HOUSTON — While it’s not an ideal time to be a multifamily property owner in Houston, it is a good time to be working on behalf of one. With their clients sitting on excess supply, apartment locators — middlemen who match tenant preferences to properties — are being increasingly called upon to deliver tenants. Locators work on commission, typically earning about 20 percent of the first month’s rent for their services. But in Houston’s soft market, that figure is rapidly rising. Ricardo Rivas, chief investment officer at Allied Orion Group and one of several panelists who spoke at the InterFace Houston Multifamily conference on March 28, noted that while locators are costly, the services they provide in a down market are crucial. “They [locators] are our best friends right now,” Rivas said to 175 industry professionals who gathered at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. “We reach out to them, we throw them parties and we give them big incentives to bring tenants over.” Todd Marix, a senior managing partner in HFF’s Houston office who spoke on an earlier panel, addressed the rising operating costs that landlords are facing. In his view, fees paid to apartment locators are quietly doing major damage …
