Corporate Housing Providers Blog – - Advice, News, and More

It’s a common question that comes up these days, especially when it comes to housing interns.  More and more, people have been requesting two twin beds in one bedroom as a way of cutting costs on corporate housing.  CHPA has a discussion thread on the topic and The New York Times has an article on the subject. What are your thoughts?

There’s been a lot of talk about providing healthcare for employees these days.  One of the many versions of the new healthcare reform bill creates a tax credit for small businesses that provide their employees with health insurance.  But it’s hard to weigh the cost-benefit analysis of providing that health insurance. (more…)

Joe Girard is in the Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1, 425 cars in 1973 alone. In his book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, he describes what he calls “birddogs” as a simple referral process between himself and people to whom he has sold cars. He offers a small reward in exchange for a referral to his office. (more…)

In a recent discussion thread on CHPA’s group on LinkedIn, Jim Drass discussed negotiating lower rents with your property. As discussed in a previous blog, hotels are slashing their rates by as much as a third, and in order to keep up the corporate housing industry had better adjust to the current market as well. The New York Times reported that as the real estate market has cooled, many buildings are seeing more vacancies and making more concessions to attract tenants. As Drass says, it’s an excellent time to negotiate a drop in rent or an increase in concessions.

AHRN, or Army Housing Referral Network, is a new website that caters to military personnel in search of apartments. It’s a free service, and it’s easy to sign up, but third-party providers beware: I attempted to sign up for a Fort in the Midwest and was told I needed to have an actual physical address in order to participate in the website. I passed my contact info along to the project manager and asked to be contacted when the website reached a stage of further development. So unless you carry long-term leases in the area you want to list in, you’re going to get kicked off of the site.

The BBC recently reported that home construction is on the rise in the United States. This means that a powerful segment of your sales–the group of people who use corporate housing while their home is being constructed– will once again begin to flourish. As the housing market loosens up again and people regain their faith in the economy, the relocation segment of your sales will also begin to see improvements. The end of the recession may finally be near.