A Look at Waterproof Vinyl Flooring For Apartment Homes

 An accomplished executive with extensive experience in commercial real estate investment, Vito Dragone serves as president of Dragone Realty Investments, a commercial real estate company focused on multifamily communities in Washington, D.C. Under Vito Dragone's direction, the company's Dragone Construction offers exterior and interior renovation services such as new kitchen and baths, painting, carpet, lighting, and flooring installation.

A synthetic flooring material, vinyl flooring resembles hardwood, stone, or ceramic and can be in the form of tiles or planks with or without adhesive backing. Installing vinyl flooring is a simple process that involves placing the pieces on a flat subfloor and underlayment. Waterproof vinyl flooring is a type that does not absorb surface water, making it an excellent option for areas such as bathrooms, kitchens, basements, and other common areas where water damage prevention is crucial.

Vinyl flooring is only water-resistant on the surface. Below-surface water resulting from floods can damage the material and other properties. In such situations where the subfloor is flooded, the best course of action is to remove the flooring material, clean the area, dry it, and then reinstall the vinyl only if the underlayment is attached or closed-cell. There is a risk of fungal growth following post-flooding reinstallation of cork underlayment.

The Verona at Naylor Metro Multifamily Apartments

 In his 15-plus years as the president of Dragone Realty Investments in Bethesda, Vito Dragone has accomplished much as a real estate professional, including renovating over $700 million in multifamily assets. Vito Dragone has built a portfolio of enduring communities in Maryland, such as the Milano, Verona at Suitland Metro, Verona at District Heights, Verona at Silver Hill, and Verona at Naylor Metro.

The Verona at Naylor Metro, located on Good Hope Avenue in Hillcrest Heights, is a multifamily building featuring studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, and 3-bedroom apartments. This apartment complex is seven stories high and has 219 units. Each unit features stunning modern room designs with elegant floors and large windows that allow plenty of natural light.

The apartment complex also features essential and luxury amenities, including a fitness center, a grilling station, patios, a dog park, and a picnic area. The kitchens at the Verona at Naylor Metro apartments are modern and have dishwashers and gas ranges. Additionally, the complex provides controlled building access, a gated community, and a parking space for every household.

The location of the Verona at Naylor Metro is also intentional as it is close to the metro station, offering residents easy access to the DMV (D.C., Maryland, and Virginia metropolitan region) area. This proximity ensures that residents can get to work with little effort. The complex’s nearness to shops and restaurants also enhances the living experience.

Overview of Dragone Realty Investments’ Portfolio

 A real estate investor specializing in multifamily properties like apartment buildings, Vito Dragone has over 15 years of experience leading his firm Dragone Realty Investments (DRI). While managing property assets in Maryland, Vito Dragone revitalizes preexisting buildings to give more residents access to affordable housing.

DRI owns currently over $750 million in assets of renovated properties. It has also spent about $110 million in construction over the years.

The six multifamily complexes include: Verona at District Heights, Milano, Verona at Naylor Metro, Verona at Silver Hill, Verona at Suitland Metro, and Verona at Middle River. Community amenities include Bark Parks, Swimming Pools, Gyms, 24 maintenance, and laundry services.

All of DRI's properties now fall under the Branding Name: Verona Living. More information can be found at the website: www.veronaliving.com.

The Verona Living brand is dedicated to our residents and providing them with an exceptional living experience through high-quality service, personalized attention, and the very best management and maintenance of their communities.

Benefits of Using a Multifamily Management Company

 With so many individual units and tenants demanding their attention, an apartment owner has a lot of responsibilities. Among many other tasks, a landlord must market vacant units, arrange for repairs, track rental payments, and moderate disagreements with tenants. Taking care of multi-family communities can be quite demanding, but hiring a multifamily property management company can ease many of these burdens.

A multifamily property management company is usually a one-stop shop for all apartment community needs. Through property managers, these companies can help ensure that an apartment community is profitable for property owners by maintaining standards and full tenancy. In addition, property managers assist owners in setting competitive rent prices after comparing similar properties in the area. This is important for attracting the right tenants that will make a property profitable.

Property management companies also collect rent and set collection dates. They can enforce late fee policies if tenants are late on rent payments, as stipulated in the lease agreement. Property managers may also take over the tenant screening process and find prospective tenants.

Multi-unit properties often experience frequent tenant turnovers. Vacancies can happen year-round, which may impact revenue. Property management companies have the marketing skills and understanding of the local community to get those vacancies rented out as quickly as possible. They also endeavor to reduce tenant turnover through the provision of quality services and good customer service.

Landlords know that a single bad tenant can cause much legal and financial stress. An experienced property management company can protect property owners from potential financial vulnerabilities and lawsuits. The company’s legal team can nip potential lawsuits in the bud before they go to court. This saves landlords money and time that would have been wasted in fighting lawsuits, as well as potential damage awards to tenants.

Finally, hiring a property management company also comes with numerous personal benefits. By hiring a property management specialist, landlords won’t have to deal with evictions, late-night emergencies, chasing rent payments, filing paperwork, finding contractors to repair damaged property, and many other time-consuming and tedious tasks. Landlords can have more freedom to develop their broader investment plans or spend time with family and friends.

With the help of a property management company, landlords will not have to worry about micromanaging their properties or routine management issues such as property inspections.

 Dragone Real Estate's Verona at Naylor Metro Apartment renovation gave the old Lynnhill Condominium apartments in Prince George County, Maryland, a new look and safety features. The buildings’ upgrades include energy-efficient features such as LED light fixtures, new features in the kitchen and bathroom, and improvements to the building’s facade. Residents who move into the Verona at Naylor Metro apartments will live comfortably and be close to shopping, schools, and transportation hubs.

Verona at Silver Hill, located in Suitland, Maryland, is comprised of one, two, and three-bedroom apartments that come in four styles, the Rome, Tuscany, Pisa, and Naples. Each residence is fitted with bright interiors, wood-style floors, and white cabinets.

The apartments have spacious bedrooms with an emphasis on closet space. Its bathrooms also have tiled walls, and each unit contains an individual washer and dryer unit.

A luxury apartment building, the Verona at Silver Hill has a swimming pool and picnic and barbecue areas, a playground, on-site recycling, and cable and satellite access. A pet-friendly community, the complex also has a dog park. The community also offers residents plenty of off-street parking for residents and visitors, and residents have the option of reserving a space.

The Verona at Silver Hill is also conveniently located near transportation hubs, namely the bus line and the Suitland Metro station. Those who like to travel to Washington, D.C., can access the interstate, which is less than a mile away.

Verona at District Heights, another in the suite of Verona communities, offers one, two, and three-bedroom apartments in Forestville, Maryland. The apartment complex’s floor plans include the same ones offered at Silver Hill, but also offer residents the choice of the Milan, Venice, DaVinci, Colosseum, and Siena. All the apartments have an open plan with a kitchen that opens up to a spacious living room.

Here, residents have a range of amenities like the ones at the Silver Hill apartments. However, residents also have access to a sun deck (alongside the swimming pool), and convenient parking. Residents can also access a personalized portal system.

This complex is also close to area diversions, the interstate (easy access to Washington, D.C.), and various transportation hubs. Residents also have the option of visiting the National Plaza Mall, where they can visit museums, restaurants, and shops.

In Essex, Maryland, Verona at Middle River offers prospective residents the option of choosing from one, two, and three-bedroom, two-story townhouse style apartments in the Sicily, Capri, and Naples layouts. All apartments contain hardwood laminate floors, granite counters in the kitchen, and a skylight on the upper floors, allowing for more natural light to radiate into the space. Furthermore, the bedrooms feature extra-large closets.

The apartment has a dog park, laundry, playground, and picnic area, and offers residents easy access to nature, including a nearby dog park and scenic trails and wooded areas.

While surrounded by nature, the apartment community does offer residents the chance to take in local restaurants, which include seafood and Italian eateries. Residents can also shop at the White Marshall Mall and the 2nd Avenue Thrift Superstore, which is known for its many vintage items.

Best Practices for Rehabilitating Multifamily Properties

 The renovation and rehabilitation of multifamily buildings presents numerous advantages for real estate professionals, property managers, and communities alike. Due to the nature of today’s housing market, these merits go beyond improving livability and financial performance. Foremost, rehabilitating existing properties provides a more cost-effective and less resource-intensive means of addressing the nationwide rental-housing shortage than new construction. Building renovations and rehabilitation also contribute to climate change mitigation by retrofitting older structures with sustainable and energy-efficient installations. However, realizing the potential of multifamily-property rehabilitation requires following associated best practices.

A comprehensive and strategic approach that optimizes how long the building can remain operationally sound represents the most fundamental aspect of a good multifamily-housing rehabilitation project. Consequently, resolving significant and reoccurring issues is the first priority. This begins with an exhaustive investigation that involves a full assessment of the property and interviews with managers, staff, and residents, if any, to identify pressing or reoccurring problems that demand immediate attention. In addition to impacting longevity, a failure to stabilize the property increases the risk of unexpected complications and the probability of later investments or ongoing repairs.

Alongside a baseline understanding of stabilization essentials, rehabilitation plans most befitting of evolving challenges in today’s built environment incorporate resilient retrofits. These modifications enhance a building’s resiliency against natural disasters and weather-related events, particularly those exacerbated or triggered by climate change. Examples of resilient retrofits include measures to mitigate flood risks, building envelope upgrades to boost thermal performance, and installations to protect structural foundations from seismic activity. With climate change heightening the intensity of hurricanes, wildfires, extreme weather, and alike hazards, resilient retrofits are critical to a building’s structural integrity and the safety of its tenants.

Determining the best resilient retrofits for a given building introduces another best practice in multifamily property rehabilitation: energy efficiency and related improvements. These investments are among the most advantageous strategies for any housing rehabilitation, providing value to owners, managers, and tenants. Energy-efficient heating and cooling systems decrease utility and operational costs, and renewable-energy fixtures like solar panels offer the added benefit of serving as backup generators during grid disruptions. Moreover, upgraded building envelopes foster better living conditions and tenant health by controlling pest and moisture intrusion.

Rehabilitation planning for multifamily housing also needs to consider other factors relevant to the resident experience, such as aesthetic appeal, disability accommodations, and community assets. Renovations to this end can comprise a range of measures, from broadening accessibility features to cover a wider array of disabilities to expanding amenity options and creating spaces that bring tenants together. Transforming a multifamily community’s character also helps to attract and retain tenants. For instance, new paint coatings, recladded facades, and landscaping beautification serve to revitalize the property’s exterior. This is especially beneficial for affordable multifamily housing, as it can reduce the stigma attached to these residences.

For multifamily buildings occupied at the time of rehabilitation, project teams must develop a schedule that minimizes disruptions to residents. One approach to plans that include interior remodeling involves setting up timetables that organize units into blocks and divide the work into staggered phases. Coordinating with residents throughout the process can make the operation run more smoothly. Effective communications to this end entail educating them on safety issues the work will address, providing clear timelines, and keeping them informed of development activities and dates for their group.

Verona at District Height Offers Home and Community Amenities

 District Heights is a community in Maryland's Prince George’s County. As a small incorporated municipality, District Heights’ population stood at 5,959 when the 2020 Census was taken. Like many towns in the region, this area was originally farmland.

Today, District Heights is home to communities such as the Verona at District Heights. The quaint community started with four patented tracts: Good Luck, the Levels, Magruder’s Plains Enlarged, and Offutt’s Adventure. While there is no recorded date of the town’s beginning, the town expanded to include 25 homes, a filling station and grocery store, a water tower, and a pump house.

By 1936, this area that began with four tracts was incorporated, and with government assistance, single family style houses were built to accommodate veterans who returned from the war as well as federal employees. Sometime later developers built apartments, including the Verona at District Heights.

The residential units are a part of a community of one, two, and three-bedroom apartments in Forestville, Maryland, but provide residents with easy access to downtown Washington, D.C. The residential apartment company offers prospective renters a variety of apartment styles.

The Tuscany and Pisa-style apartments are one-bedroom, one-bath units that are 700 square feet and 770 square feet, respectively. Verona also offers two-bedroom, one-bath apartments in the Rome and Milan styles, with the former being 860 square feet and the latter being 935 square feet. The Venice apartment style is a two-bedroom, two-bath 935-square-foot unit, and the Davinci apartment is a three-bedroom, one-bath 1,033-square-foot unit. Finally, the Colosseum and Siena are three-bedroom, two-bath units with square footage of 1,033 and 1,150, respectively.

Regardless of the style and size of the apartment, the Verona brand designed the apartment units keeping luxury and convenience in mind. The apartments come with refrigerators, dishwashers, ceiling fans, and air conditioning and are Internet and cable equipped. Units come with private patios and balconies, in addition to new windows that provide natural light and window coverings.

Community amenities include a laundry room, a swimming pool with a sun deck, and a community playground. Additionally, the apartment policy has pet-friendly policies in place for dogs and cats. The complex provides residents and their dogs with a community park where they can roam free. For more information on Verona cat and dog policies, please visit https://www.veronaatdistrictheights.com/amenities.

The apartment complex offers residents quality maintenance services. Residents experiencing issues with their apartments can access the complex’s on-site 24-hour maintenance service, including 24-hour emergency maintenance services. Regarding security and location, the complex has a night patrol and is accessible to shops and businesses in the area.

District Heights is a community-minded area, and most residents own their homes. There are many parks nearby, and families can access public (charter) and private schools. Moving to Verona at District Heights offers professionals and families the chance to enjoy life in a small town while having access to the numerous diversions that can be found in Washington, D.C. For more information on District Heights or the Verona at District Heights please visit https://www.veronaatdistrictheights.com/.