post-game schmooze! Sign up now!