Oct 21, 2015

The biggest landlords in the U.S. are being crushed under a mountain of packages, leading one large apartment operator to stop accepting deliveries and others to experiment with ways to minimize the clutter, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The moves are at the center of two colliding trends: an increase in apartment living and a surge in online shopping (can you spell Amazon Prime?). The result is a rising tide of packages with no good place to go. The onslaught has turned management offices of apartment buildings into de facto receiving centers as landlords grapple with recording packages, tracking tenants down to pick them up and finding places to store the parcels.Some have stopped receiving packages. Many tenants are saying they won't renew leases. Where's it going. Steve and Sinclair review.

The Journals says that managers can afford to enforce a few rules now while occupancy rates are high, but with more apartment construction adding to supply soon, they may not have the leeway. In the Q & A segment, Certified Financial Planner® Murray Titterington with IQ Wealth joins the A-Team to discuss the rise in Part B medicare premiums and how it may affect social security claiming.