Finding better qualified residents is essential to the success of your multi-unit property. Increasing apartment occupancy can be done through two main methods:
The first method for finding good, qualified residents is to heavily advertise your apartment so that you capture as many potential residents as possible, and then weed out the many unqualified rental applicants. This method of resident acquisition brings you a plethora of potential residents but heavy advertising is expensive.
The second method for finding great qualified renters is to only advertise to renter prospects who are more likely to qualify. Acquiring renter traffic though this method of resident ...
Apartment Marketing Solutions
Difficult Economic Times Have Affected the Apartment Industry
With difficult economic times... Unemployment is rising... Delinquencies dog revenue... more and more potential renters are doubling up... Traffic is slow... Occupancy is edging downward...
Apartment Communities need more resident prospects:
Calls - with so many renters doubling up we can't afford not to generate as many as possible,
Visits - statistics show that results are much stronger from online contacts if responded to within the first hour,
Emails - increasingly resident leads do not want to talk on the phone or otherwise interact. Some properties we serve have closed over 10% of their leases without a ...
Occupancy100 Blog
Related posts:New Occupancy100 Video
After Hours Leasing Support
This is a PAY per RESULT Apartment Marketing Solution.
We have found that potential residents fill out applications after work once they have gotten home. This means that rental applications are submitted after your leasing office has probably closed. Our research suggests that applications that are responded to within the hour lease more than 50% of the time. Because of this we have professional leasing agents at our central office between the hours of 8am to 2am which ensures that more than 90% of all applications are responded to within an hour. Even if your leasing office is not open, you ...
Resident Lead Generation
This is a PAY per RESULT apartment marketing solution.
Our Resident Lead Generation solution generates 2-3 daily new calls. How do we do this? We have identified some of the Internets leading web presence companies. We place weekly updated ads of every floor plan on each of these companies' websites. Craigslist, Whitepages, Google Maps, Yahoo Local, etc...
Customer Feedback - Beckie Foust
"Occupancy100 generates 1-2 qualified leads per day"
"Currently Occupancy100 generates 1-2 qualified leads per day, and 3-4 new applications a week. We love it. Most of our new tenants have come from occupancy100s services."
Beckie Foust Property Manager - ...
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Email: sales@occupancy100.com or support@occupancy100.com
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Today, Urbane Lab posted an insightful blog about Craigslist posting. Actually, the ideas can apply to much of our marketing effort in the apartment industry. Using the same Craigslist ad format is likely to become stale and ineffective. As apartment marketers we should have a stable of ads. Perhaps our goals should not be to earn the lease on every ad. Also, shouldn’t a sub goal be to capture contact information from every viewing prospect.
I recommend viewing Urbane’s post at Multifamily Insiders. You will find some real gems you can put to use at your property.
You will find this article different because of the focus on what the process is in the prospect’s head while working with the Internet during the apartment search. I’d recommend checking out the UrbaneLab for some good ideas regarding how to further decipher this process. Their address is:
Today I would like to evaluate the use of 7 techniques that will set up an enjoyable work environment for your staff and greatly impact your leasing success. These 7 techniques are meant to help you give prospective tenant that great first impression that means so much in $$$.
Curb Appeal – When a prospective resident drives by your property, they have to say WOW! Some of the most economic ways of making that happen are: Keeping the property clean, frequent upkeep of the landscape, and every 1-3 years (depending on need) power-washing the exterior of your apartment and leasing office. Not only will this attract prospective residents, it will help with resident retention, and will make it more enjoyable place of work for your staff.
Lighting – The type of light and the placement of light fixtures is important both inside your leasing office and throughout your property.
First, lets address the issue of lighting outside. It is important that your property have lighting throughout for various reasons, but the two most important ones are safety and careful lighting of your apartment’s curb side sign (if you dont have one, you should) will add aesthetic value to your apartment at night.
Lighting fixture should be placed higher than eye level, because low lamp like fixtures can shine direct light into people’s eyes. There are several types of light, but the best and most calming light is natural light (because of this, sky lights are great). The human body natural physiological response to light is general awareness and the general psychological response is happiness. The physiological excitation elicits a psychological response of happiness. The best way to explain this is: What is a nice day? Sunny and warm or dark and gloomy? When it is a nice day outside, people tend to be more active and typically enjoy themselves more.
Color – Colors are a second important component of the environment. Dark colors and red (fire-like) colors are the worst choice. You will want to have light pastel colors that promote calm and secure feelings. Careful color selections can make prospective residents feel happy right when they walk in your door, and will keep your staff happier for a longer period of time. Read more about the psychological response to colors.
Smell – This should be fairly self explanatory, but I have been in dozens of apartment offices that are musty! If your office does not smell good there is a big problem. The physiological response to bad musty smells is to leave the area! When you smell something old, musty, bad, etc, the sensory nerves in your brain trigger a “get out of here” or “dont eat this” response. So please, find a happy, soothing fragrance, it will do wonders for your prospective resident’s first impression, not to mention your staff will enjoy it as well.
Sound – Soothing sounds such as running water have evolutionarily become a source of happy thoughts for humans. When I was an undergraduate, I participated in a study (as in I was a test subject) where we were asked to sit in a waiting room for 30 minutes before we were asked random questions about our week and our day. There were two test groups. One was placed in a “waiting” room with sounds, such as flowing water (like from a fountain) and light music. The second test group sat in the same empty “waiting” room without the soothing sounds. Six-hundred students and faculty participated in this study (300 in each scenario). As you may have guessed, people waiting in the room with soothing sounds, answered the questions positively 80% of the time, while people sitting in the room without the sound, answered questions positively only 48% of the time. SO, hopefully if you follow this logic, your staff and prospective tenants will respond positively 80% of the time.
Comfortable Seating – Ok, this is a big deal especially when you want to have a prospective resident fill out an application or a lease. Sitting comfortably elicits a response from the parasympathetic system (or in other words, a calming effect). It is also smart to have snacks near by, because when the parasympathetic system is stimulated, a secondary response is slight hunger (so a bowl of different types of candy works quite well).
A Mirror – This tip came from one of my neighbors. For over 25 years he has been a customer service consultant for several companies including Ford, and GMC. Having a full wall sized mirror behind your front desk at your leasing office will do many great things. First, it will make your office look much bigger than it actually is (this is great for properties with small leasing offices), this also positively affects your prospective resident’s first impression of the property because they wont feel as cramped in a small office as they usually would. Secondly, having a full wall sized mirror will help you deal with angry residents. Putting a large (full wall) mirror behind the customer service desk will drastically reduce angry resident outbursts. The reason it works: People do not like watching themselves be angry (just like you dont like to watch them get angry), it is a subconscious psychological reflex to seeing their angry selves staring back. Simple, but effective.
We have been working hard to create as many helpful videos for you to enjoy as possible. Here is a video that explains our apartment marketing solutions, and offers a great overview on Tenant Lead Generation, and the Online Rental Application.
Is your sign a differentiator for your apartment property? Are you showing photos and discussing the items that set you apart?
I know this is an area we’ve often failed to do as well as we should. If you would like more good insights to this visit Lisa Trosien’s Apartment Marketing Blog. She offers some great specific insights we can all take advantage of on this subject area.
For communities we serve, convenience is a differentiator. Our online application and other services make it easier for resident prospects to sign up and the results are dramatic. In one market, having a phone number only produces 20% of the total results that having a phone number and an online application will produce.
I’ve written about this before, but feel this is a drum that can’t be beaten to often. As apartment operators providing a full set of information to resident prospects is a leasing prerequisite. The main bullets on the subject are:
Detailed community information such including directions to your property, local shopping, services, entertainment, government facilities, schools, utilities, cable television, major employers, and points of interest. The more the prospect can be positioned to decide this is the home for them the better.
Detailed apartment community information including amenities in the unit, pools, laundry, fitness facilities, playgrounds, picnic areas, walking trails, tennis courts, etc.
Information about the staff and attitude toward residents. The extent they can begin to develop a sense of relationship can make a major difference in their decision to make your apartment homes their home.
Information about pricing, operating hours, and to cost benefits your apartment community may have over competitors can provide the competitive edge your need to lease an apartment unit.
Finally, make it convenient and nonthreatening to make a buy decision. Provide alternatives for connection. The contact should allow the prospect to contact the community or if they are inclined, allow them to complete a full billable application. Completed correctly, we’ve seen communities close 10% or more of their leases based on this approach.
Most multifamily resident prospects today come from the Internet. While we know this, what is the flow from interest to Internet search that leads a renting lead to contact your apartment complex and eventually rent?
In General
First, we can’t ignore how the prospect ends up in front of their computer searching for a new apartment home. This can and often does pay a large role in how the resident prospect finds your apartment community or ends up at your competitor. And, once they become a lead, we should consider how we assure that if they are a qualified tenant that we believe is attractive to our community that they sign our apartment lease. Or alternately, if our multifamily competitor wins the first look, how do we take advantage of the mistakes most will ultimately make, how do we position to become their replacement and the ultimate winner of this prospects signed lease?
Before the Internet Search Begins
Prior to the resident prospect beginning their apartment search, what is happening to this consumer that we hope will eventually rent our apartment? They are receiving many inputs that effect the choice that will ultimately affect their decision including:
Distance from work
Convenience to services and shopping
Access to friends
Minimum features, amenities, floor plan
Recommendations from friends
Community quality and area quality
The Well Prepared Apartment Community – Before the Internet Search Begins
The well prepared multifamily community is addressing the issues prior to the tenant prospect taking the first apartment search key stroke. How does an apartment community prepare?
The key issues include:
Know who your prospects are. Identify the kinds of jobs they will have their probable age. Determine broadly sets of interests they will have.
Based on interests, where do they work? Where do they play? Where do they eat? How do they relax? What do they drive?
Based on where they spend their time, how do you put your apartment community in front of them in those environments? Should you be a sponsor on a local softball league? Are you active in the religious community and should you be? Have you established referral programs with the right employers?
Have you set up partnerships with garages, dealerships, etc.
Do you have partnerships with entertainment and dining to make your community more attractive through a coupon plan or discount plan that is mutually beneficial?
Do you have right signage disbursed around the community? Can you establish more signage?
If these are in place, your community is significantly better positioned to be recognized in advance and potential to win the lease afterwards.
On the Internet
Once the prospective renter takes the first key strokes, what happens? You can be certain that there is little likelihood that they type in your website address. Many people aren’t even firmly aware of URLs as they have become entirely dependent on search engines and bookmarks to find an refind sites that are of interest. This means that if you aren’t well positioned on the Internet your access to potential renters will be sharply limited.
However, if you can position your community to appear first on search you have 2.5X the opportunity to gain the prospect’s attention than if you are second on the list and 3X than if you are third on the list. After that, one can argue you gain little even being on the page. Gaining this kind of position requires a combination of web posting, pay per click, and Internet Listing Service (ILS) provider support. In all likelihood, the three together are too expensive and you will have to make choices. But hey! That is ok because if you are before enough searching renters, your property will have plenty of prospects.
Most apartment communities know that Internet presence is enough, but few understand how damaging having to share space with other communities can be. Unfortunately, this is a trend that shows no sign of falling… All an apartment property can do is choose the best compromise of solutions.
What You Can Count On
Apartment Finder, Apartments.com, Rent.com, My New Space are paying for presence and have traffic and content enough to rank well. Choosing these services (with some attention to which does the best in your area) is effective. This may be enough to satisfy the needs of your apartment complex.
What You Can Do
If the third party sources are not enough, then you have to invest in creating a strong web page. By invest, I don’t mean pay thousands of dollars. I mean choose a low cost site builder, and develop the content to attract prospects. Then over time, you can develop a competitive edge that will put you at the top of the search list for a solid number of searches that the ILS will be unable to deliver on. How do you do this?
1) Set up a page using Wordpress, Typepad, or similar services. The cost is only a few dollars per month (less than $20).
2) Include lots of content:
Floor plans,
Amenities,
Rates,
Neighborhood descriptions,
Directions,
Shopping destinations,
Entertainment,
Government services,
Lists of annual activities,
Schools and school contacts,
3) The content needs to be tailored to use the search term you would expect consumers to use to find your apartment complex.
4) Finally, if the property wants to really get the most from the site, they should add weekly “blog” updates to apartment activities, events, etc. This is likely beyond what most property managers or property management staffs will or can undertake.
With these items in place, your community stands a good chance of performing better than most of the local competition attracting resident prospect calls, visits, emails, applications, and finally leases.
In the course of our daily grind, we can easily become distracted by so many things… We need to collect rent. We need to have tenant files correct. We need to complete the repairs and maintenance. Unfortunately, leasing requires time every day.
Here at www.apartmentmarketingsolutions.com we’ve learned the hardway. Leasing requires careful attention everyday. We need to identify our apartment competition. Compare them on the basis of features, size, convenience, service, and other items that residents will consider. We must understand what other multifamily portfolio concessions look like. We have to ensure we compete on price for the same apartment unit features. And, that is a beginning.
We have to ensure our leasing collateral is accurate and ready to go. We must understand how to present our multifamily property characteristics. And, we have to be armed to successfully sell them as resident prospects call or visit our property.
Next, and a new complexity in today’s apartment leasing world, we have to a great website that tells about the community, the property, apartment amenities, and apartment features. The more we provide the better our opportunity to lease.
This is all great, but in my estimation these points are fundamental. The real key to successful leasing is careful attention each day to driving and closing traffic. As operators, we have a responsibility to find out what is going on in the conversations, where they fail, where they succeed, and so on. Single minded focus on all elements of earning a resident prospect and improving the opportunity to close with the prospect on a new apartment lease.
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.
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?
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.