First, rentership for citizens over 50 years of age has been rising. In 1990 the rate was 23% and today the rate has risen to over 26%. The recent financial crisis should drive this percentage up significantly on wealth loss alone. Further, the effect of the crisis has sharply reduced the expectation that the home is a good repository for wealth. The two factors together could push over 50 rentership by 10% to 15%. We expect the percentage is likely to increase from the 2006 level of 26% to a leve that could grow to 35% or more over the next few years.
Archive for the ‘Find Good Tenants’ Category
Senior Renting in the Coming Decade
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Tips for Leasing Apartments Online
Monday, August 31st, 2009Great Article by Garland Pollard at BlackCow Press
Categories: Content Development, Web
So you have an apartment to lease. Either a weekly lease, monthly or yearly. And you’ve done all the things, including newspaper, CraigsList, local apartment guide, even a few fliers to neighbors. And you still have some un-rented inventory.
What’s next?
Make sure your web site and total online presence is where it needs to be, from email to website to Google Adwords to Search Engine Optimization for Google, Bing and Yahoo. A few ideas:
- Make your photos real. So often, websites show canned or old photos, and have non-descriptive language. If you can’t afford a professional photographer, get out there with a camera yourself and take lots of creative angles. You can hundreds of photos with a digital camera; shoot away. Be creative. Yes, you want images that show the room, but you want the images to POP out at the reader.
- Show floor plans. Potential tenants want to imagine what they will be getting.
- Make sure the right numbers are on your website. Yes, you want the office number on the site, but do remember to keep the rest of the telephone numbers on your website. A few minutes delay might mean you miss out on a tenant.
- Make it Melrose Place: No, we aren’t saying that Heather Locklear will need to be there. Instead, what we mean is that you need to “brand” the name and place as a community and way of life. If your clientele is just out of college, you want to play up the social aspect. If it is mid-life folks, then there is another approach to take. Go around and talk to the people who have lived in the apartments the longest, and like it. They will give you the scoop on what makes your place unique. Remember, outside of the signage and the architecture, your “brand” is the people who live and work at your complex. Consider having a web-page where you only list former tenants and what they loved about the place. “I lived there in 1973. Gosh those were some great days at Piney Apartments!”
- Meet the staff: Do you have a lawn company or maintenance man? Show them on the site. Not only does it give them a boost, it tells the potential tenant that this complex is a place where the staff is valued. That message will translate to the potential tenant as this is a place that will take care of me.
- Talk to Realtors. Realtors who do relocations might be a good source of referrals.
- Use Google Adwords. With Adwords, you pay for clicks, not exposure. That means that your apartment community or resort gets exposure even if you don’t pay.
- Use lots of noun-based copy. Search engines can only find your information through words, and adjectives are not as important as nouns. So use lots of words and descriptions for your apartments. Don’t use lots of descriptive words. Instead, use facts, such as size, color and amenities. For instance, you would say “oleander-lined walks” rather than “pretty” walks, or you might say “brick-lined paths” rather than just nice landscaping. This might sound extreme, but you can even mention paint colors, flower beds and the like. Read our tips on Search Engine Basics for ideas.
- Have faith! While the economy is in an awful spot, everyone’s in this mess so just keep at it and you just might even build up a waiting list.
- Know your architecture: At some point, someone designed your apartment buildings with a vision, however modest. Make sure you know that. For instance, if it is a complex built in 1962 by a local architect or developer or contractor, mention that on the site. People have confidence in other people; you are trying to differentiate yourself and every tidbit of information helps.
- What are the benefits? Find benefits where you don’t think there are benefits: If you have shaded parking, that’s a benefit. If you have a pool, make sure that it is an”intimate” pool or a “jungle” pool or a pool with “dozens of deck chairs and card tables where residents play chess every Tuesday.”
- Take advantage of Social Media. You can spend a lot of time in social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, promoting your apartments. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not. But even a little bit of effort helps to get search engines like Google and Bing to find your name, and associate your apartment name with keywords.
- In the neighborhood: Don’t be afraid of old fashioned shoe leather. Yes, the web is powerful. But make sure you make yourself known to other nearby apartment communities and businesses that are near to your apartments. They will certainly be able to refer people if they know of someone.
- Post the rules but be flexible: When new tenants are hard to find, you need to keep the ones you have. Better to train an old tenant to be a good tenant than to have to find new ones. That being said, a person who finds your apartment over the web wants to know some of the expectations. For instance, are guests quiet at the pool after 9 p.m., or is there a Friday night pool party? How many parking spaces?
- Make sure your site is running properly. Look at your site on different computers and browsers. Does it load quickly? Do you have analytic software installed so you know where your traffic originates and what they are looking for? Do you have all the pages up that you need?
Top Apartment Feature and Amenity Search Items
Monday, August 31st, 2009I found this list posted by Primemedia on LinkedIn today and thought that this could be useful.
The apartment features and community amenities consumers searched most often for on ApartmentGuide.com over the last six months include (in order):
1. Washer and Dryer In Unit
2. Pets (allowed)
3. Air Conditioning
4. Some Paid Utilities
5. Washer and Dryer Connections
6. Dishwasher
7. Balcony
8. Garage
9. Cable Ready
10. Furnished Available
11. Swimming Pool
12. Short Term Lease Available
13. Fitness Center
14. Gated Access
15. Oversized Closet
Good luck and good renting.
Price, Amenities, Property Condition, and Social Condition
Sunday, August 30th, 2009The responsibility of renting a property is critical, but simply generating traffic and having a trained sales staff will not rent units. We are operators in a commodity market. By definition, this implies that as owners and managers we have to provide some basic underlying conditions to rent.
First on the list, as operators we gain nothing by trying to sharply under price the market and if we over price the market, we will not rent. This is a delicate item because if we price too low we lose money and if we price too high we will not rent at all. Further, this means we have to be competitive on concessions as well as basic price. With all this in place, if as owners and operators, we can establish a position of greater value we will have a sustainable edge in the market.
Next, our property must be priced to compete with properties on amenities. Visits and calls are generally determined by bedrooms, bathrooms, and amenities. Pricing to fit against the competition in this area is critical.
A clean well maintained property is another basic point. Property management processes and procedures that assure this are critical to renting units. As always, customer service wins the day.
Finally, social condition will kill renting and can be a great rent enabler. If resident prospects see a clean area, late model vehicles, quiet and low key resident interactions, etc. Residents and resident prospects need to feel safe in the neighborhood. The probability begin increasing quickly that they will choose your community as their new home if safe, clean, and friendly conditions.
Blake Ratcliff – The apartment marketing guy
More info on Hispanic Marketing Focus
Monday, August 24th, 2009We’ve hit many times the fact that Hispanics are the fastest growing resident demographic. However, did you know that Hispanic Internet usage is growing 50% faster than the general market? Do you have a strategy for this market area?
If not, keep in mind that most Hispanic searches are in English. The fact is Hispanic marketing in fact any demographic marketing focus is a cultural item. For example are you aware that a Hispanic household is 3.5X more likely to respond to a direct mail item than a non-Hispanic Household. This is particularly important when you understand that they only receive 10% of the mail other households receive.
About 55% of Hispanics respond well to ads in Spanish. Also, Radio and television is generally the best mode of advertising based on selling results.
When you considers Hispanics are $860 billion dollar market segment, ignoring this segment is at your own risk. This will be an even greater fact as the segment is expected to grow to over $1 trillion by early in the coming decade.
Good sources for this post were:
Online Rental Application vs. PDF – Revisited
Friday, August 21st, 2009Submitting a rental application is a HUGE step for both the potential renter and property manager alike. Once the potential residents have submitted a rental application, they have made a conscious buying decision. It is a fact -phone leads, email leads, and walk-ins are great, but completed rental applications are golden. It’s a wonder then, why so many multi-family properties still use only paper and PDF applications when it comes to leasing their apartments! In the age of technology, it has been proven time and time again that electronic submissions are faster, easier, and more organized than a long paper trail.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “I have a PDF application that potential renters can print, fill out, and bring back or fax it to me; what’s the difference?”
The difference is huge!
First, ask yourself, “How many of your PDF rental applications have you received from your website and internet ads in the last 12 months? 1, 2, 5?”
PDF applications don’t work because they are essentially the same as a paper application that is picked up at the office. In fact, in most cases it is the exact same paper application, just uploaded to the Internet to be printed. Applicants still have to fill it out and bring it to you or fax it. We’ve learned that the less running around people have to do, and the more convenient their application process is, the more likely they will be to rent with your property. Convenience is key!
We personally own ten multi-unit apartment properties in the Southeast. Our properties, receive an average of 2-5 new rental applications a week from their websites and internet ads! One of our properties had 29 sight-unseen leases last year!
A Seismic Demographic Shift in Housing
Sunday, August 16th, 2009A Demographic Housing Seismic Shift
At apartmentmarketingsolutions.com, we’ve identified some key areas where properties can differentiate themselves. One of the least exploited is ethnic differentiation. Over the next decade this is an even more significant fact as more than 72% of new households will be minority according to the 2009 Joint Housing Study. This implies a seismic shift in the proportion rental homes for the nation. For the first time since records have begun U.S. homeownership is on track to move below the historic average of 62% toward a low 50% range (and this does not consider impact of the housing crisis driven recession on homeowner trends).
Since minorities have lower incomes and in general rent at a greater rate than whites. In fact, if we break this down further, U.S. census data shows that blacks rent at a greater than 50% rate compared to home ownership. This jumps to more than 60% for the Hispanic Latino population.
Where does this lead? It turns out that of new households, Hispanic Latinos are 36% (50% of the 72%) of the total. If we extrapolate from this point we know that of total household figures:
If this trend holds, homeownership will fall below 50% over the next decade or two a fact no study has explicitly recognized. Should this trend hold the course, besides indicating drastically reduced single family household growth there will be a equally large rise in multifamily housing requirements. Further, management companies that do not address winning larger portions of this demographic will struggle to maintain occupancy. Apartmentmarketingsolutions.com sees Spanish leasing and marketing tools as a critical step to address this trend. Further, apartmentmarketingsolutions.com believes that beyond the steps taken that research understanding these trends are key competitive differentiators.
Free Tips to Increase Traffic from Potential Renters
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009Leads and leases are the name of the game for multifamily owners, managers, and leasing agents. Good advice on specific ways to WIN WIN WIN in the leasing game is rare.
You need new apartment residents. As important, they need the homes you can offer them.
I am offering FREE help unraveling the renting puzzle in the Internet Age. Simply fill in your email address in the box just below:
The Name of the Game – Traffic and Closed Leases
Thursday, July 30th, 2009More traffic… more qualified traffic… better closing techniques are the name of the game for owners and managers.
However, achieving this is a complex task. A significant key is recognizing that the American demographic is a changing thing. Did you know that 72% of new tenants for the next 10 years are expected to be minorities and that half of these will be Hispanic/Latino? Also, did you realize that this year American schools will graduate the largest class in history? Or, what about the fact that seniors as a part of population will grow disportionately over the next 10 years.
What about economics? How does the loss of wealth from the recession impact you? Or, how will increased savings impact renting?
As owners and manager, studying our markets is critical. This implies studying our local market and market trends. This means understanding global trends. Finally, this implies coming up with techniques to capitalize on these factors once understood and quantified.
Blake Ratcliff – CEO of Pallaton Properties
Why 60% of Hispanics Rent
Thursday, July 30th, 2009The Hispanic community in the United States has an incredible $800 billion worth of buying power, even in today’s economy, proving to be an incredibly lucrative investment for the multi-family units willing to tailor their marketing approach in order to meet the needs of the Hispanic renter community. Home ownership proves to be incredibly challenging among the Hispanic community, with lower average education levels, large family units, the general lack of Social Security Numbers for applications and background/credit checks, and a relatively lower average age of individual households deterring most from being able to possess their own homes.
The majority of the Hispanic community is of foreign birth, opting to make their way to the United States by way of major cities such as New York, Miami, and San Francisco. These densely concentrated metropolitan areas are generally home to few owners, and more renters, thus making home rental among the Hispanic population a popular option. The road to home ownership is often lengthy and bureaucratic—60% of United States Hispanic residents opt to rent their homes, and take pride in doing so. Studies show that Hispanics take pride in paying their rent on time and are often more eager to keep a clean living space and uphold tenant/landlord requirements within their homes. Because of this, many multi-family complexes are reaching out to the Hispanic community and adapting the general structure of their renting process and marketing approach to accommodate these eager renters’ needs. In a world where identity theft is happening all around us, a vast number of apartment applications no longer require Social Security Numbers, and many complexes are making concessions for large families. Apartment marketing efforts targeting the Hispanic market can bring you many qualified and eager renters.
At Occupancy100, we employ Spanish-speaking staff, ready and able to help you market your apartment to these thriving populations by translating and tailoring advertisements to reach your Hispanic target market. By talking to one of our staff members we can help you to customize your approach in order to gain this lucrative and profitable tenant population.
We have even created a Spanish/English Online Rental Application!
