Construction Maison

Lincoln Property Company , a national home and business real estate firm with 500 communities within its network, has seen the  traditional apartment search process go from word-of-mouth to mostly being driven by online reviews and social media. In other words, real estate has a lot in common with restaurants — and pretty much every business — in driving new customers. The real estate service company was struggling to manage all the customer reviews of its multi- family housing . As a result, its search rankings were slipping. Lincoln Property first tapped a reputation management company in 2012. While things improved, its strategy nevertheless suffered from a gap when it came to social media listening/responding and online presence management . Last year, Lincoln Property turned to Chatmeter, an online presence and reviews management platform . In a matter of weeks, Lincoln Property’s total review quantity rose 71 percent with a 277 percent increase in the number of reviews po...

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin has asked the city attorney to explore legislation to impose a vacancy tax on large property owners who leave residential and commercial buildings empty . During a supervisors meeting this month, Peskin said he continues to receive complaints about the impact of “ghost buildings” on neighborhoods. The problem is, nobody really knows how many vacant homes there are in the city and whether a vacancy tax would be legal or effective in freeing up much-needed housing. In an interview, Peskin cited a 28- unit apartment building at 1656 Powell St. that was vacated after a fire damaged some units in December 2013. It remains empty. The three-story building is in a prime North Beach location across from Washington Square Park . Four businesses on the building’s ground floor — a liquor store, a bar, a Thai restaurant and a seafood restaurant — are open, but the apartments above still have boarded-up windows and a littered lobby. Some work was done in the...