Word: rental
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Online Upgrade. Answering customers' complaints about online rental-car services, Avis has unveiled its revamped website. The new design makes it easier to compare discounts and modify reservations, giving you a side-by-side comparison of your original and new reservation. You can also compare deals from Avis and other rental agencies without leaving the site, preview a picture of the car, and get stats on luggage space, passenger capacity and fuel efficiency. Extra fees, for GPS, local taxes and insurance, are broken out line by line, so there are no surprises when you get your bill at the rental...
...absurd in recent years. At the turn of the century, Florida was averaging about 10,000 new affordable-housing units per year; today it's about half that. Some Florida towns have even enacted minimum square-footage requirements for single-family homes and have all but zoned out affordable rental units. Last year a Miami developer, who was convicted because he used almost $1 million in public funds meant for affordable housing to build upscale condos, received a punishment of only probation...
...trust-fund diversion - was probably hoping the federal stimulus package would help make up for the affordable-housing gap. Indeed, the $787 billion stimulus gives Florida more than $250 million for public housing, homeless prevention (by helping people pay security deposits, utility bills and rent), affordable homes and rental assistance as well as tax credits for affordable-housing builders...
...This affluent mindset will have to change. The boom did raise the national homeownership rate from 60% to more than 67%, but the bust is bringing it right back down again - probably to less than 60% by the end of the year. As a result, demand for affordable rental units (meaning less than $1,000 a month for two bedrooms in South Florida) is bound to rise. And no amount of empty five-bedroom, three-bath dream houses is going to satisfy...
...house with a crumbling façade. "This is probably the only house on this street that hasn't been renovated yet," he says. Technau has lived in Prenzlauer Berg all his life and currently pays $400 a month for his two-bedroom apartment. He's worried that with rental prices continuing to rise, he won't be able to afford to live in the neighborhood much longer...