"Market Strategies" Column for Builder and Developer magazine debuts

I'm very pleased to announce the debut of my "Market Strategies" column for the January 2008 issue of Builder and Developer magazine.

The publisher, Peninsula Publishing, has installed an easy-to-use digital viewer on its website, thus allowing readers to flip through the entire magazine on their computer monitors. If you're not already familiar with Builder and Developer, it's by far one of the favorite titles for building industry insiders in California, Nevada and Arizona (and increasingly elsewhere), and I'm both pleased and honored for this chance to participate each month with a regular column. Moreover, since it's not affiliated with a trade group such as the CBIA (which has California Builder magazine) or the NAHB (which licenses Hanley Wood to publish Builder magazine), it only has to please its readers and not any association members.

The first column (pg. 42 of the January edition) focuses on 'micro market' feasibility studies using examples from some recent work we did for a client at MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors. I really do think such formats will be increasingly common in future consulting engagements and urge all builders, developers and lenders to request such a scope from potential consulting firms. Gone are the days when consulting factories can brag about their ease of using "search and replace" functions in Word and Excel to make a study appear like it was generated from scratch -- and that, as Martha Stewart might say, is certainly a Good Thing.

Please send me comments and story ideas for future columns! I want them to be timely and useful for your businesses and can only do so by remaining in direct contact with readers of this blog and the articles. Thanks very much in advance!