Apartment owner and developer Cityview hasmanaged to find its footing amid the market dislocation. So far,rent collections and leasing activity has been healthy, and thefirm has yet to drop rental rates for both renewals or new move-inleases. However, the company has increased up-front concessions tohelp drive new leasing activity.

"Last week we had our biggest leasing week of the year,"Sean Burton, CEO of Cityview, tells GlobeSt.comabout the firm's recent leasing activity. "Generally, January andFebruary are slow, so you don't want to read too much into that,but it is nice to be at levels that are the highest for thecalendar year. That is not something that we expected. We arecautiously optimistic that things are moving in the rightdirection."

As noted above, Cityview hasn't decreased rents in any of itsproperties, but has made the strategic decision to increaseconcessions by a few weeks in certain markets to drive new leasingactivity. "We have done that to encourage people to make a decisionnow, rather than waiting," says Burton. The firm has also asked newresidents to sign 14- or 16-month leases. Hopefully in 14 to 16months we are in a recovery period, but if not, the extended leaseterms will stagger expirations.