The opposite of the open space dilemma (which we discussed in Part 1: Open Spaces)  is trying to share a cluttered space. Sometimes apartments created for one person are very cluttered and designed in a condensed fashion, reducing the overall size. Indicators are things such as fold-away beds, kitchenettes with hot plates instead of ovens, or most commonly, the situation of a single room in a large shared house with a common bathroom and kitchen. It can be exceedingly taxing to negotiate living space with a roommate when it seems as though there isn’t even enough room for one person. Although there aren’t any magical tips to double the square foot measurement of your living area, there are a few tricks to help minimize the clutter and claustrophobia in these scenarios.

Eliminate the double:

-  You and your roommate will each be bringing your own personal items into the shared space. Most of the time they are very personal belongings, except in the case of common duplicates such as hairdryers, toasters, televisions, etc.

-  A great way to reduce the clutter around a shared space is by agreeing to share  a single appliance instead of attempting to each utilize your own.

-   Compromise. If one of you prefers their hair dryer and the other prefers their toaster, trade off which appliances are used so that you are left with something comfortable that works for the both of you.

Make the mess beautiful:

-  A big mistake when dealing with an already cluttered space, is trying to add a whole collection of decorative pieces. If there’s one thing that doesn’t compliment heaps of clothes on the floor, it’s eye-catching posters and space absorbing antiques.

-  Instead of buying cheap, bland storage furniture, spend the extra money and opt for very stylish pieces. This way, you aren’t spending money on decor which will take up space, your storage pieces will be stylish enough!

-  A slightly pricey rustic dresser from a vintage shop or off of the many antique sites online will look much nicer than an inexpensive shelving unit from Ikea, and there will be no need to purchase extra decorations to compensate for bland furniture.

Although there are little things you can do to help relieve the tension of living in close-quarters, the most important thing to remember is to remain patient. Never get into a shared living agreement with anyone you do not have a strong relationship with, because it can quickly become a living nightmare  if there isn’t a proper level of respect and patience for one another.

The Rentables Inc. (www.therentables.com) uses the latest web technology including “faceted navigation” to enhance user experience and rapidly gain market share.

Boston, MA (PRWEB) June 8, 2010 — The Rentables Inc. is one of many start-ups currently vying for market share as a provider of online rental listings. The company differentiates itself by having highly technical yet simple to use features which enhance the overall user experience. Such features include faceted navigation, side-by-side rental comparisons, and an emphasis on high quality data presented in an organized manner.

Faceted navigation is currently a popular discussion topic in the blogosphere. The Rentables uses this technology to allow users to filter listing data by criteria such as building type, unit type, number of bathrooms, etc. and each of these criteria are “facets”. The key word here is “filtering”, which is fundamentally different from a simple search.

The Rentables Inc. is able to integrate these innovative features into the website because they were taken into consideration from the initial planning stage. Schien Dong – partner and developer at The Rentables – explains: “It is challenging for large competitors to anticipate changes and make room for new features without compromising the website’s performance. The impact of a small change in either code or data could take weeks to be noticed because of the many moving parts of an intricate system.”

The Internet and overall web browsing experience have been built on innovation over time. From a programming standpoint today’s websites have become very complex, and depend on large databases and powerful servers to support high traffic volumes. With such complexity, it seems that most large websites are constantly playing catch-up rather than working to continuously innovate and improve their existing offerings.

The Rentables Inc. launched its new online rental listing service nationwide in August 2009 and currently attracts over 1,000 unique visitors per day, with expectations to increase this traffic to over 5,000 visitors per day by July 2010.

View the official press release on PRWeb at:
http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/RW1wdC1QaWdnLUxvdmUtSGFsZi1DcmFzLVBpZ2ctWmVybw==

The following is an article from The Globe & Mail published Monday, May 24th, 2010. This article was written by Dakshana Bascaramurty who interviewed Schien Dong, one of the founders of The Rentables. The original article can be viewed here: Landlords, you can’t hide from the Internet.

Armed with an arsenal of websites detailing everything from area crime to health risks, home hunters can now easily find the truth behind dubious ads.

The Federal Reserve Board Is expected to remove most of the instruments it has been using to try and stimulate the lending markets by the end of March or early April. Some expect these measures to cause a spike in interest rates on mortgages. Is that the case?

Unlikely so. Over the past several years, the Fed has been pumping a lot of liquidity into the US banking system to make sure that it wouldn’t collapse. It has created many programs that allowed banks to borrow money from the Fed at very low rates. Some of these programs even allowed banks to borrow money anonymously, in order to remain reputable.

However, what’s been happening is that banks have taken on this extra liquidity, but very little of it was actually lent out. Many of the banks ended up sitting on piles of cash (excess reserves). Instead of lending this money out to consumers, they were using it to earn interest from the Fed. Yes, the Fed pays banks interest on their excess reserves.

This is precisely why the mortgage rates are unlikely to spike – the banks already have the additional liquidity. Once the Fed starts removing those additional sources of funding, banks won’t be able to increase their liquidity as easily as they could last year. That’s fine though, since they still have piles of excess cash to work with.

Once the excess liquidity starts clearing in the banking system, it is possible that the interest rates will slowly start to increase. One would think that now is the best time to get a loan or a mortgage. That’s not exactly so. Getting a loan now is certainly better than a year ago, but banks and financial institutions are still very weary of risk.

Just because banks could lend out money at a low interest rate, doesn’t mean they will, and that has been the dilemma all along.

Be careful signing your lease. News Corp. is learning that the hard way.

Back when MySpace was on par with Facebook in terms of popularity, News Corp. (the parent company of MySpace) signed a 12 year office lease, paying about $1 million per month in rent. It was the single biggest real estate transaction in LA in the past 25 years.

Unfortunately for News Corp., the rent payments are only expected to rise in 2010. It’s expected to be paying about $2 mil a month by June. That’s not helping the already declining MySpace revenue, which is expected to be about $500 mil in 09. Meanwhile, Facebook valuation has increased to about $9.5 billion.

Now the MySpace office building is completely empty. Too bad they can’t convert it to a residential apartment building. Otherwise they could use our MPM system to list their units in LA. You can check out current apartment for rent in LA here.

This is not the only case of commercial real estate sitting around empty in California. There are many other cases besides MySpace.

Whether we own or rent in Seattle, we always enjoy new projects in our own backyard. Sure, there is the inevitable noise and mess that come when construction begins on most new projects, but when all is said and done, we end up with something new in our neighborhood. Once the project is complete and the mess has been cleaned up, our life is usually a little better as a result of local improvement projects.

The city of Seattle has a number of projects it is looking at. The following is a list of neighborhood street fund large projects under consideration for 2010: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/btg_nsf_2010.htm

If you are a resident of Seattle, your District Council will be prioritizing these projects. If you’d like to give your input, you can find out your current district and the name of your district coordinate by visiting the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods website: www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/nsc/

If you’re looking to move to Seattle, you might want to consider which neighborhoods will be receiving improvements when selecting an area to move. Once you’ve decided on your desired area, you can use The Rentables to find apartments for rent in Seattle within this specific area by panning and zooming in/out on our map-based rental listings.