This Wallstreet Journal Article provides a valuable historical perspective on homeownership.  Further, I believe it demonstrates a very successful government move with the home mortgage right off that has now moved too far.  Terms need to be adjusted to achieve the Post WWII homeownership percentage as a long term position.  Perhaps mortgages should be shorter and down payments a multiple of the current rate.  Nevertheless, the fact is rental housing should be much more predominant.

The United States is one of the largest (if not THE largest) cultural melting pots in the world—over 30 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish as their first language. English and Spanish are in a dead heat for the second most spoken language in the world (behind Chinese). It is a wonder, then, why many companies neglect to cater to Spanish speakers when advertising their businesses, especially through their websites. The multi-family housing industry could especially use Spanish versions of their websites, particularly since a high number of renters are, in fact, Hispanic, as previously discussed in a related blog.

Occupancy100 realizes the necessity of accommodating the Spanish speaking renters of the United States. We staff Spanish translators who are able to help convert English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English web text for sites, applications, and advertisements to help meet the needs of all of our potential and current renters!

Many  apartment complexes do not even have a website.  Those who do often offer information that is property specific only – floor plans, amenities, rates, directions, management information, photos, etc.  While consumers are certainly interested, consumer often rent based on information.

Some good ways to increase the punch of your website is to include information about the neighborhood your property is part of.  Some good ideas include:

• Local Businesses
• Schools
• Government facilities
• Entertainment
• Points of Interest
• Restaurants
• Shopping
• Community Information

Also, online contact info, online application, online maintenance, and other services making your property the convenient choice can be the difference between receiving a call, a visit, a lease, or not.

Good luck leasing!

These days, employment can be hard to come by for some—renters and properties, alike. Employee turnover in the outside workforce affects the ability for property owners to lease their apartments, and at the same time, employee turnover within the leasing office itself affects the ability to lease apartments, as well.

Unemployment in the United States is at a record high, with 9.7% of the workforce without jobs. Unfortunately, leasing an apartment often requires proof of employment (generally the most recent two pay stubs) as well as a credit check. Without these, many people find themselves unable to lease. Unfortunately, if you have to nowhere to hang your hat, it’s often very difficult to find a job—thus a vicious cycle ensues.

Leasing offices are not immune to high employee turnover. The multi-family industry is often stressful and comes with its own set of unique responsibilities that can be difficult to adhere to for many. Unfortunately, a high employee turnover rate can hurt the image of the particular property which in turn affects leasing. Potential renters are often put off by the inability to recognize those they trust with their money and their homes. The leasing industry is often very personalized, with most property managers and leasing associates knowing many, if not all, of their tenants individually.

Proper training and effective communication strategies are key elements in retaining employees and decreasing turnover (and thus, gaining occupancy)! The lack of these two approaches is what often forces employees out of their jobs due to dissatisfaction. Learning to effectively implement an open door communication policy as well as proper and thorough job instruction reduces the likelihood of employees leaving their jobs. Employee retention shows your tenants how satisfied they are with their jobs and sheds a fantastic light on the property as a whole…Learn more about preventing employee turnover…

A few sites I like that you may want to look at include:

• www.nmhc.org (The National Multihousing Council)
• http://www.trumpuniversity.com/blog/index.cfm (Trump University Blog)
• http://www.multifamilyinsiders.com/home/index.php (Multifamily Insiders Blog)
  
• http://www.naahq.org/pages/welcome.aspx (National Apartment Association)
• http://www.census.gov (Census Bureau)
• http://www.american-apartment-owners-association.org/ (American Apartment Owers Association)

In our industry, we easily become tied up in maintenance issues, finance issues, collections issues and so forth.  However, we have to keep in mind that our tenants are after convenience.  More than anything else, this is why the Internet is such a significant part of resident prospect searches for apartments.  Whether you refer to a resident as a tenant, renter, neighbor, at the root, they are all consumers.  And for consumers, convenience is a big part of value.

How can managers deliver convenience?  The answers are many but a few are:

1. Provide great community information on your apartment marketing site.
2. Offer late hours at least some of the time to support prospects working hours.
3. Offer flexible reporting for maintnenance calls.
4. Accept bill payment via a variety of means.
5. Forward applications to managers around the clock so prospects can get a quick call back.
6. Offer an online application and lease so prospects can rent without visiting.
7. Provide lots of ways to reach real live support for each property – email, phone, cell, online contact forms.

These kinds of steps are powerful means to improve results for our properties and improve customer service.

A Submarkets’ Buying Habits – The single most important money saving and lease producing practice.

I am still astonished to find that multi-unit properties do not collect market information from each and every lead. This is what I mean:

Say an apartment property manager is responsible for advertising (which is usually the case). This property manager even with training starts advertising in the most common places.

• Newspapers
• Apartmentfinder.com
• Rent.com
• Local Magazines
• Craigslist
• etc.

This is a good start as naturally they will start receiving leads from each of these ad sources. GREAT!…

The big problem is many apartment managers stop here. They focus on the normal common places for advertising and get mediocre results at best, but here is where they can make the most difference by asking a six word question.

“Where did you hear about us?”

This question is empty however if the data collected from it is not quantified and analyzed. This data will allow you to track how many leads are coming from your ads, but are these leads going to leases? What if you are spending hundreds of dollars a month on something that is producing no leases?! Surprisingly, most property managers spend hundreds of dollars on ads that produce lots of leads but few leases.

One of my favorite examples of this is:

At a property in Fayetteville NC, the previous apartment manager poured hundreds of dollars into newspaper ads as they knew from experience that the newspaper ads created the most leads. Turns out, only 1/5 leads could even qualify (after background and credit check), and only 1/5 of each lead converted to a lease. That means that out of 100 leads, only 20 qualified  and out of those 20 only 4 converted to leases. At this point in time, they were struggling at only 70% occupancy.

Today after much improvement, and eliminating costly low ROI ads they are holding steady at comfortable 92% occupancy with 96% pre-leased.

Here comes the second phase, all you have to do is add a single question to your lease.

“Where did you hear about us?”

If you can get your apartment manager to carefully collect and quantify these two valuable pieces of information, you will be on your way to eliminating costly ads that produce little end results.

The final piece to this equation is to get rid of low ROI ads, and invest the money you saved in new creative ads. I encourage all of you to invest your time in new ad sources such as the internet, social networking sites, free internet listing sites, etc.

Our apartment marketing solution strategies incorporate this into every single tenant lead and online rental application that is received.  Good Luck!

I hope that this is helpful,

Sergio Navarrete

Apartment Marketing