Home and Design
PRnewsiwre | August 10, 2023
Weidner Apartment Homes, a real estate investment and property management company, recently joined the Anchorage Affordable Housing and Land Trust (AAHLT) to aid the organization in its mission to expand and preserve year-round housing rental opportunities that are affordable to low and very low-income households.
In March 2023, Dean Weidner, Weidner's Chairman and Founder, matched the Rasmuson Foundation's $250,000 donation to AAHLT to provide initial working capital for the Trust to begin operations. One of the first projects undertaken by the Trust is a renovation project that will convert The Lake House, a downtown hotel in Anchorage, AK, into a 45-unit multifamily property for low and very low-income citizens. The Lake House is an older, well-maintained hotel purchased by the AAHLT in 2023 using ARPA funds granted by the Municipality of Anchorage.
"Dean Weidner invests in these projects because he believes we all have a responsibility to be involved in our communities and give back however we can. As a housing provider, we are connected to those who are unhoused, and it's a natural issue for us to gravitate towards and bring some focused expertise to the process." Said Greg Cerbana, Weidner's VP. of Government Affairs.
Weidner has been a multifamily rental housing provider in Anchorage since 1981 and owns 5,696 units across six cities in Alaska. Through the company's long-standing relationships with various Alaska-based housing providers, they have partnered with several nonprofits to significantly improve the region's housing instability issues.
"Since Weidner is a market-rate housing provider, our investments in various affordable housing projects allows us to fund a different need of the area's housing market. Every sector in the industry needs to be healthy for it to thrive, and our recent involvement with AAHLT enables us to support the industry outside of our primary line of work." Said Cerbana.
"Anchorage is uniquely positioned to find workable solutions for the challenges associated with homelessness. The city has a history of cooperation between its businesses, nonprofits, and public sectors. I encourage everyone to come together and prioritize fulfilling the needs of the most vulnerable in our society." Said Weidner.
As of August 2023, Weidner has committed over $10 million to fund solutions for homelessness in Anchorage. Weidner is excited to expand its efforts to support the full continuum of Anchorage's housing market by joining the AAHLT to provide much-needed housing for low and very low-income citizens.
About Weidner Apartment Homes
Founded by W. Dean Weidner in 1977, Weidner Apartment Homes is a multi-faceted real estate investment, and management company recognized industry-wide as an efficient provider of quality rental homes and a creative developer of new housing. The vision of the Weidner Company is to distinguish ourselves as the apartment industry leader in each of our markets, which includes Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Canada. We can only achieve that vision by having the best apartment managers, leasing consultants, maintenance managers, and service technicians in the business.
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Real Estate Technology
FOREWARN | August 28, 2023
FOREWARN, LLC, a red violet company and the leading provider of real-time information solutions for real estate agents, today announced that Space Coast Association of REALTORS® (“SCAR”) has contracted to make FOREWARN® services available for the 6,000+ members they serve throughout Brevard County and the Space Coast to promote proactive real estate agent safety.
Available both online and through a mobile application, FOREWARN analyzes billions of data points and provides users with the ability to mitigate risks by verifying identity, searching for criminal histories, and validating information provided by potential clients -- using just a phone number. FOREWARN allows agents to properly and safely plan for showings with a higher level of confidence.
The FOREWARN services purchased by SCAR are available to the 6,000+ real estate agent membership at no additional cost to individual members.
“We were looking for a solution that would help our members protect themselves well ahead of being in a potentially dangerous situation, and FOREWARN was the clear choice,” said Nancy Bartlett, President of Space Coast Association of REALTORS®. “It will equip our members to verify the identity of their unknown prospects in seconds, helping to address concerns around physical safety as well as possible fraud.”
Lindsey Ruschak, CEO of Space Coast Association of REALTORS®, went on to say, “We’re thrilled to be able to offer this product as a benefit of membership with Space Coast Association of REALTORS®, the launch is timely with REALTOR® Safety Month being recognized in September.” Existing SCAR members will receive specific instructions on how to move forward with activating their FOREWARN subscription.
About FOREWARN
At FOREWARN, we bring instant knowledge through innovative solutions to ensure safer engagements and smarter interactions. Leveraging powerful analytics and a massive data repository, our solutions enable organizations to gain real-time knowledge, for purposes such as verifying identity, searching for criminal histories, and validating information. Risk assessment and due diligence at your fingertips™.
About red violet
At red violet, we build proprietary technologies and apply analytical capabilities to deliver identity intelligence. Our technology powers critical solutions, which empower organizations to operate with confidence. Our solutions enable the real-time identification and location of people, businesses, assets and their interrelationships. These solutions are used for purposes including risk mitigation, due diligence, fraud detection and prevention, regulatory compliance, and customer acquisition. Our intelligent platform, CORE™, is purpose-built for the enterprise, yet flexible enough for organizations of all sizes, bringing clarity to massive datasets by transforming data into intelligence. Our solutions are used today to enable frictionless commerce, to ensure safety, and to reduce fraud and the concomitant expense borne by society.
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Real Estate Advice
PRnewswire | August 16, 2023
Zenerate ,an innovative AI startup in the Proptech space, has entered into a strategic partnership with SoLa Impact ,the leading private real estate developer of affordable housing in California. Zenerate has developed a powerful platform that employs generative design, artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to optimize the feasibility analysis process for real estate projects, reducing turnaround time and maximizing development returns.
In a groundbreaking move to revolutionize the affordable housing sector, SoLa Impact has partnered with Zenerate, to streamline and automate the feasibility analysis process for their affordable and modular housing developments. The collaboration brings cutting-edge AI technology to the modular construction industry and dramatically accelerates the speed of planning, configuration, design, and the permit approval process for a wide range of SoLa's affording housing projects.
SoLa Impact has been at the forefront of addressing the affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles over the last decade, consistently demonstrating its commitment to creating sustainable, community-focused housing solutions. SoLa currently has over 35 projects with almost 3,000 units at various stages of construction, the majority of which are dedicated to affordable housing. With the increasing demand in the affordable segment, the need for swift and accurate feasibility, configuration, and design analysis has become paramount in the real estate development landscape.
Martin Muoto, the Founder and CEO of SoLa Impact, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership, stating, "We are thrilled to collaborate with Zenerate in our mission to dramatically scale the development and delivery of high-quality affordable housing in California. By leveraging Zenerate's cutting-edge technology combined with our proprietary standardization processes, we can bring significantly more units to market more cost-effectively and more quickly, with the vast majority of our projects to house people that are currently homeless and living in tents. Equally important, these are units that are an order-of-magnitude more energy efficient than the aging housing stock they are replacing. All units are fully electric, use water-efficient fixtures, and have ENERGY STAR-certified appliances, dramatically reducing GHG emissions while providing cost savings to California's low-income Black and brown communities."
The integration of Zenerate's software into SoLa Impact's modular operations will facilitate data-driven decision-making, allowing for a more efficient and comprehensive evaluation of potential development sites, construction costs, and market demand. By automating the feasibility and design analysis, SoLa Impact's team will be able to evaluate more sites, repurpose vacant and sub-optimized locations, and build for maximum density and affordability.
The Co-Founder and CEO of Zenerate, Benji Shin, echoed Muoto's sentiments, emphasizing Zenerate's commitment to providing housing more quickly and affordably by leveraging Artificial Intelligence, particularly expert systems for code compliance and machine learning for rapid massing, configuration, and design. "We are thrilled to partner with SoLa Impact, whose deep commitment to creating sustainable, scalable, and affordable housing aligns perfectly with our mission. By automating key parts of the feasibility, configuration, and eventually, the permitting process, we aim to enable developers to run thousands of financial and design scenarios instantly, ultimately contributing to the advancement of affordable housing initiatives."
The innovative approach undertaken by SoLa Impact and Zenerate is expected to have a significant impact on the speed and scale of affordable housing development in California, starting in Los Angeles – the largest affordable housing market in the United States with the most acute homeless problem – and then expanding to other local municipalities, and eventually, other states.
About SoLa Impact
SoLa Impact is a family of real estate funds with a double bottom line strategy focused on preserving, rehabbing, and building high-quality affordable housing in low- and moderate-income communities. SoLa's proven track record leverages data-driven social impact strategies to deliver superior financial returns. SoLa Impact's fourth fund, the Black Impact Fund, has invested $1 billion in affordable housing in Southern California. SoLa Impact was ranked as the 7th fastest-growing minority-led private company by Inc. 500 and was awarded the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) Emerging Manager ESG Award for SoLa's demonstrated ability to deliver on its commitment to positive changes in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters.
AboutZenerate
Zenerate, a member company of Born2Gl obal Centre, is a venture-backed innovative AI startup in the real estate development space, providing consulting services and web-based products for feasibility studies; Z-maps is a real estate development map that weekly updates all the latest projects in Southern California, and Zenerate App is a design automation tool that generates development scenarios with floor plans in real time for feasibility studies.
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