Project Scheduling

Home Properties is a self-administered, self-managed real estate investment trust that owns, operates, acquires, develops and rehabilitates apartment communities. The company mostly focuses on apartment communities. All the developments are projects. They are located at one place and not moved during production. They buy old communities, renovate them, then they rent or sale them. All the resources that are needed for the project are brought to them including paints, cabinets, appliances, and many more. The company mostly spotlights on larger residential communities.

Home Properties expects to develop new apartment communities on raw land and on land adjacent to existing owned properties. They also plan to increase the density of units at some communities currently owned. The company has completed the development of a 120-unit apartment community in South Portland, Maine adjacent to a market-rate property the Company acquired in 1998. In addition, Home Properties is developing a 216-unit apartment community in Allentown, Pennsylvania, adjacent to a market-rate community purchased in 2000. An additional project was in the preconstruction stage during 2006. That project is Falkland Chase, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, with 450 garden apartments constructed between 1936 and 1939. The Company acquired the property in 2003 for $58.9 million.

Home Properties is planning on redeveloping the North parcel, which will be renamed Falkland North. This parcel currently contains 182 apartments that will be demolished and redeveloped into 1,020 units in four high-rise buildings with a community center, exercise room, swimming pool, convenience retail shops and a major supermarket. If this project progresses as expected, approvals will be obtained in 2007, design completed in 2008, construction started in 2009, and units placed in service in 2011 and 2012.

Since 1994, Home Properties has acquired and repositioned 190 communities with more than 52,000 units. The complete initial repositioning of a community typically takes place over a five to seven year period. The areas that have been targeted for growth are the Baltimore, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Southeast Florida and Washington, D.C. regions. Mostly, all the communities are project foundations.

The company does use the Gantt Chart Project. The Gantt chart project is commonly used in project scheduling because they are easy to use and widely understood. Mostly, Home Properties operate with project flow. The company sometimes has complex projects at times. It becomes inadequate to use the Gantt chart. For the complex project the company uses network method. The Gantt chart project is used when the apartment community is ready for occupancy. When the apartment home is ready for occupancy the management will measure the time they need in order for a customer to rent. They have to hire the employees and maintenance staff. For the office they need furniture, arrangement for technology like telephones, internet, TV, and many more. The networks are more complex, more difficult to understand, and more costly to use than Gantt charts.