AGI Capital

Introducing "Keeping It Real... Estate"

Posted by AGI on June 22, 2006 04:35 PM | Permalink

The purpose of a blog page for a San Francisco real estate developer...? Ask most real estate professionals and the answer is simple: none.

Most would say it's foolish. So why did we decide to include one on our site? Adding an interactive, responsive communications tool to our corprorate website may in fact be an exercise in futility, and it may follow the quick demise of many other ambitious well-meaning sites, periodicals, publications and blogs. But we felt that the developer's perspective - this developer's perspective in particular - may interest those who are affected by our developments.

By no means is this blog intended to be a discourse on enlightened urban development and architecture or for that matter a statistic-laden prognostication on the real estate market (if we really could predict the market, we wouldn't be working). There are many contributors on the web with far more knowledge and experience, and quite frankly more eloquent exposition than this humble development company (see some of our links). Rather, the intent of this blog is three-fold:

1. To provide a small window into a particular developer's perspective on such things as city planning, the politics of building, the real estate industry, architecture, community, home ownership and the number of other issues that affect or are affected by real estate development.

2. to create a forum for others to weigh-in.

3. to allow people to keep abreast of AGI's activities.

We hope to show that contrary to some widely accepted views, a real estate developer is not a capitalistic juggernaut destroying old neighborhoods and creating sprawl driven by its obsessive devotion to the almighty dollar. We will do our best to illustrate the role of the real estate developer, a necessary role in the evolution of the urban landscape as it responds to changing societal needs. By providing our views, one will be able to understand the economic risks inherent in being a developer and the reasons why certain decisions are made, the politics which affect real estate development, the dreams and realities of trying to literally build something new.

More than anything, a developer plays a deep role in a community, finding the perfect balance of serving the needs and desires of the community while being able to realize a profit commensurate with the risks of development so as not to need public assistance or subsidy. Through this blog we hope to reach across social, political and economic strata and solicit genuine responses, thoughts, opinions about what people want in their communities, what they see as needed for change and needed for preservation. Keeping our fingers on the pulse of local communities is critical to our success.

In the end, the nay-sayers may be right and in order not to offend any investors, lenders, communities and potential business partners, this blog will probably be forced to be far too cautious and prosaic to engender and maintain any public interest. Ironically, it may run the course of most real estate developments, battered by
the usual community groups, city planners, market analysts, financiers and consultants forcing a project into looking look like every other. Or there is a glimmer of hope that it may not, the true developer spirit is to always attempt the unattainable, even if it flies in the face of reason, please join us as we launch Keeping it Real.