CLASS Leasing: When It Comes To Marketing, Persistence Is Key

One of the most advantageous ways to increase the amount of traffic being driven to a property is to start at home: auditing the resident files. By figuring out where current residents work, a leasing specialist can begin targeting these business venues, because a leg up is already provided by having the name of an employee at the respective business. The first plan of action should be to make certain that all residents are made aware constantly of the resident referral offered by the community via letter, or some other form of material that can be delivered directly to each resident. Then, there should be multiple attempts made to each targeted business, because it may take many "No's" before a leasing agent is able to gain access to a business to drop materials off. It takes persistence to be able to get-by HR departments, but the potential benefits of driving more traffic to the property are endless.

Here is a direct example of how one of our leasing specialist's, Seth, was able to gain access to three major employers through the use of persistence and continuous face time with a community's residents.

"While on site in Indianapolis I was able to gain access to three major companies: Red & Gold which employs 930, Sallie Mae which employs 1,700, and Nestle which employs 400.
Although it took me a good month to do, it was well worth it. I started out by going through all 175 resident files. Next, I made spread sheet which consisted of the resident’s name, apt #, work information. This allowed me to see where everyone works, and it gave me an idea of where most of our traffic was coming from. I preceded to hand write all of the residents a letter reminding them of our great resident referral program, and then hand delivered each of them.
The next big step was outreach. I went to each Company with a pizza, flyers, pens, and merchant referral cards at least 3 times or more. I was always turned away at the gate by security or some type of personnel. So, I gave all the information to the security personnel, smiled and said, “enjoy the pizza and have a great day!” This made for a great story to tell the employees when they came in to take a tour of the property. I would just say, “I was at nestle today, and that security guard sure does love his job.” This opened the door for conversation with the prospect and allowed me to build a good rapport.
Finally, I made personalized flyers for all three companies and hand delivered them to one resident from each company. Each of the residents took them to their HR departments to see if they could help. While doing this and staying persistent I was able to get flyers and information into all three companies, which will be beneficial for the property in the future."

Well done Seth!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Student Housing And Internet

This is a great article from Multifamily Insiders about the importance of internet connection and students when it comes to housing communities. College age individuals spend a mass majority of their time on the internet studying for classes, or more so, searching on Facebook. In addition most college students now have never had to be exposed to the ancient dial-up internet and are spoiled by today's constant advancement in technology, including blazing internet speeds. Students in college properties are nowadays expecting to not only have internet included in the rent, but are expecting the internet connection to be easily accessible and the quickest speed available. Owner and managers of student housing should definitely take this into account, but students are going to live where the most conveniences are at their disposal.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Oscar Night

In researching this morning determining what to blog about, I came across a great idea on Residentevents.com that is very fitting with this weekend approaching. The Oscars are this upcoming Sunday night and the article I read was about hosting an "Oscar Night" in an apartment community clubhouse for the residents. In actuality this night could be held for any movie award event, in that the office staff could decorate the clubhouse in award show fashion with fancy lights, red carpet, knock-off awards, etc. The "Oscar Night" could be held on the night prior to the real award show and any movie that is up for best picture could be shown for entertainment. In addition, there could be games played involving all of the movies up for nominations to test the residents' movie knowledge and of course, popcorn could be served as the meal for the evening. This is just another way for a community to show that they care about their residents and most of all, another opportunity for current residents to bring friends to come see how great their community is.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Must Read About Craigslist

It appears that there could be some drastic changes to the most popular classified ads posting site in the very near future. Craigslist is a great venue for apartment advertising in all cities, regardless of the popularity, because it is completely free and any response or feedback received makes the time spent posting worthwhile. Currently, Craigslist's main source of revenue comes from the job posting venue of the website and there are some major metro areas that are required to pay-per-post due to the high volume of postings per day. With the backlash that Craigslist came under last year, there are many changes that have already been made, with future changes, including pay-per-post, possibly occurring very soon. Chris Wood from Multifamily Executive outlines these changes, as well as what to do to prepare for them in order to still receive success from this popular site.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Leasing Apartments To Senior Citizens

In the apartment industry each apartment community is typically designed with a certain clientele in mind. Based upon Fair Housing every leasing agent must lease to every qualified prospect, but there are certain properties that are solely eligible to very specific clientele: senior properties being a main one. Senior properties are eligible only to prospects above a required age range (usually 55 per seniorresource.com). Just as with any other apartment community, there are certain marketing and leasing strategies that must be used for a senior property to be successful. In addition, there are also very many misconceptions about senior properties, due in part to the belief that there are certain venues of marketing that do not capture the interest of senior citizens (i.e., internet). Multifamily Insiders and Rent Soda put together two excellent lists of not only tips for leasing to seniors, but also proven tips to marketing to seniors to drive-in traffic. The senior market is continuing to grow as more and more baby boomer babies are steering from the housing industry to the lower maintenance apartment industry.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Apartment Pride

I was just recently in Dallas this week for a start-up at a property and spent the latter part of the afternoon shopping a couple of apartment communities. For the sake of this blog and confidentiality, I will call the properties "property X" and "property Y."

Property X was a very luxurious property that had numerous amenities and was located in an up and coming part of the city. The surrounding area is a little rougher around the edges, but there is a great deal of construction being done to bring higher end shopping to the area to provide a hopeful facelift to the community. The leasing agent was very insightful about the property, but went out of their way to provide me with all of the negatives about the property and the area. I found this to be slightly awkward, because I had not even broached the topic about any concerns or objections I may have had. The tour was decent due in part to how nice the property itself and the interior of the apartments were, but there was no urgency at the closing to persuade me to lease an actual apartment. My overall experience at Property X was what I would typically expect at an everyday apartment community in any city.

Property Y was a much more unpleasureable experience than my time at Property X was. First off, Property Y was hands down the nicest community I have ever seen before. This property had all of the bells and whistles that you could ask for in a community and was the epitome of the word "luxury." The clubhouse was nothing short of a mansion and had me sold on the community the second I walked through the doors. About the same time I walked through the doors is also the last time that I was sold on this property, because it was all downhill from that point forward due in full part to the leasing agent I was "helped" by. I could probably write multiple pages about my experience with this individual, but I will briefly summarize things that stood out: I was not greeted by this person when I walked through the door; the individual neither introduced themselves, nor did they even get up from their desk; I was given the prices and specials for every floor plan, before I was even asked what I was looking for; the individual gathered my name and phone number, but did not ask me anything about what I wanted; this person was working at the Taj Mahal of apartment communities, but did not have one bit of excitement about working at this property; I asked about viewing an apartment and was instead shown a 3D model of what an apartment typically looks like; I had to ask again to see an actual apartment and was basically given a sigh and rushed through a mediocre tour of all of the amazing amenities this community offered; I showed the model apartment to myself with no details pointed out by the leasing agent about this luxurious apartment; at the end of the tour, I was given a business card and told to call if I decided I wanted to get an apartment. From these details, it should come as no surprise that the property is about half-full, because if I was in fact a prospect, I probably would not have leased at this community solely due to my experience with the leasing agent.

My point in analyzing both of these experiences is to show how big of a role a leasing agent can play in the success of an apartment community. More so with Property Y, this individual is working at an amazing community that will absolutely sell itself, but if what I experienced is how all of their tours are given, this person is probably single-handedly dampering the property's possibility of success. Having pride in what an individual is selling as a leasing professional is one of the most important things to display to a potential resident. The leasing agent is a representation of the property and if a bad vibe is felt by a prospect, much as I did with Property Y, then people are naturally not going to want to live at that community. With that being said think about this everytime you are showing an apartment to a prospect and strive to have a aura of positivity and pride about your community. It will make a huge impact on the success of the community.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: 2011 Apartment Industry

There are many economists that are already predicting the year 2011 to be a booming one for the apartment industry. With the economy beginning to slowly improve and the continuing uncertainty in the housing market, economists are predicting that the apartment industry will see major increases in occupancy and NOI. Only time can tell if these predictions will become reality, but after reading one such article in Multi-Housing News about the possibility of improvements in the indusry, it sounds like 2011 could be a promising year.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Top 10 Cities To Rent An Apartment

With the year 2010 coming to a close a little over a month ago, one can only guess what the year 2011 holds in store for the apartment industry. The categorization "apartment industry" is a very vague terminology and only begins to scratch the surface of the multiple layers that are involved with apartments. The most obvious, yet interesting, thing that first comes to mind when describing the apartment industry is the variation of markets from city to city across the country. Geographically, apartments will vary based upon the market of each particular city and accordingly, with the standard of living that comes with each region of the country. An apartment of identical size in New York will be much pricier than the same apartment in Alabama, all because of the location and standard of living of each area. With that being said Software Advice did a study in 2010 of the 50 most populous cities in the US and came up with the best places to live based upon several factors. After tabulations were completed it was determined that the top ten cities to rent an apartment in 2010 were as follows:

1. Chicago
2. Arlington, TX
3. Meza, AZ
4. Indianapolis
5. Phoenix
6. Jacksonville
7. Fresno, CA
8. Sacramento
9. Detroit
10. Tucson, AZ

Are any of these a surprise? Here is the complete list of the top 50.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Renting Versus Buying

Purchasing a home is typically the biggest financial investment that any individual will make in their lifetime. Due to the fact that the typical person cannot pay for a home in one single payment, the mortgage payment of the home lingers over the individual just as a renter's rent payment does. The biggest difference of course is that the homeowner is putting forth the payment towards their eventual full ownership of the home, while the renter is simply putting forth payments to the landlord with no final outcome of owning the residence. Many people look at renting as basically "throwing money away," because the payments are not being viewed as an investment since they are simply paying for each month's rent to another individual. Although, there are many things that go into purchasing a home that can be seen as negatives to a current renter that will keep some from ever purchasing a home (i.e., the financial commitment; lack of moving freedom; complacency with the neighborhood; the financial risk). New York Times has an interactive rent calculator that allows each person to plug in their own finances that will allow you to see where you stand in the renting versus buying world. In addition, there are actually certain cities, researched by My Cheap Apartments, where renting proves to be more beneficial than buying. In the end there really is no right or wrong answer when it comes to renting versus buying, because ultimately it depends on each unique individual and their comfort with their financial scenario.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Effective Follow-Up

It is often an ill-conceived misconception in all venues of business that follow-up is not an important aspect of making a sale. Not only is not following-up with a prospect a potential missed opportunity of a sale, but it just flat out does not make any sense to not do! A prospect that has visited your apartment and not leased for whatever reason, is by far the hottest lead that you can possibly have. This individual has come to your community, which immediately shows that something caught their eye in order for them to take the time to come see what the property looks like, so this obviously shows they are somewhat interested. By not following-up with these individuals, a leasing specialist is basically assuming that since the person did not lease, they must not be interested anymore. To me, this could not sound like more of a crazy thought, but I would be willing to bet that probably only 1 out of every 10 leasing specialists in everyday apartment communities performs effective follow-up with their prospects. Following-up with a prospect consists of more than just making a phone call to the individual to see if they are "still interested," or that you are just "checking-in" to see if they have made their decision. There are multiple levels to follow-up and it is something that needs to be done until the prospect informs you that they either will be leasing at your community, or worst case, that they have decided to lease elsewhere. With that being said I have posted three great articles from Multifamily Insiders, Ezinarticles and Allbusiness that outline some very efficient tips to reaping the benefits of effective follow-up.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Online Marketing

Marketing online is beginning to revolutionize the apartment industry and making many communities re-evaluate where exactly marketing dollars are being used. It is often very expensive for communities to be placed in printed apartment books and there may not necessarily be a positive trade-off of those same apartment books driving in good qualified traffic as potential renters. One obvious advantage of online marketing is that there are an endless amount of free websites that apartment communities can join. With there being no up-front costs with a majority of these sites, there is little to no overhead and any inquiries that come from these sites can be viewed as positive results. Online marketing serves the same purpose as printed material marketing, except that by being posted online, the amount of clientele that can potentially see your property's information has expanded exponentially. One could honestly spend an entire day researching websites to market apartment communities on and tips to get more traffic to a community's site and he/she would barely scratch the surface of the amount of material available online. Online marketing is constantly developing, but there are already many great sites out there that are very useful. Property Marketing Gurus put together a collaborative list of 10 things that one must do in order to establish a strong online presence for a community. Do as much research as possible and see what else you can find that's benefecial that is not on this list.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing