This morning 12 telephone surveyors reported to work– collecting current rents and occupancies. Problems began immediately as they attempted to call Houston. The Houston MSA is the largest in our database, containing approximately 1100 complexes. It’s truly Texas-sized. As of this morning most of those complexes are without electricity because of hurricane Ike and many are without phone service. We have already completed our survey of Austin and San Antonio, but it looks like we will have to wait until next week to get Houston. It remains to be seen in the hard hit areas like Galveston and Port Arthur that there will be any buildings left to survey.
On the bright side Lehman Brothers is not one of our clients.
