The Solution to Vacancies

CLASS Leasing: Marketing Trends For 2012

2011-09-09T11:39:00.001-04:00

With the beginning of a new year yet again quickly upon us, it is time to start gearing towards the mindset of how 2012 will be different than 2011. How will the apartment industry be different? What marketing will come to fruition as the front-runner in success and what marketing will take to the back burner? These are questions that can only answered a year from now, but here is a great article put together by Jasmine Brooks in Multifamily Insiders that outlines some areas of marketing everyone should be prepared to take advantage of in 2012:

“Hey there, MFI family!

I’ve been thinking about marketing trends that our industry should take advantage of in 2012. Here’s my list. Please share yours!

1. Video tours – Ever consider filming a prospect tour? When you follow-up with the prospect, be sure to send the video also. You will surely give them the most memorable tour. (Be sure to get permission first!)

2. Community marketing video – I’m not talking about the kind of video that apartment advertisers put together for you. Get creative and put together your own video! It doesn’t take a huge budget to create a great video. All you need is a flipcam and iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. (Shout out to the Apple users!)

3. QR Codes – These babies are gaining popularity and you have to know how to use them effectively. Quick reference codes can be used to “unlock” move-in specials or host community contests!

4. ‘+1‘ – Fellow Insider Brent Williams wrote Will the Google +1 Button Amount to Anything? I think it’s safe to say that it’s time for you to add a +1 share button to your communities’ websites! (P.S. If you don’t already Facebook and Twitter share buttons, you’d better get those in a hurry!)

5. Facebook Page – I’m happy to see that many apartment communities are already on Facebook. For those of you who aren’t there - what are you waiting on?! This is simply an extension of your community and if you think your residents aren’t on Facebook, you better think again. P.S. It’s FREE!

6. Twitter – Okay, okay. I realize that if you haven’t put your community on Facebook, you probably aren’t think about Twitter. But I have homework for you: Go to twitter.com, type ‘looking for apartments’ into the search box, press Enter. Come back and tell me what you see.

7. Text Customer Service - Now this is one trend that none of you can deny! Everyone, including your grandmother, is texting these days! It’s time we started communicating the same way! We have to speak our renters’ language! Think about setting up text leasing, text maintenance, text advertising and even ongoing texting for community events and/or courtesy weather updates.

8. Handwritten Thank You Notes – Yep, I realize this is the exact opposite of #7; however, this is a great way to make a lasting impression in a world where everything has gone digital. It’s definitely more personal than e-mail. You can send anyone an e-mail but it takes time and thought to send a handwritten note.

9. Community Application – Better known as an app, you should definitely look into creating one that will allow your residents to pay rent, submit service requests and contact the leasing team right through their phone.

10. Mobile Websites – I just added this one so that I could have a list of 10 items. Your website should already be mobile-optimized by now!

11. Live Chat – Internet has bred a generation of people who need that instant gratification. They want what they want, and they want it now! Prospects want their questions answered now! Satisfy their needs by adding a live chat feature to your website!

Alrighty, that’s all I can think of for today. I will update as I come up with more ideas.

Thanks in advance for sharing!

Jasmine R. Brooks
Marketing & Social Media Specialist
TriBridge Residential
jasmineb@tbrs.com”

Great article Jasmine and I’m looking forward to seeing the success of all of these trends to come!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Quick Facebook Page Tip

2011-09-08T14:33:00.002-04:00

Now that you have created a Facebook page for your apartment community (do so now if you haven't!), the easy part is now complete. The hard part begins now that you have to remain adamant in staying actively involved on the page, or else your Facebook page will become obsolete.

A new twist that you can add to your property page is making a unique title. As opposed to simply titling your page "XYZ Apartments," use the ability to create a title as an opportunity to right away to sell your community. If you're an apartment community that has received accolades as being the best up and coming property in the city, title your page as "(Your Specific City)'s Newest Must-See Apartments." Also, if you are an apartment community that has received an award for being the best of the best, or have a catchy slogan that individuals would associate with your community, then use this as your Facebook page title.

The reason why it is not necessarily a must have to use the property name as your title, unless of course you are trying to build web presence for a community that does not have a community website, is that Facebook users are not necessarily going to search for your community by name. Facebook is a forum whereby people learn of smaller businesses through word of mouth, so once you begin to accumulate "likes" from your residents, their friends on Facebook will see the great material you are posting through the current residents' news feeds. As more and more people see your posts, they will then see that you are a unique page that has more to offer than a typical apartment communities page. You will automatically stand out with your unique title, so choose your wording wisely.

It is important to know that once your community page does reach 100 likes, then your page title is no longer able to be altered. Therefore, think of a creative title that you would want to have forever and can be associated with your property further down the line. If you are an apartment community that has fewer than 100 likes, what could you change your title to in order to distinguish your page?

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Separate Yourself From The Competition

2011-09-07T10:43:00.001-04:00

It is very rare for a prospective resident to call only one apartment community, schedule an appointment, visit that property and move-in after the visit without shopping any other communities. We are a price conscientious society in that every person, regardless of the item looking to be purchased, is going to take the time to insure that they are receiving the best deal available.

Therefore, with a prospect calling so many apartment communities, how do you separate yourself from the competition? The answer to this question may seem like a no brainer, but I guarantee you that if you were to call and shop 10 apartment communities right now, there may only be 1 or 2 max that actually do this on the phone…sell your community. This is not an answer that should come as a surprise, which is why it is always so shocking to hear when a leasing agent does not even provide any details about their community to a prospect on the phone! Without even a minimal amount of information provided about your community, as a prospect, why would I come visit your community? How are you different than the 9 other communities I have called?

With this being said all that is required is two simple things of a leasing agent:

1.Ask the prospect what they are looking for in their new home
2.Sell the features that your community has based upon what the prospect said they were looking for

This is a very straight forward approach and it really is as easy as it sounds to make your community stand out. What do you do if a prospect is looking for things you don’t have at your community? Don’t mention those! Talk about all the other great things you have to offer, because you don’t want any negative items brought up when you are selling your property. If these two simple things are accomplished by a leasing agent, then that person has single handedly gone above and beyond of what any other property that a prospect may have spoken to is probably doing. It really is a small thing to accomplish, so if you want to make your call different than other communities and get prospects interested in seeing what you have to offer, sell your property.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Marketing Your Community To Students

2011-08-31T11:23:00.001-04:00

It’s that time of the year again. The weather is finally starting to cool down…a little. Soon the leaves on the trees will start to change to the fall colors. College football will once again consume every second of my Saturday afternoons, which also means that college campuses just recently started classes back. If you’re reading this and you’re a property owner/manager at a student property, then hopefully you are patting yourself on the back as your property sits 100% occupied from the hard work you put forth during the Spring and Summer months marketing your property. If you’re not quite at your occupancy goal (maybe you should give us a call!), then there are some steps that you can take next leasing season to ensure your community being completely full.

The idea for this post came from reading Kerry Sugrue’s blog in Multifamily Insiders, which was great, so I am going to give my thoughts and expand on her topics she covered to give some tips on how to succeed with a college property:

1. “You Need To Have School Spirit”

Obviously if you are a student property, then your main marketing efforts need to be geared tremendously towards whatever college it is that your potential residents will be attending. This means that your community name needs to be in front of those students as much as possible. Attending events, such as open houses, orientations, group meetings, sporting venues, etc. are an absolute must. At any of these campus gatherings, little things can be handed out that pertain to college students (i.e. book bags; water bottles; food of any kind), because if there’s any category of any individuals that appreciate free stuff, then it is college students.

2. “Encourage Your Residents To Bring Friends”

One of the most powerful marketing tools that will influence your success at a college community is going to be word of mouth. In any college town students want to live where their friends live. I can vouch for this point, because even when I was in college, I literally moved every single year of school, because I wanted to live at the community where a majority of my friends lived. If I was going to be hanging out with these people everyday anyways, it just seemed to make sense to live in the same apartment community. Therefore, at any sort of community party that you plan, make sure to give an additional incentive to current residents for bringing their friends. One of the easiest things to give would be something along the lines of an increased resident referral where if anyone brings a friend and they fill out an application to move-in, then it’s a 2 for 1 deal and the typical referral given is doubled.

3. “Start Advertising Immediately”

A marketing plan for a student property should be something that encompasses the entire calendar. Whereas with a conventional property where marketing can be done per occupancy status and pushed when vacancies arise, marketing for a student property is never-ending. If a property is looking to become filled for the Fall, then the most important marketing window is without a doubt during the Spring. The reason behind this is that some student leases may be ending in May, so students will be looking to sign a new lease before they leave for Summer vacation. This is a key marketing point that cannot be forgotten, because college cities typically turn into ghost towns during the Summer since a majority of the population will be college students going home until the Fall. With no one being in town for the Summer and you being a property that needs to be filled by the beginning of school, you will absolutely be facing an uphill battle with a very short window between the time students actually come back in town and the first day of classes.

4. “Partner With The University”

The university should be your partner at all times, because all of your clientele will be coming from this all important place. Getting your foot in the door with any sort of housing related departments should be priority number one, because students that are not looking to live in a dorm may stop here to get their referral for apartment communities in the area. We actually worked at a student property that advertised themselves as the official student housing for the university (with permission from the university since they did not have any on-campus housing). This ended up being a huge marketing tool, because we were actually allowed to setup a mini office in the housing department to offer information to any student interested in living at a community that was not only sanctioned by the university, but was also where their peers would be living.

5. “Get Involved”

College prospects fall into the Generation Y category, which means that they are a group that is extremely connected with one another and seek to be very informed with all aspects of life they are involved with. Therefore, as a student community, it is pertinent that the property actively engage these college residents to ensure that they are aware the community is there for them. Have a huge welcome home party at the beginning of each semester to make the new residents feel welcome. Make them feel as if you are a community that is directly tied with the local university and be a presence on campus by sponsoring a tailgate for a football game. The more you can do for your college residents the better, because they are a very impressionable group and you want to do everything possible to ensure your property is known as the place to be.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Taking The High Road

2011-08-26T12:22:00.000-04:00

The customer is always right.

This is a slogan that is basically taught from the beginning to all employees in every business. After all it is the customers that determine the success or demise of a company, because without customers purchasing/using product then there is no revenue stream for a business to prosper. The apartment industry is no different. In fact the apartment industry may be an example of a business venue where word of mouth can literally be the downfall of a property’s life span.

With avenues like Apartment Ratings that potential naysayers can take to spread their sour opinion about a community, checking the online conversation about an apartment community is an everyday habit that employees of every single apartment community nationwide should be implementing. I always tell our leasing specialists that if you are not making the effort to establish your online reputation by monitoring and responding to both positive and negative comments about the community, then you are leaving it in the hands of others to establish your online reputation for you. I cannot even begin to count the properties that we have worked with that going into the assignment we have researched their online presence only to discover that the community is being completely destroyed by former residents. Upon being brought to the attention to the manager, 99% of the time, the manager has simply blown off our recommendation to respond to these negative postings with “we know that most of the postings are made up,” or “that resident just didn’t get along with us here in the office.” Regardless of the background behind these postings, they are still present for any single person that searches the property online to see and if I’m a prospect looking to move into a new apartment, guess what? I don’t know that the postings berating the property are false and I’m going to assume that they are true. As a prospect I’m not even going to think about visiting a property that has nothing but negative listings over and over.

With this being said take the time to respond to both positive and negative reviews to show that you care about what others are saying. If it is a negative review, thank the person for their post and offer to rectify the situation anyway possible. Respond to the individual and tell them that they are more than welcome to come speak to you directly. This at least shows that you are attempting to mend a bridge and are in tune with your residents/prospects needs. Getting into a war of words with these individuals will only further serve as a death sentence to your community’s name, so do the professional thing for the sake of your community and take the high road!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

10 Things About Steve Jobs

2011-08-25T13:47:00.001-04:00

I had to get this article up for a blog post in lieu of Steve Jobs stepping down as the CEO of Apple. As someone that basically created a VERY LARGE something from nothing, Steve Jobs could be viewed as an example up someone living up to the slogan “the American Dream.” Upon being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Jobs announced that there would be a time when he stepped down, but he is ultimately coming down from his position a little more prematurely than he originally planned. The article I linked really gives some more insight to this person that could eventually be the man behind the first trillion dollar company. Unreal. There are some very surprising details listed in the article, such as the lack of philanthropic contribution, or his first experience as a father, but either way this is still a man that manages to release products that revolutionize daily living for this world.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: 7 Twitter Rules To Ignore

2011-08-22T10:23:00.006-04:00

This was a great read I found on Twitter (via@NealSchaffer) this morning that outlines 7 "myths," or general rules that are typically understood in the Twitter world that ultimately may be counter-intuitive to follow. Here are the 7 guidelines (via @Smedio) that Twitter users typically follow that should be debunked from here on out:

"1. 140 Characters Aren't Enough
2. Not For Businesses
3. Twitter Lingo Is Complex
4. I'm Better Off Using Facebook
5. I Won't Find Customers On Twitter
6. The More Followers, The Greater The Returns
7. Twitter Is All I Need"

I really enjoyed this list, because it encompasses viewpoints that I was somewhat guilty of at one point prior to becoming more actively engaged in Twitter. Each point can be commented on individually in that:

1. Some of the best tweets are often times significantly shorter than 140 characters. To have an impactful and insightful tweet does not mean that it needs to be a lengthy novel tweet. If you think about it, Twitter was essentially designed on the concept of SHORT bursts of conversation. The longer tweets can actually dissuade readers interest.

2. Twitter not for businesses?! My response to this is short and sweet...find a major business that is not active on twitter.

3. Yes, the constant appearance of hashtags and retweets can be confusing to an entry-level Twitter user, but at the end of the day, all it takes is clicking on these lingo abbreviations one time to know what they do.

4. Facebook and Twitter are both social media powerhouses. Facebook crossed the 750 million user threshold this year, while Twitter consists of 200 million active tweeters. Choosing one over the other is not a exactly a comparable science, because they both serve very different functions. A Facebook user can essentially view their page as their own personal website, whereas a Twitter users setup is more like having the ability to text message millions of strangers.

5. Hmm. For this particular point I am pretty sure that you can see the good and bad side to how this point can be very easily proven wrong.

6. Ashton Kutcher single handedly gave Twitter a numbers game persona by challenging CNN to see who could reach a millions followers on Twitter. Actor/victim of Demi Moore craddle robbery versus the news network that is broadcast in 100 million U.S. households? You'd think that CNN would have the upper hand, right? Wrong. Ashton Kutcher in a land slide. My point being is that just because Ashton Kutcher has a ridiculous amount of followers, I highly doubt that his content is as socially invigorating, or knowledgeable, as Ashton Kutchers. In addition, I would be willing to bet that Ashton Kutcher has not landed any big movie opportunities as the result of him having a lot of avid followers on Twitter. Having a high number of followers looks great, but it is a popularity contest that does translate to that particular user giving life altering tweets to their followers, or gaining any business breaks from having a big number underneath their followers column.

7. Twitter is a small piece of the social media puzzle and is not a make a break for any business looking to utilize its presence to push a brand. The goal for anyone looking to pursue internet marketing as a traffic creator should understand that there is no one hit wonder to increased sales and success. The more venues the better is a great way to look at internet marketing, because with social media, it becomes a virtual word of mouth. The more places that your name can be located then the more sets of eyes that could potentially stumble upon your information. Just keep in mind though and I actually wrote a blog about this point just last week, just because you are involved in conversation and engage in tweets, does not necessarily mean that you are guaranteed more views.

There's no exact science or formula to social media success, but the important thing is to enjoy doing it and create useful information for others to read. Or just become an overnight A-list celebrity and then you will increase followers like wild fire!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: 50 Best Websites of 2011

2011-08-18T09:41:00.002-04:00

This article from Time is a great read for everyone and I highly recommend adding the website to your favorites. When I was going through the list, I found some great websites that I truthfully had not even heard of before. Many of the websites have hit the World Wide Web running, whereas some of the newcomers are probably still just getting their legs under them. Either way, this list is a great read for the day and enjoy the browsing!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: What's Your Purpose In Social Media?

2011-08-16T11:14:00.002-04:00

In a very brief summary of what social media was designed for, it can be said that social media was made in order to keep people connected. Pretty cut and dry description. Facebook allows users to see what friends are doing across the country on a daily basis. Twitter allows users to feel connected to celebrities and socialites without ever really talking to them in person. Obviously social media only allows you to be connected to other parties if you are in fact engaging in conversation as a user. A stagnant Facebook or Twitter account is about as useful as a car with no wheels...or is it?

This study from HubSpot may make you feel like your hard work is going to waste if you are a social media user that is only aiming to use each venue as a potential marketing tool. This study could potentially have a Catch 22 outlook to it, because although it shows that you are not necessarily guaranteed more reach by engaging more often on social media sites, you are not going to obtain ANY reach if you do not engage on these social media sites to some extent.

What is your take on these findings of the study? Are you one that engages regularly through social media and can debunk these findings? I'd be interested to see the different sides based upon these results of the study.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Craigslist Mobile App

2011-08-15T14:49:00.003-04:00

Craigslist is without a doubt one of the more useful sites accessible on the Internet, because you can literally find just about anything possible to sell/buy at any given time. I have written quite a few blog postings about Craigslist in regards to tips to posting ads for apartments from my own personal experiences as a leasing specialist. Craigslist is definitely a site that is a major player in the multifamily industry and is really only as beneficial to the user as he, or she, makes it. Despite the fact that Craigslist has been in existence for over 15 years now, it has never been known as a site that changes, or really adapts to the advances that occur around the World Wide Web.

Case in point to this statement is the lack of a site-based mobile application for Craigslist. Accessing Craigslist.com on a mobile phone is quite the hassle, because it will lead the user directly to the website and as one can see very quickly, it is not user friendly at all. This lack of a mobile app for Craigslist led to independent developers stepping in to make things easier for those wishing to use Craigslist from their phones. There are quite a few apps that this New York Times article goes into details about, but I have found that CraigsPro+ is probably the most well put together app of those listed. These apps will make the apartment search significantly easier for potential prospects looking to move, which will only lead to more traffic and leases for apartment communities...at least for those that are taking advantage of the site and actually posting.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: QR Code Creativity

2011-08-12T09:26:00.002-04:00

QR code usage has managed to work its way into many different venues of business as the cutting edge way to connect to customers. QR codes still have the novelty item tag working in its favor, because it is still fun to pull out your Smartphone and scan a code on a piece of marketing material directing you to additional information. I am still in the little kid phase of QR codes in that I literally want to scan every code I see even if I am not even the slightest bit interested in the product that the code is for. Scanning the codes is something fun to do, because it gets a customer actively engaged in the marketing plus the code allows the marketer the ability to choose what information the customer receives.

QR codes can be found in a broad range of places: magazines; billboards; websites; menus; coasters; etc. We had a leasing specialist create a QR code and then the code was blown up to be placed on large sidewalk stickers. The property is located in a very retail populated area, so anyone that is walking around shopping at the stores can scan a QR code for the property on the ground to receive information. Very neat idea.

QR codes do not always have to be the regular square design and can actually be just about any shape, color or design desired. Here is a great example of a multitude of different ways that a QR code can be done (thanks @mashable).

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Why You Need A LinkedIn Profile

2011-08-11T09:04:00.003-04:00

LinkedIn is essentially the Facebook of the business world. Although LinkedIn has actually been around longer than Facebook (LinkedIn released in May 2003; Facebook released in February 2004), LinkedIn trails the social media giant in users by a very significant margin with 100 million users to Facebook's 750 million. Even though both websites are aspects of social media, LinkedIn has a much structured design and purpose in how the site is operated and how the users interact on the site.

LinkedIn is designed to allow business members the opportunity to connect with each other. By connecting on LinkedIn both sides are confirming that there is some level of relationship between the two parties and it is not just a random link, such as a "Friend Request" on Facebook may be. Once users establish a significant connection network, then their profile can be used to research jobs, businesses, as well as people, for positions and business related opportunities in corporate America.

LinkedIn is an individual's online business card and expands exponentially the amount of people that you are able to interact with on a daily basis in the business world. Therefore, it is absolutely pertinent that every person have a LinkedIn profile if they are working any sort of job. Having a LinkedIn profile allows the user the opportunity to:

1. Find past coworkers
2. Build an online identity
3. Get new opportunities
4. Learn something new
5. Get some credibility
6. Become an expert
7. Grow your pipeline
8. Help out a friend
9. Find a new job
10. Get found by a new job

(thanks @Insideview for the link)

LinkedIn is growing every single day with the addition of a new user every second. As this list above shows, the doors that a well-connected LinkedIn profile can open are absolutely limitless. The impossible interactions that may never be able to take place in an average day, such as sending out a quick message to the CEO of that big company you've always wanted to work for, are just a click away on LinkedIn. If the ten reasons above haven't convinced you of the importance of LinkedIn, here's 100 more.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Twitter Party

2011-08-10T10:29:00.002-04:00

So you have your apartment community or business listed now on Twitter...great...now what? Twitter is probably one of the more extreme examples of social media that is not beneficial unless you are actively engaged on the website, making your brand name known by getting it out into the stream of conversation. With roughly 200 million users on Twitter generating over 200 million tweets per day, there is quite a bit of conversation being thrown around, so it takes some work to get your brand name recognized in the Twitter world.

One such way to actively engage a Twitter audience and push your company name out there is through a Twitter party. First off, what is a Twitter party? A Twitter party is no different than say a grand opening of a store, in which it is organized to get as many people aware of the store opening as possible and gets them to come see what the store is all about. The only difference of course with a Twitter party is that it is all virtual. The same steps that are taken with a grand opening in person are still taken with a Twitter party: theme, or occasion; promotions through all social networks; sponsors; gifts; etc. Let's say your Twitter party is being thrown for an apartment community grand opening (assuming you've built an expanded following prior to opening), offer waived application fees, or discounted rent for those interested in becoming a resident from your party. This will right away show that you are not only a community that will be actively involved with its residents, but are a community that will go above and beyond the expected to have fun as well.

There are many other reasons, or occasions that a Twitter party would be perfect for and here is a brief list of some, because after all, who doesn't like a reason to have a party?!(thanks @PartyBizConnect):

"1.You are looking to launch a new product.
2.Your business wants to create some buzz with online users.
3.You need to expand your influence in social media.
4.You want to connect with a targeted group of people that care about what you do.
5.You prefer to encourage word of mouth advertising than use push marketing.
6.Your business wants to build influence in its niche.
7.You love a good party."

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: World's Skinniest House

2011-08-09T11:35:00.002-04:00

I know that I have written blogs before highlighting the obscure lack of space many individuals live in, often times to show our leasing specialists that apartment size objections could be worse. With that being said this particular example definitely takes the cake when it comes to living in an extremely small space. Currently being designed in Poland, the "wedge" house only offers a living width of 52 inches!! I understand that the living quarters are designed with the artistic resident in mind, but let's be serious here. If any person that lives in this house has the slightest inclination of claustrophobia, they are going to be absolutely miserable. There is hardly enough room for living let alone even the most conventionally sized furniture. This article blew my mind when I came across it on Twitter (via @adamsconsulting), but as much as a surprise as it seems, I am willing to bet that these "conventional" sized houses will probably have a huge demand once they are seen.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: G+ Versus Facebook

2011-08-08T09:31:00.002-04:00

Google G+ Versus Facebook...this battle of social media titans is only in the beginning stages of what will surely be a drawn out, epic, technological, masterminded duel. G+ versus Facebook is like pitting Batman versus Superman (I couldn't resist the analogy), in that both forces strive to do the most good for their respective societies, but ultimately in the end there may only be room for one powerhouse, or superhero.

Obviously Facebook has the upper hand with over 750 million users, compared to G+'s 18 million, but consider also that Facebook has been around for over 7 years while G+ is still a baby of only a few months. Despite the difference in time in circulation, it must also be taken into account that G+ is still only on an invite only basis and is only now in the beginning stages of potentially becoming available to all parties interested.

To really get a good grasp on the similarities and differences between G+ and Facebook, it is important to breakdown each social media player individually. This schematic goes into great detail about both G+ and Facebook, but there are a few key characteristics that set the two apart. Both Facebook and G+ allow users to group friends by topics, but G+ is exponentially easier to manage each of the individual groups. Facebook has a much more interactive news feed allowing its users more options of convenient upload with pictures and videos, which G+ is not yet capable of doing. Both sites allow for social chat, with Facebook teaming with Skype, but G+ is compatible with a much broader list of internet browsers. The business end of the spectrum is presently heavily favored towards Facebook, because a Facebook Page can actually serve as a business's webpage and be their top producer of traffic. G+ is still in the process of producing a business relevant option and could pose some serious competition to Facebook in this department. The main reason behind this potential problem for Facebook is that since G+ is a product of Google, they are already and will be able to continue to incorporate much fewer ads than Facebook, since in probably one of the largest understatements imaginable, Google really doesn't need the money.

These are only a few key differences amongst the two sites and the schematic in the previous paragraph does an excellent job breaking down the positives and negatives to G+ and Facebook. One interesting and quite honestly, intriguing aspect of G+ right now is in regards to its number one followed user...Mark Zuckerberg.

It will be interesting to see how G+ progresses in its development into a social media force. There will be some glitches along the way and only time will tell if G+ will be the next Facebook, or just another firework website, such as Friendster. Either way G+ is in an element of its own being a byproduct of Google and as one such article puts the potential into perspective, "it is not the beginning of the end for Google but it is the end of the beginning."

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Utilizing Space

2011-08-05T13:20:00.002-04:00

I would be willing to bet that one of the universal objections that occurs at nearly every apartment community nationwide at least once a day is that the apartment a prospect is interested in is too small. Often times this objection is made before the prospect even lays eyes upon the apartment, because their last apartment was X amount of square footage and they need at least that much, if not more. I am guilty off this as well in that my most recent apartment is right at about 800 square feet and I immediately thought that sounded small based upon my previous apartment. The square footage of an apartment is an important detail, but it is really how the area of the apartment is utilized which dictates how large an apartment feels.

I always enjoy finding videos of small apartments of how the resident has managed to either find unique ways to make the apartment feel larger, or have just decorated the apartment utilizing every single square foot of the apartment. Here is another such video from Apartment Therapy that shows how this individual was able to transform a small Brooklyn apartment into a unique and accommodating home.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Tiger Woods And Negative Reviews?

2011-08-04T11:33:00.003-04:00

For any person that is in business, at some point in time they have probably had to deal with online comments made by a customer, whether they were positive or negative (i.e., ApartmentRatings).

Obviously handling a positive comment is significantly easier to address. A "thank you for your business and positive feedback" will suffice as a great way to follow-up the comment, because you always want to show that you are listening to your customers, especially when they are positive.

Now, in the event that one is attempting to address a negative comment, then the situation must be dealt with much more carefully when it comes to addressing the disgruntled patron. The worst way to handle a negative comment is by getting in a war of words with the customer accusing them of making false accusations attempting to deface the product or company. It is best to let the individual know that as a company, you are sorry that the person's expectations were not met and hopefully they will give the company the opportunity in the future to make up for the unfortunate transgressions that occurred during their first experience with the company.

One great venue that a responder can put together is a video response that addresses the negative comments of the critic. This will show that some real thought was put into the response to the customer and it also allows for some creativity to flow in the response. I found an awesome example on Social Media Examiner of a response EA Sports collaborated that not only addresses the critic directly, but does so with some humor and creativity.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Additional Craigslist Tips

2011-08-03T13:03:00.003-04:00

In follow-up to my blog from yesterday, I came across another helpful page of information that I wanted to share with everyone for posting on Craigslist. This site provides some additional tips that can be used in order to test the waters of Craigslist to determine what potential renters respond to. The thing to keep in mind is that Craigslist response will vary from city to city, so it's important to try many different ads until you figure out what draws the most attention. If you have a tip to posting, or something that you have had success with in a particular area, then feel free to share!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Social Media Mobile Apps

2011-08-03T10:16:00.002-04:00

With the advancement of today's technology, just about anything can be accomplished from the convenience of a user's mobile phone. The Iphone has basically revolutionized the business world allowing important tasks and decisions to be made out of the office setting with a touch of a button on a phone screen. Mobile applications for the Iphone, now at over 500,000, have engulfed individuals' lives with endless possibilities of business, as well as pleasure, tools available for the mobile devices.

I am probably one of the remaining few individuals (thanks Sprint) that does not have an Iphone, therefore, I am still locked out of the endless application stratosphere. I am not completely convinced that me not having access to the mobile applications is a bad thing, because I know myself and I would probably have every possible application that could fit on my phone downloaded.

There are so many great mobile applications, but I find that the best ones are the social media apps that can be used in day-to-day life, allowing the user to accomplish work and stay connected outside of the formal business setting. Social Media Examiner put together a great list of the top 44 useful social media apps that really highlights all realms of social media one would need. Many apps on this list are apps that I have definitely heard of (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Flickr), but the best part about the list was learning about those that I have not heard of (i.e., Dragon Dictation, DocsToGo, Chomp).

This is a very useful list if you are involved in any aspect of social media and will make it tremendously easier to stay connected in a multitude of ways outside of the office environment.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Craigslist Posting Tip

2011-08-02T11:15:00.002-04:00

It is always beneficial to not only post on Craigslist all throughout the day to get a gauge for when prospects are searching for apartments, but it is also very advantageous to post numerous types of ads as well. In posting many different ad types, the poster is able to see which ads are drawing in the attention of the potential prospects. Therefore it is very important to determine the specific ad that the prospect saw that made them pick up the phone and dial your community.

One of my favorite templates to use for posting Craigslist ads is the javascript editor TinyMCE. TinyMCE is basically a template upon which a Craigslist ad can be designed and simply copied and pasted, via html format, into the body paragraph on Craigslist where one would normally type the wording for an ad. Once the wording is typed into TinyMCE, then with the collaboration of Photobucket, pictures can be added after the wording on TinyMCE since Photobucket provides an html format option for each picture as a copy and paste function into TinyMCE. Upon completion of the wording for the Craigslist ad and the placement of the pictures from Photobucket, the TinyMCE html can be copied and pasted into the Craigslist body paragraph and the ad is complete.

When the ad is finished, the publisher will immediately notice that TinyMCE allows for the inclusion of many more pictures than Craigslist normally allows (4) and also provides a forum for the pictures to be vastly larger. These two features are what allow for a more innovative and attention grabbing posting since pictures are the most important part of a Craigslist ad.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Tip Of The Day

2011-08-01T13:13:00.002-04:00

When setting up an apartment community on Facebook, it is important that the property be listed as a Page and not as a Profile. Facebook will actually erase your page once they realize that you are listing a business and not an actual person. The main reason that this is a requirement Facebook enforces is for the safety of any individual that is following your Page by liking it. Whereas with a Profile in that anyone is able to pull-up who is friends with your community, when a community is listed as a Page, the only people that are able to view who likes the page are those individuals that are administrators of the property Page. If you have already created a Profile for your property, you can still switch the Profile to a Page without losing any of your followers, but you will not be able to retain anything information that has been posted previously to the community wall.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: CLASS Leasing

2011-07-29T15:17:00.002-04:00

To conclude our week of those companies in the multifamily industry that are striving to make an impact in not only the business world, but also in the charitable work of giving back to the community, I found it fitting to highlight our company, CLASS Leasing.

Our organization that we partnership with is Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA). Each year we plan a fun-filled afternoon of activities for those children that so wish to participate in the activity center of one of the CHOA hospitals. This afternoon allows the children that are receiving treatment to get away from the hospital rooms and into a room filled with art making, game playing and winning prizes. It is a great opportunity to bring a short burst of joy and excitement to children and their families that often times may find it hard to just spend a few minutes laughing and playing. This is definitely an experience to be a part of and something that we will continue doing year after year.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Mid-America Apartments

2011-07-28T13:53:00.002-04:00

Day 4 of our charitable businesses in the multifamily industry highlights Mid-America Apartments (MAA). MAA was initially founded in 1973 as The Cates Company and became Mid-America Apartments in 1993.

For over 15 years MAA has been operating the Open Arms Foundation, which is a corporate charity serving those in need that must travel away from home in order to receive medical treatment. The Open Arms Foundation provides temporary housing in a multitude of cities throughout the country for those families that become displaced from their permanent homes, as result of a family member needing specialized medical treatment in a different city. The housing provided is free of cost to the families and seeks to help alleviate a small piece of the families stress and financial burdens associated with a family member becoming ill. This is an incredible foundation that MAA has established and I can only imagine how much this is helped those families in need.

Great job MAA!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Atlanta Apartment Association

2011-07-27T16:27:00.002-04:00

Our multifamily business that we will be highlighting today for day 3 of those giving back to their community is the Atlanta Apartment Association.

The Atlanta Apartment Association (AAA) was founded in 1975 and is currently one of the largest apartment associations in the country, as well as an affiliate of the National Apartment Association. The Atlanta Apartment Association "represents over 1,600 member companies consisting of 400 companies managing 330,000+ apartment homes, and over 1,200 businesses that provide products and services to the industry." How the AAA gives back to the metro area is done is a very unique way that gets the community actively involved as well. For over 25 years the AAA has been hosting an annual food drive, the Can Can Ball, that has become the largest food drive in the country! The Can Can Ball benefits the Atlanta Community Food Bank and in 2010 along, the event raised $157,800, allowing the Food Bank to provide 252,480 pounds of food to those in need. This is an incredible cause and hopefully will be one that AAA continues for years and years to come.

Great work AAA!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Lane Company

2011-07-26T09:56:00.003-04:00

Day 2 of our multifamily industry week of giving back highlights Atlanta-based Lane Company.

Established in 1974 Lane Company is recognized as an industry leader in property management. Lane Company gives back to the community in a multitude of ways from an annual food drive that supplies millions of meals for those less fortunate, to working with an extensive list of Atlanta area businesses and organizations to provide for those in need. In addition Lane Company launched a nonprofit corporation called Community Life Concepts that strives to enhighten the quality of living for those residents in low-income housing.

Lane Company is a great example of a company that prides itself on giving back to the Atlanta area.

Awesome job Lane Company!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Aspen Heights

2011-07-25T10:59:00.002-04:00

This week we will be highlighting those in multifamily that are taking the initiative to not only provide excellent service for their customers, but are also going one step further in providing for causes outside the industry.

Aspen Heights is a student housing community in College Station, Texas that essentially revolutionized the student housing market by developing an actual neighborhood of apartments. Aspen Heights put together a program titled "Aspen Heights in Africa," whereby for every lease signed, Aspen Heights provides housing and education for individuals subjected to severe poverty in Africa. This is a great example of giving back to those less fortunate and incorporating it into the multifamily industry.

Awesome job Aspen Heights!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Page Tip

2011-07-22T10:39:00.003-04:00

Here is a good tidbit of information for any leasing specialist that is looking to give their property's Facebook Page a little personality. There is nowhere stating that a Facebook Page needs to necessarily be titled as the property's name. Think of something that will make the property stand out other than just the community name. If your property has won awards for excellence, then think of a catchy slogan, such as your property being the "Best Of The Best." There are plenty of places on the actual page for the property's name, so make yours unique to catch attention and give your page a fighting chance of accumulating likes. On the subject of likes, it is important to know that you can only change your Facebook Page title if you have less than 100 likes. Once your page crosses the 100 like threshold, then Facebook will not allow you to alter your page name.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Increasing Craigslist Leads

2011-07-15T09:23:00.002-04:00

During the marketing portion of our training, one of the most important topics that I thoroughly cover is the posting of Craigslist ads for apartments. Craigslist is an incredibly advantageous marketing tool, because not only is it effective, but most importantly, it is absolutely free!

There are many more complicated layers to posting ads on Craigslist than just simply logging-on in the morning and posting an ad and being done with it. I always harp on the fact that Craigslist will only be as beneficial as you make it, in that posting one time a day is basically a complete waste of time. This statement is especially true if your property is located in a large city where Craigslist is a widely used apartment marketing tool, such as Los Angeles, where on average, there are 30,000 apartment postings PER DAY! Although this is an extreme example, if one were to post only one ad in the morning, that ad would be pushed back to page 4 or 5 within the hour. With this being said it is most beneficial to post multiple ads throughout the day in order to get a gauge on response time in terms of when most people are searching for apartments on Craigslist in your area. Post an ad first thing in the morning, one at lunch, another at mid-afternoon and one right before leaving the office. This will allow for a stronger presence on Craigslist, therefore increasing the likelihood of an individual stumbling across your ad.

Once you've established the number of ads that you are going to aim to post on a daily basis, then it comes down to how exactly you are going to draw attention to your particular posts. Scrolling through a full page of Craigslist ads can be quite nauseating, because there are 100 posts on each page with all of the titles looking remotely identical. With this being said the best thing one can do is scroll through a page of ads and figure out ways to make a title unique. Simply typing a title stating a phrase like "Apartment For Rent" in normal caps is not exactly what I would classify as an attention getter. Make the title something that will stand out and change the font up a bit to an attention grabber, like all caps. "DOWNTOWN LIVING AT ITS FINEST" will certainly present a higher likelihood of getting clicked on than the previous example I used, because it is a statement that will stand out amongst all of the listings.

As equally important as the title, if not more so, is the attachment of pictures to your listing. I will say right now as someone that not only teaches others how to post on Craigslist, but also as a Craigslist user, I WILL NOT click on a posting if there are not pictures attached. Pictures are literally the only way to make a listing unique, in that without them, the listing is just a description that is probably very similar to every other ad that one could possibly click on. When I am looking for any merchandise on Craigslist, I typically bypass all of the words in the description and scroll straight down to the bottom to see what the product looks like. The pictures really and truly make the ad and I can guarantee you that if you were to post the exact same ad using different contact names, one with pictures and one without, no one would call after seeing the ad without pictures over the ad with.

These are just some easy steps to take in order to increase the odds of receiving traffic from a Craigslist ad. Just keep in mind that all it takes is one phone call from an ad leading to a lease to make the five minutes it takes to post the ad completely worth it.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Page Contest

2011-07-14T09:46:00.003-04:00

We currently are in the midst of a Facebook Page contest amongst all of our leasing specialists throughout the country. The object of the contest consists of five main parts that the leasing specialists can be rewarded for: creating the page for the property; consistently updating the page with useful information; creating a contest for the page in order to get active participation; obtaining interactions from residents/prospects on the page; accumulating as many new likes on the page as possible. This contest was designed to not only present the opportunity to our leasing specialists of obtaining great prizes, but to also give them the chance to educate themselves on the importance and benefits of a property Facebook Page. Here is an awesome example of how one of our leasing specialists is going to great heights to get active involvement on her property's Facebook Page. Great job Natalie!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Neglected Email Leads

2011-07-13T09:44:00.002-04:00

Often times an email lead at an apartment community goes unanswered, or just becomes lost in the wash of all the happenings in a leasing office. A typical apartment community that is tied in with any ILS may get anywhere between 10 to 20 prospective email leads each day, which can add up very quickly if these are not answered promptly. Just as a phone call would be answered when the phone begins to ring, an email lead should be given the same attentiveness and importance that a phone call receives. In addition the email lead should be addressed just as a phone call is addressed in that the prospects questions should be answered and not just supplied with a generic email sent to every email lead. Tara Furiani wrote a great piece for Multifamily Insiders that really breaks down the steps to writing effective follow-up to an email lead that will increase the chances of securing a lease.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Youtube Channel

2011-07-11T13:20:00.003-04:00

We are in the process of updating our main website, as well as beginning to jump into all realms of social media and our newest addition is the CLASS Leasing Youtube Channel. Checkout the video and channel here!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google +

2011-07-05T15:57:00.002-04:00

I recently did a write-up about the "Google +1" system that Google introduced, whereby any particular posts that a user would like to have attached to their Google profile, they are able to by simply clicking the +1 button next to the search item. In doing so, any followers of this users profile will be able to see their search preferences and recommended search items.

The "Google +" system is different and on a whole other realm of complexity. The Google + system was released and designed to actually compete with Facebook as a similar aspect of social media sharing. Just as users of Facebook have friends and social circles, Google + will allow users the same capabilities in a very organized format. Google released this blog last week that features informational videos about the features of Google + that could very easily rival Facebook's concepts. The real question will be with Facebook nearing 670 million users, is there enough room in the social media network for two major interactive sharing sites?

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Happy 4th Of July!!

2011-07-01T10:36:00.002-04:00

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend! Take the time to celebrate the great things that come with this holiday weekend: grilling out; spending time with friends and family; safe travels; and of course, fireworks!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google Rankings

2011-06-28T15:17:00.002-04:00

We just recently began working at a property in Arizona that had a very minimal amount of content when we arrived on-site. There was neither a property website, nor was the community listed on any ILS (i.e. Forrent.com; Apartmentguide.com). Therefore it became first priority to establish some sort of presence online, so that if a prospect were to search for the community, there would at least be some sort of relevant material to appear. In a matter of weeks, we were able to get the Google Place Page established, as well as work the SEO of the Facebook Page to the point that it is currently the first website recognized as relevant when the property name is searched (Itom A'e Apartments, Guadalupe, AZ; Great job Kimberly!)

This brings me to the larger point of this example in that we were able to create a Facebook Page for a property and have this page move up the Google rankings system...but how?? There are many layers to this question that neither I, nor really anyone else, other than those who have written the Google algorithms, know the real answers to. Obviously, a great first step to take when trying to get a website up the rankings is to make a website/page that is going to have relevant information of interest to readers. After establishing your webpage with substance that individuals are actually going to read, there are a multitude of steps that can be taken from this point forward. Social Media Examiner lists a thorough explanation of 7 detailed steps one can take to get a website up the ranking list of Google.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Resident Blog

2011-06-23T13:51:00.002-04:00

If you're looking for a great way to get information out to your residents that is interactive and unique, then a resident blog may be just what you are looking for. A resident blog is a spin-off of the staple community blog in that it allows residents the opportunity to actively communicate with one another on an open forum. This forum is still subjected to office maintenance, but it is a much more convenient way to hear and spread pertinent information amongst a community. In order for the resident blog to be benefecial, an office staff must make the blog known to residents via flyer, newsletter update, or any other convenient announcement means.

The resident blog is where an office staff can learn of resident concerns, as well as post community events to receive feedback from the residents about their thoughts and needs. Of course, if you are a member of the office staff where a resident blog is instilled, make sure to monitor the comments. The reason is that once the blog begins to become regularly updated and starts to receive comments from residents, the acivity of the blog will generate relevancy in a Google search, thereby making it open to potential prospects searches. You always want to make sure that prospects are not turned away from a property as a result of seeing something online that could have been addressed right away.

Here are a few examples of some apartment resident blogs I was able to find:
Mountain View Crossing
Shea Apartments

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: BlogGlue

2011-06-22T13:19:00.002-04:00

Writing a blog gives users the ability to share relative information about any aspect of business they choose. The added benefit of a blog is that there is no one format to follow when it comes to constructing a daily post. Where the challenge comes in for a blog creator is getting individuals to actually read the information that is put together daily. Obviously in updating a blog regularly, the SEO of the blog will eventually lead it to the top of a Google search in being relative to a specific title search, but how do people find it if they do not know the exact title?

BlogGlue is one such site that exists with the sole purpose of expanding the amount of views that a blog is able to draw-in. BlogGlue essentially does "all the work for you" once your blog posting is created by dispersing the blog through multiple venues of social media. BlogGlue will actively post your blog to Facebook and Twitter, will partner the blog with previous blogs written by the user and will link all your blogs in RSS feeds. In spreading the blog throughout the different social media sources, the traffic views will be increased, thereby boosting any potential revenue streams desired from creating the blog.

BlogGlue does offer a free route for their services, but if you are in fact a regular blogger that is looking to benefit from blog revenues, then it may be worth the buck to pursue an active partnership with BlogGlue.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

Are you on ApartmentRatings?

2011-06-21T13:45:00.002-04:00

Just how important are consumer reviews these days? You can look at the power of sites like yelp.com and kudzu.com, or you can type in "Apartments in any town USA" into Google and see how high sites like apartmentratings.com land on the search. Whether we are looking for a restaurant, a resort, or a place to call home, consumer reviews are driving the purchasing decisions of the modern consumer.

The old way of thinking was to avoid apartment review sites at all cost. As most people in the industry will tell you, they were nothing but venting forums for disgruntled and evicted residents. But now all of that has changed. Not having reviews readily available to prospective residents puts you at an extreme disadvantage. Prospects want to see CGM (consumer generated media) prior to deciding where to live. They do not trust traditional advertising, including your website.

Solicit Reviews! What happens when we solicit reviews rather than sit around and wait for them to appear? We usually see a much more positive response. Maybe it is because our residents appreciate the fact that we are asking for feedback? Maybe it is because without a reminder to review our properties, only the disgruntled residents are motivated enough to post on their own? I don't have the answers, but I do know that when you ask for feedback, the response is overwhelmingly positive.

Take for example Dental TLC in Atlanta GA. I recently went there for the first time based on the high number of positive reviews. When searching for them online, I noticed that they have 283 reviews on Yelp, Kudzu, and other rating sites, giving them four and a half out of five stars.

Upon leaving my appointment, I was handed a water bottle, toothbrush and toothpaste, and this card.

I asked the receptionist about the review card and she said that a majority of their business comes from their online reputation and word of mouth. She credited the fact that their patients are great about writing online reviews. Talk about bang for your marketing buck!

Get some feedback from your residents. It will not only help with resident retention, but it is becoming a necessary marketing piece in order to capture today's renter. If you don't have any reviews, rest assured your prospects are searching for a property that does!

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Losing Users??

2011-06-16T09:39:00.003-04:00

As Facebook nears the 700 million mark of users globally, there has been a slight setback occurring amongst its American population. In the last month there has been a drop-off of nearly 6 million American users of Facebook and this was the first time that Facebook had seen a monthly decline of any kind in a year! What could possibly be leading to such a huge amount of individuals just simply leasing Facebook? There is no clear defined reasoning as to why such a drop-off occurred, but its left many people wondering if Facebook is just starting to lose its luster, or if people are just becoming tired with the constant changes. On the flip side of that, maybe its that people are becoming tired with the lack of updated changes and are bored by the website. Could it possibly be that people are becoming more weary of the intrusive nature of Facebook, especially with the introduction of the Face Recognition software to the website?

Regardless of what the reasoning may be, Facebook is continuing to add users abroad and is even making potential headwind in the country where Facebook has been banned for years...China. It will be interesting to see where Facebook turns to keep up its title as one of the most successful websites of all time.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

Great news for owners!

2011-06-15T11:14:00.004-04:00

What happens when multifamily housing starts all but vanish for 4 years? The answer is a drastic increase in demand for rentals! After biting the bullet of falling rents over the past 4 years, apartment owners and operators are now leveraging the decreased supply of rentals into the beginning of the much forecasted increase in rents.

Here is a great article from msnbc that talks about the nationwide increase in rents. The challenge owners now face will be to re-acclimate their residents with an increase in renewal rates. We are sure to see some shock at first, but going back to the pre-2008 landscape, residents all but expected an increase at renewal. It will take some time, but it appears that our ability to push NOI on properties is becoming much more feasible.

-Danny Soule

CLASS Leasing: If You've Ever Had Someone Object To Price...

2011-06-13T16:21:00.002-04:00

It is basically an understood notion that the number one objection any leasing specialist will find at their respective community is price. Regardless of if the property has rents equivalent to every other property in the region, someone will complain about the price for rent being too much. I always joke that the rent for an apartment could be free and there would still be someone to say that it costs too much! A great way to look at the price objection is that it is something that will always be brought up, but at the same time, there is always some other property that probably is dealing with a price issue on a more grand scale. Insert One Hyde Park Apartments here. One Hyde Park Apartments just opened in January as the most expensive apartment building in existence. Although they are considered to be more of condominiums, they are still classified as an apartment community and value at about $9500 PER SQUARE FOOT! The details of this London-based community are absolutely jaw-dropping and almost seem like a fairy tale when you read what amenities come with being a resident at this community. This just goes to show once again that if you ever think your community is a little pricey, think again!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Leasing Specialist Creed

2011-06-10T14:53:00.003-04:00

As a leasing specialist you are the first contact for nearly every prospect that walks through the leasing office doors. It is important to be on your game with every single prospect, because there's no second chance at making a first impression.

With this in mind really concentrate on the little things this weekend:

Make sure that your balloons are out front and you are in the office ready to lease five to ten minutes before your scheduled time to be in the office. There's nothing wrong with being early.

Walk your tour routes to make sure that they are completely clean and there are no unforeseen surprises that could hamper a tour.

Check the model and show apartments to ensure that the lights are on, there aren't any little surprises hiding in the bathtub or cabinets and it smells fresh inside the apartment.

Right when you get into the office, search your community online to make yourself aware of any new information posted on any websites about your property.

Make sure to get 3-5 Craigslist ads up throughout the day in between taking tours and phone calls.

Put together an informative post for your property's Facebook page.

Get your key cards out from the previous days that still have follow-up phone calls that need to be made.

When the phone rings make sure to enthusiastically answer the phone, say your five questions verbatim and really make a true effort to build rapport with the prospect, so they will be not only more inclined to come visit you, but will also feel more comfortable leasing with you.

Hop up from behind your desk and greet every single person that walks through the door, so they immediately feel welcome and at home.

Take the time to fill out the entire key card in order for proper follow-up immediately following the tour.

Really sell your community to the prospect while on tour and nail your FBC's when inside the model apartment.

At the closing table really use your ten closes to get every prospect to lease and if they will not lease, absolutely aim for a 24 hour hold in order to get them back in the door tomorrow.

Complete your follow-up email and thank you letter the second the prospect walks out the door. In doing so, the tour will be fresh on your mind and the prospect will be taken aback by getting an email so soon after their tour.

At the end of the day, send your nightly email before you leave the office. There are many clients that are waiting to see how the day went and may be anxiously waiting for the daily numbers.

Make sure to call-in at your specified time.

All of these things are supposed to be done every single day, but really make an effort to go above and beyond of what you normally are expected of this weekend. If your goal is two leases this weekend, then aim for four. Don't give yourself an opportunity to look back on a day and think you may have got a lease if you did something differently. Make every tour count this weekend!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google Presence

2011-06-09T16:49:00.002-04:00

Multifamily Insiders hosted a great webinar earlier this week highlighting the importance of a property's Google presence. This webinar was spot-on, because when individuals "search" for a property online, they are 99% likely to search for the property using Google. "Google it" has all but replaced the phrase "search for it" when it comes to finding something online. Therefore, having a great presence on Google is imperative and this webinar does a great job offering tips to improve that presence.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: RentMineOnline

2011-06-08T16:47:00.002-04:00

RentMineOnline is catching on like wildfire throughout the apartment industry and is really revolutionizing the concept of resident referrals.

Resident referral is a great first line of defense for marketing purposes, because the marketing is done in-house and there are no sorts of gate keeper HR departments to get through. Whatever the monetary amount that is offered to residents for referring their friends and family, this number needs to be constantly engrained in the residents mind. Many residents don't understand that you really do get money for something as simple as referring a friend until they receive that first discount off of their rent. In steps RentMineOnline to simplify things even more for residents to get money for essentially doing nothing.

RentMineOnline accesses the social media realm for referrals by having residents sign up through website, which in turn allows RentMineOnline to begin the referral process through the residents social pages (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Therefore if someone views a referral done by RentMineOnline on my Facebook profile and decides to live at my community, I will receive a referral bonus without even physically telling that individual to join my community! It's that easy. RentMineOnline has taken the simple concept of resident referral and made it even easier.

Here is a great write-up about RentMineOnline in Multifamily Executive.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google +1

2011-06-06T13:26:00.002-04:00

Google +1 is finally here and became active this past week for anyone with a Google account. I wrote a blog not too long ago about Google +1 and what exactly it entails, but there is still some grey area for some in regards to what its purpose is. Google released a great tutorial video that really breaks down the benefits of accessing Google +1 and how it is essentially their break through into the social realm of websites. The video can be found at the bottom of the linked webpage.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: How Should A Facebook Page Be Used For An Apartment Community?

2011-06-03T12:24:00.005-04:00

I have written a few blogs about general ideas on how to use a Facebook Page for an apartment community. First off, I cannot harp enough that a Faceboook Page is only as useful as you make it. If a property page is created and you think that it going to lead to more leases just because you created it, then you are going to be heavily disappointed.

A Facebook Page is designed with the purpose of getting residents involved and having a place where they can be connected to not only other residents, but also to management. In addition, a Facebook Page will also help to increase a property's SEO, because it is another site that other property specific sites can be linked to, which therefore is offering another venue for property exposure online. Although, just because it is a property specific page does not mean that it needs to be updated daily with information trying to sell the community. Keep in mind that people that "like" the property page do not want to constantly see on their Facebook walls information about your apartments for rent.

There is a general rule that an apartment community page needs to be a balanced ratio of 80/20 of general information to direct apartment community. General information can consist of anything relating to the city the community is in, helpful tips for apartment living, or just random tidbits of information, such as today and how it is national donut day! Tracey Lott Heitzman contributed a great article today on Multifamily Insiders that outlines the importance of making a Facebook Page interactive. Below I have highlighted her great topics for Facebook Page status updates and you can find the full blog here.

•Have fun with your profile picture and change it up often
•Post your You Tube videos
•Notify residents of upcoming concerts and events in your area
•Post interesting new jobs. I’ve seen a property management company that has a Twitter feed on their website with job postings that fit their demographics
•Post new movies out on DVD or to the theatre
•Start a 'Best of' list and have residents to vote
•Offer green cleaning tips
•Plan a Yahoo Sports Pick Em’ Group for the playoffs
•Offer exclusive discounts, coupons, and content (40% of FB users “like” Pages that give them deals)
•Partner with restaurants in the area and offer exclusive deals (I live in a condo community and the new restaurant across the street gives us 10% off!)
•Post a photo of a local restaurants dish and have a contest to have residents guess the dish and where it came from (offer a gift card to same restaurant)
•Advertise a time and place at the community and host a “Sweets in the Streets” where you hand out candy bars
•Post an events calendar to share with sister communities. Allow residents to participate among the communities
•Have monthly Birthday Parties and post to Facebook
•Have a yearly 'Birthday' for your community
•Reward residents and fans by helping them give to charity
•Recognize fans and select a “Fan of the Month”
•Become “Fans” of local business and post on their walls
•Use the Question feature to offer polls (more on this below)
•Contests are one of the most effective ways of keeping your Fans interested and engaged
•Introduce various competitions with giveaways
•Watch the comments/likes pour in with these status updates from Funny Status (not all are appropriate)
•Post trivia questions- people love to show off their knowledge
•Ask for opinions
•Encourage your Fans to share personal stories on a particular topic, like “my first apartment”
•Upload lots of photos from Resident Appreciation Events and be sure to “tag” your Fans

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Geosocial Universe

2011-06-02T14:56:00.003-04:00

I am a big visual person whenever it comes to understanding the magnitude of anything relating to comparing numbers or data. Seeing a table, graph, chart, etc. for me just helps to understand the scope of data in relation to the comparable item numbers.

JESS3 Labs designed one of the more up-to-date and visually appealing models that I have truly seen in awhile. Per their site, "JESS3 Labs is a creative agency that specializes in data visualization" and they put together a terrific visual of the social media network database entitled "The Geosocial Universe." This infographic draws together the major hitters in the social media universe and compares them in total registered users in spherical orbit form with shading done to represent the fraction of users that access these social sites via mobile phone.

In addition to there being some new faces on this social media orbit, it should come as no surprise that the top two social sites are Facebook (629 million users) and Skype (663 million users). What is surprising data to me considering how reliant society has become on their mobile phones, I a guilty member as well, is how such a small fraction of Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and Gmail users actually check their mail via mobile. I would think that many people are like me in that I rely on my phone for talking, texting and email as the three main purposes, so how are the spheres of those three main email providers not more filled in? Regardless, JESS3 put together a great representation of our "Geosocial Universe" and the number of registered users will only increase as social media becomes more and more of an entity of its own.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Best Resident Event Contest Finale!

2011-06-01T10:40:00.003-04:00

Hopefully everyone took the time to enter the Resident Events and Peachtree Business Products competition to come up with the best and most creative resident event, because the finale is tomorrow afternoon! Everyone should make sure to visit Multifamily Insiders and sign up for the free webinar from 1:00 PM-2:00 PM Central Time to listen to the industry leader judges break down on their thoughts of each submission, as well as the winning resident event idea. This is a great opportunity to possibly pick-up a resident event idea for your community that could be used in the near future. As of today there have been a total of 85 submissions, so it is sure to be a great opportunity being a part of this webinar!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Apartmentguide.com

2011-05-24T12:51:00.003-04:00

Here is a great slide show that was passed along by one of our great leasing specialists, Crystal Mitchem. This slide show details what the ILS, Apartmentguide.com, can offer to a property by having their listing through this website. Take the time to scan through the slide show to see what exactly the site has to offer for your property by listing with them. After all, according to the fourth slide of the show, Apartmentguide.com is the number one apartment ILS in 59 cities as of February 2011!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Creating Community In Student Housing

2011-05-20T11:22:00.002-04:00

Creating a "sense of community" at a student housing property is extremely vital to the overall success of that apartment community. More so than at any other conventional property, student properties rely heavily on word of mouth for new prospects. If students are having fun living at a community, then they will absolutely tell their friends about the great time they are having, which will in turn inevitably lead to the friends wanting to become residents. Creating a sense of community is not just something that is established by having a resident pool party once during the summer and being done with it. A sense of community entails: numerous events planned throughout the year; daily interactions between office staff and residents; knocking on residents doors to make sure they are enjoying their stay, and not just when it's time for lease renewal. Just think about what it is like to live in a neighborhood and those are the qualities that should be incorporated into the apartment living experience to create that sense of community.

Here is a webinar we sponsored this past Wednesday through Multifamily Insiders, in which Dan Oltersdorf of Campus Advantage outlines some key points to creating a successful sense of community in student housing.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: What Renters Want..

2011-05-18T03:12:00.001-04:00

In the apartment industry it is every single person's duty, from the apartment developers all the way down to the maintenance workers, to figure out what the renters want. Apartment living is overall a very transient lifestyle and very rarely will you meet someone that has lived in the same apartment for a large number of years. People move for all sorts of reasons, whether it's just for a change a scenery, a job relocation, or in order to cut back on some costs, individuals that live in apartments will always move more than home dwellers.

Ultimately apartment employees do not want residents to move, because that leads to numerous amounts of vacants, which causes lack of income coming in. Therefore, the million dollar question to answer becomes what renters want. Apartments.com conducts a survey a few times a year to get inside the mind of the apartment renter to figure out what exactly it is that people are looking for. The results of the survey are always interesting to analyze, because they will change depending upon the time of the year. The most recent survey comes from February of 2011 and gives some great insight into what renters are looking for right now. Here are some highlights from the 1,800 individuals polled:

-28.8% were moving to relocate for employment opportunities
-20.3% of those that previously owned a home are moving, because renting is more
affordable
-26.3% are searching 1-2 months in advance of their desired move-in date
-48.3% said cost was the most important search criteria
-The top three resources people were using to search for their apartment are all
online resources

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Alternatives To Facebook?

2011-05-17T14:17:00.004-04:00

Despite Facebook's overwhelming popularity in the world, there are many users that feel Facebook has become too large and is not as personalized as it was originally designed to be. It is in fact tough on Facebook to pick and choose amongst your friends as to who you would like to have view any information that you post on Facebook. Yes, there is the tedious option of going through ones privacy settings to select who you would like to have view certains items on your profile, but who has time to devote to that process? In addition Facebook has also at times become a network of acquaintances with many users "friends" not necessarily falling into that category. I myself can relate to this ideology, because I know for a fact that I can scan through my Facebook and find at least a handful of "friends" that I have neither met nor seen in my entire life.

Therefore these smaller social sites allow their users to be able to keep a tighter niche of friends, because many of them actually cap the number of friends one can have. In doing so users can feel more comfortable posting pictures and status updates without the fear of one of their friends other friends seeing their information through a community wall. One of these sites, Shizzlr, also has a unique social feature in that when a group is created, the server will actually compile a list of upcoming events from Yelp, Google and Facebook for this social circle group of close friends to discuss and decide which event they would like to attend.

I will be highlighting many of these sites this week, because each site has its own unique touch and social connectivity features.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Marketing Guide

2011-05-16T13:36:00.003-04:00

Facebook published a "how to" for business marketing on their website last week and it is something that finally explains marketing on Facebook black and white. Prior to this guide being published, it was kind of a roll of the dice for many businesses looking to market through Facebook in many ways. The main thing that businesses did not realize is that the company needed to be represented by a Facebook Page that could be "liked" and not one that could be "friend requested." Those businesses that had pages created as a "friend request" page, instead of a "liked" page, were being cancelled by Facebook for the misrepresentation. In addition to laying the guidelines for setting up business Facebook pages, the marketing guide also goes into great detail about how a business should be marketed and some steps to take to gain more views in hopes of having a successful page.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Atlanta Market

2011-05-13T12:40:00.004-04:00

Back when the housing market crashed, Atlanta, just like every other major city in the country, was still in the process of enjoying the insatiable "housing boom" with apartments and condominiums being thrown up everywhere. Once reality hit like a freight train, all of a sudden those same apartments and condominiums were left sitting vacant. Sellers were forced to rent and renters were forced to hopefully salvage enough credit to be welcome in these rental communities. Fast forward to 2010 and 67,000 of these rental commodities (facts per the Atlanta Journal Constitution) remained vacant as owners and developers watched their investments sit generating no revenue. Currently, Atlanta has developed into a rental heavy market, which favors those looking to rent greatly. Owners are still barely breaking even by dropping rental amounts and putting added resources to resident retention in hopes of not adding anymore vacants to the pot. As a current Atlanta resident, these facts come as no surprise, because on the one mile strip of major road I live on, there are 8 different apartment communities!

Enjoy and great find Macy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google Reader

2011-05-11T12:37:00.003-04:00

Here is another application courtesy of Google that will help to simplify and shorten your search experience for all of those sites that you cannot go the day without checking. Google Reader allows its users to create a database of specific sites via RSS Feeds and HTML addresses that will be updated and stored in one location. In doing so Google Reader serves as a one stop shop for a user in checking their favorite websites, as opposed to visiting each one individually searching for new content.

Using Google Reader is extremely advantageous is the user is an adamant follower of specific blogs, because not all blog writers have entries every day. Just as most applications through Google, Google Reader is free of charge and all that is needed is a Gmail account with any type of email address. In addition any entries that are stored daily from the websites a user is following can be easily shared with other users and notes can even be attached to the entry from user to user.

Just another application courtesy of Google that makes the search experience more enjoyable.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Top 50 Branded Facebook Pages

2011-05-10T14:05:00.003-04:00

Ignite Social Media shared a great list recently of the top 50 branded Facebook pages as of March 28, 2011. This list is compiled based upon total number of fans, as well as the increase in fans on a monthly basis. It is pretty amazing to see that some of these pages added over one million fans in a thirty day span! Of course, just about every single business on this list is recognizable to everyone that has ever watched a television, but there still are a few surprises on there. Who would have thought that Converse All Stars would be in the top ten??

Take the time to open some of these pages to see the interaction that occurs on a daily basis in each one. Many of these pages are well known brands to begin with, but they still take the time to encourage fan interaction each day. Red Bull may have the best "hint" on what they would like for you to do if you open their fan page.

This list is not something that the typical business owner should look through and shoot to get their page on the list, because it is probably impossible. Many of these brands already have tens of millions of followers that joined their pages, because they already knew of these companies. That's not to say that there are not some great ideas to pull from this list, because obviously, all of these companies are doing many things right.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Can You Hear Me Now?

2011-05-09T15:59:00.002-04:00

I came across a great article in Multifamily Executive that really shows how reliant individuals are becoming on one certain aspect of technology...the all mighty cell phone. Due to the dwindling number of people that actually have a landline phone in their apartments, apartment owners and developers are actually having to implement new cell phone towers, or enhancers to existing towers, in order to keep residents, especially college-aged residents, pleased with living at these communities. In fact, cell phone signal ranks second in importance in a recent survey of 52,000 college students only behind the desire for larger bedroom size! Interested in seeing what the word on the web was about cell phone signal problems in apartments, I came to the realization how rampant of a problem this actually is by simply typing "apartment cell phone signal" into Google. Every single search result, minus a few, were postings by consumers asking how to improve their cell phone signal at their apartment. As the endless realm of what one is able to do with a cell phone continues to expand, the demand for cell phone signal strength as almost an amenity will only continue to increase.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Guerrilla Marketing

2011-05-06T11:53:00.004-04:00

I always enjoy seeing great examples of "guerrilla marketing," because it always blows my mind to see the creativity that people continue to dream up for this marketing originator. After all, when the glitz and glamor of all of the internet marketing do not work, you always have to resort back to pounding the pavement and taking the in your face approach to marketing.

Here is another fun example of guerrilla marketing courtesy of The Guerrilla Blog.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Potential Benefits Of Having A Blog

2011-05-04T09:32:00.004-04:00

It's no secret that social media is only as beneficial as you make it in the sense that if no one is seeing your material, it's not going to be beneficial. It's pretty simple and as easy as that. The more material that one gets into the World Wide Web, then the chances are only increased that someone will stumble upon an excerpt of that persons writings.

One of the more personal and potentially effective venues of social media is the blog. Blogging allows an individual or company, such as this very blog, the opportunity to put together thoughts and topics related to the area or field one is involved with. I blog about apartment and marketing related topics, because we are a company that is known for specializing in apartments and marketing in the industry. Where blogging becomes most effective is when the entries begin to develop a following via Facebook, Twitter, etc. As more Facebook shares and retweets occur, the horizon of those reached by the blog exponentially expands. With all of the blogs that there are in the World Wide Web, creating a following is not the easiest of tasks to accomplish. The material must be consistently worthwhile and meaningful, or the followers will begin to dwindle as blogs become more monotonous.

Mark Schaefer's blog is one of the better blogs I have read and if you will notice, he has a strong group of followers each day. In addition, Mark's blog is designed as more of a homepage for his website, because the blog has basically developed into its own entity with a mass and consistent following. This highlights another crucial benefit to a well written blog, in that it can actually be used as ones website as opposed to spending the exorbitant amount of marketing dollars necessary for website design. Mark's blog sets the bar high, but is a great example of a blog to follow and hopefully emulate for one's own.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: PadMapper

2011-05-03T11:12:00.003-04:00

I spent this morning browsing through the apartment Craigslist ads of all of the cities that we are currently working in and began to wonder something. If I in fact were a prospect looking for an apartment in one of these numerous cities and I own an Iphone, surely there is an app that makes the search not only easier, but more interactive for its users.

With this thought in mind, I opened a new browser to Google and typed in "iphone apartment search" to see just what exists out there in the application world. There were actually numerous results that came up, but the one that really caught my attention was the application called PadMapper.

PadMapper's sole purpose is to aim to make the apartment search "less painful by letting you see where the apartments are on a big Google map, and using the filters located in the box on the lower left to eliminate listings that you're not interested in" (per PadMapper's website About section). Based upon their definition on their site, PadMapper was basically verbatim of what I was out to find. The most relevant piece of information about their site that especially intrigued me is the fact that Craigslist is one of the main websites that PadMapper pulls from!

Seeing the application in action is a must, because the map is user friendly and interactive, allowing the user to be able to see with a pin-point where exactly the apartment is located.

Great app!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Best Resident Event Contest!

2011-05-03T09:34:00.003-04:00

This is a chance for everyone to share your best resident event idea with other members of the apartment industry and also potentially win some money for it as well.

Multifamily Insiders is running this contest in collaboration with Resident Events and Peachtree, looking for the best resident event ideas out there right now. All you have to do is click on the Multifamily Insiders link, fill out your great resident event idea prior to May 31st and set back and wait to see if your event is selected.

This is a fun opportunity, so I strongly encourage everyone to get involved, because you never know, you may stumble across someone else's post and use their great idea for the next resident event at your property!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Send Button

2011-05-02T15:07:00.003-04:00

Well it appears that Facebook is at it yet again with a new development to their site that was just released last week, which I learned about via Social Media Examiner. Facebook added a "Send" Button function to their site that is more or less an advanced "Like" Button that engages the users on a much more personal level. This is the general description that Facebook released in regards to the new Send Button:

"The Send Button allows your users to easily send your content to their friends. People will have the option to send your URL in an inbox message to their Facebook friends, to the group wall of any Facebook group they are a member of, and as an email to any email address. While the Like Button allows users to share your content with all of their friends, the Send Button allows them to send a private message to just a few friends."

The Send Button is another way for individuals on Facebook to share content with their friends, which from a business standpoint, is another opportunity to have traffic driven to participating web pages. The Send Button greatly reduces the steps that one would typically have to make in order to share relative information with individuals via online. The Send Button will surely be equally as popular, if not more so, than the Like Button, which has already infiltrated millions of web pages after only one year in existence.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Phone?

2011-04-29T14:01:00.003-04:00

Facebook is constantly evolving to keep up with the times of new developers and websites flooding the web with unique ideas and concepts. This is one such development that Facebook just recently implemented that actually allows you to verbally talk, or leave voice messages, to people via Facebook. Facebook chat was a great concept in itself in that you could see if a friend of yours was online at the same time as you, then simply click on their name to begin chatting. Now with the same concept in mind, if a friend in online at the same time, you simply click on their name and they can hear your message verbally as opposed to the basic typed message. It is advances like these to this powerhouse website that can only make you wonder...what will they think of next??

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Break The Buying Cycle

2011-04-28T16:12:00.004-04:00

Often times when prospects begin their apartment search, it becomes a monotonous routine of visiting apartment community after apartment community. On any given Saturday afternoon, a prospect could potentially visit five to ten apartment communities and then finally sit down at the end of the day to review their findings from each potential home. With so much information between all of the different flyers and handouts a prospect will accumulate over a day's time, it can be very tedious for a prospect to remember the unique benefits of each property.

Therefore, it is very advantageous for a leasing specialist to break the buying cycle after a prospect visits their community. A very simple and full proof way for the leasing specialist to accomplish this goal is to convince the prospect to go out to lunch/dinner after they tour the property and through a co-operative marketing plan with a local restaurant, this would be very easy to accomplish. The leasing specialist can guarantee traffic for the restaurant in exchange for some free lunch/dinner vouchers that can only be used up to an hour after the prospect visits the community. In doing so, the leasing specialist will not only be driving traffic to the restaurant, therefore providing the restaurant owner with more business, but will also be breaking the buying cycle of apartment shopping. This will give the prospect time to really discuss and ponder about the most important apartment community they saw, yours, and potentially make their decision right then, since they will be full from a great free meal thanks to visiting their new home, your property.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: What Are QR Codes??

2011-04-26T12:06:00.005-04:00

I felt that the title for this blog as "What Are QR Codes" was very fitting considering the circumstances under which I learned the answer to this very question.

I was in the Denver airport about a year ago and as I was walking through the terminal, I noticed a small gathering of people at the bottom of an escalator facing the underneath wall. Each individual had their phones out, which were all mostly Iphones, and had their phones pointed at the wall at three very large square barcode shaped objects. Above each of the three barcodes was the title to three well known novels: Moby Dick, Gulliver's Travels and A Tale Of Two Cities. Finally I asked one of the individuals what exactly they were doing and the response was where my answer to the question "What Are QR Codes??" came into fruition. These individuals were using an application on their smart phones that allowed them to scan the large barcode, or as I now knew was called a QR code, and in doing so, downloaded each of these novels to their phone for free.

QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, have been used for quite some time in Japan, but are just recently starting to make a surge in the US industry as a means for consumers to learn more about a business at the convenience of a touch of a button.

QR codes have started to infiltrate the apartment industry, but are still a new entity in the grand scheme of things. Where these codes could be very beneficial in the apartment industry is that they are yet again a new and unique way for a community to market to future residents. Instead of having a piece of marketing material with the lots of wording about a community, how about something as simple as the property's name, a QR code and a slogan at the bottom? A flyer like this would intrigue an individual, just as the billboard at the Denver airport did me, to take their phone out and scan the QR code, even if they weren't interested in an apartment!

These QR codes are just another example of how marketing is continuing to rapidly develop to more convenient and technologically savvy means. QR codes are an incredible technology, relatively inexpensive and I am excited to see how they revolutionize the marketing field for the apartment industry.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google Insights Study

2011-04-19T13:14:00.003-04:00

One of the topics I briefly cover in our online portion of training is the usage of Google Insights. Google Insights allows a user to see what the search trends are for a certain topic based upon location and time of the year. This is a very beneficial tool if one is trying to figure out the wording for a blog, link words, or just a headline for a website. By knowing how individuals search for any given topic, a user is able to gear their information towards the masses in hopes of accruing views from those searching for relevant information.

Here is an article about a study done by Michael Leander Company that shows just how Google Insights can inevitably increase the hits on your specified topic.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Foursquare And Your Community

2011-04-18T14:55:00.002-04:00

Foursquare is one of the newest social media outlets for apartment communities to benefit from. It is still only about two years old, but Foursquare is continuing to spread at a rapid pace as more and more people are starting to utilize the discounts offered by this site. I had been searching for an article that described the direct benefits of Foursquare to an actual apartment community and stumbled upon this one in Multifamily Insiders this morning. This article is a great read and I strongly encourage everyone to implement Foursquare to your property in coordination with Facebook.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Your Craigslist Ads!

2011-04-15T14:46:00.003-04:00

We always push everyone to post Craigslist ads on a regular basis, because it is such an effective marketing tool that can be done throughout the day and most of all, it is completely free!

It is very beneficial to utilize numerous templates and formats when designing ads in order to see what exactly prospects are responding to. By making different ads, one is able to gear more marketing time towards designing the ads that are grabbing individuals' attention and therefore, drive in more traffic.

With that being said he are some great examples of ads that leasing specialists have used that have shown success by either driving traffic in the door and in some cases, leading to leases!

Ken
Tina
Kimberly
Mike
Chris
Heather
Natalie
Caroline
Alicia
Seth
Crystal
Jessica
Bryan

Great job everyone and sorry if any of the links stop working, or if I missed anyone. There were some technical difficulties loading a few ads.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Building A Facebook Page

2011-04-14T15:26:00.002-04:00

Building a Facebook page for a property from the ground up takes a great deal of time, patience and persistence in order for the page to become successful.

Sean has done a great job getting future prospects involved at his current assignment at 560 On Main and it is only a matter of time before the leases start rolling in. Facebook pages are a game of numbers, so the more individuals that "like" the page, the more people that will be able to see how great the property is.

560 On Main

Keep up the great work Sean!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Great Idea For Facebook Involvement

2011-04-13T16:35:00.003-04:00

I have written numerous blogs about Facebook and how it only becomes beneficial as more and more individuals "like" a property's site. The question that can often stump a property is: How do we get more people to like our page?

There are many ways to get viewers engaged on a property page and here is a great way to do so. Make an announcement to all residents via flyer, community blog, etc. letting them know that the property will be donating to a charity once a month/quarter/year. The residents will be the ones that get to choose which charity receives the donation and the voting will be done via Facebook "likes." Therefore, in order to nominate, or vote for a charity, each resident must join the property Facebook page as someone that likes the page. Once a person likes the property page, then they can nominate, or vote, for their charity of choice. The charity that gets the most likes over a specified period of time, receives the donation. Great idea for a great cause!

Awesome idea Monica!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Google And Social Search

2011-04-12T09:06:00.004-04:00

Google has yet again come out with a new feature that is designed to enhance the web browsing experience for it's users. Social Search is very similar to Facebook's "like" button, in that the user can +1 a particular search result, which will let Google know that this particular user/Google account was pleased with that website in correlation to their search. In turn after a particular user has searched on Google for various items, Social Search will save whatever +1 results there have been, thereby steering any future search results towards the users preferences. This will in effect make it where no two individuals will receive the identical search results for the same item due to each person having unique preferences and +1's.

The great debate with this new concept is how exactly will websites that have succeeded at being a top search result be affected. Will a website's SEO diminish since a user's search results will be geared towards their specific preferences? Many already have their opinion about this new search tool, but it will be ultimately be interesting to see how this new concept revolutionizes the search experience.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Is Craigslist Disappearing?

2011-04-08T14:31:00.003-04:00

Craigslist has been a staple in the online word as a virtual classified ads website for the better part of a decade. It is a very functional website and allows for individuals all over the world to connect in ways never thought possible. The kicker to Craigslist is that it is also free (unless you are postings/finding a job, in which then, there is a nominal fee). With that being said, in comparison to other major sites of Craigslist's stature, Craigslist is slowly falling behind the times as there have been no major innovations in the actual site to date. As can be seen in the above picture, more and more websites have started to take over popularity from certain classified sections of Craigslist. Statistics have also shown that Craigslist is beginning to receive less and less visits as a result of numerous other websites being created. This brings up the question...will Craigslist slowly disappear??

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

Facebook Case Study

2011-04-07T15:42:00.002-04:00

Last week we decided to implement a marketing idea from the Multifamily Insiders Social Media Webinar featuring Virginia Love and Ed Spiegel. Here are our results:

Property: Autumn Breeze Apartments. 300 Unit class B+/ A property

Location: Noblesville Indiana. suburban Indianapolis

Strategy: To engage resident of the community by utilizing the Property Facebook Fan Page. The event is titled “2011 Cutest Pet Contest”. Residents will submit photos of their pets and the pet with the most “Likes” will win Free Pet Rent for 1 year.

Implementation: Flyers were posted in common areas advertising the contest. Contest rules were as follows.
1. Resident will submit a photo of their pet by March 31st via email
2. After the deadline, the photo’s will appear on the Facebook Page
3. Visitors can vote for a pet by “Liking” the picture of the pet. 4. Residents are encouraged to get their friends to vote for their pet.
5. Everyone must “Like” the Facebook Page prior to voting

Results: Prior to the contest, the Facebook Page had 104 fans. Traffic to the page was sporadic, as was posting. Within 72 hours, the Page received over 230 additional fans.

Follow Up: We are now posting links, jokes, polls, and other contest on a daily basis to keep our new audience engaged and returning to the Facebook Page. A property scavenger hunt is in the works, and the Community News Letter will soon be only found online.

CLASS Leasing: Encouraging ApartmentRatings.com Posts

2011-04-07T09:33:00.003-04:00

I was reading through Multifamilyinsiders.com this morning and came across a great idea that could really help to bolster any community's ApartmentRatings.com percentage numbers. Typically any individual that is seeking out to post on Apartment Ratings is doing so with the intention of venting about a particular issue, whether it is fabricated or factual information. It is very rare that one will see a tremendous amount of positive postings on Apartment Ratings due to the sole fact that happy residents are just that...happy! They typically may not even know about the Apartment Ratings site, since it is often used as a pedestal for disgruntled residents to blast a property.

Therefore, it is advantageous to encourage positive postings by having a tag line in one's email signature that says to "let us know how we are doing on apartmentratings.com." In doing so, residents that are happy at the property may visit the site in order to share their positive experiences with others. Keep in mind though that if the encouraging of apartmentratings.com postings is going to be done, it is important that the manager subscribe to the Apartment Ratings site in order to be able to respond to any positive or negative postings. This will show that the manager truly cares about what is being posted and will do anything possible to make sure all residents are happy.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Resident Participation In Facebook

2011-04-06T09:47:00.003-04:00

Facebook is obviously one of the most successful websites to date in the history of the World Wide Web. It is pretty hard these days to find someone that is not on Facebook, because it has become another form of communication and a very effecient way to remain in contact with many people at one time.

Facebook has slowly made its way into the apartment industry as more and more communities are beginning to develop property pages for their communities. With that being said Facebook is not necessarily going to be a miracle worker when it comes to driving in future prospects to a community. The reason behind this is that Facebook only becomes beneficial as more and more people "like" the page, because without likes, or followers, then it's just another page amongst the millions on Facebook. Therefore, it is very important that any leasing specialist that establishes a page for his/her community get as many residents involved in the page as possible. By involving residents, or getting them to "like" the page, any friends of these individuals will see the community page pop-up in their news feed when the resident has any new information about the community on their page.

Rentmineonline is a company that specializes in getting communities involved on Facebook as a means to increase the impact that resident referral can have on a community. By getting residents involved in this effort, a community can essentially flyer thousands of Facebook walls thereby increasing the amount of people that can potentially hear about the community.

Allison Williams is doing a great job getting her community involved on Facebook by holding a community-wide competition. The competition is based upon the concept of who has the cutest pet on the property and the only way that a person can vote...they must like the property Facebook page.

Great job Allison!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Customer Service

2011-03-28T15:14:00.003-04:00

Being a leasing specialist requires an individual to be ready to handle many different scenarios. With that being said there is never any telling what the next scenario is going to be that walks through the leasing office doors. Regardless of the circumstance the leasing specialist must handle every encounter with an upmost professional manner, even if the leasing specialist is in the right, because customer service can have a lasting impression.

Jessica displayed this professional attitude this past week in her encounter with a current resident at her property. Even if the proper handling in customer care does not necessarily lead to a lease, it rubs off on individuals in the office and as seen below, someone will always notice.

- "This afternoon, Jennifer Gelston came in demanding that Jessica give her a receipt for her keys on company letter head. As the letter head was locked in your office and I was out on tour, Jessica took ownership of the situation and assisted the resident.
Being very rude, angry and demeaning, Jennifer stated that nobody has ever been able to help her in this office (yet I have bent over back to assist her and have had things expedited the SAME DAY for her). She apparently thought it was ludicrous that Jessica wasn’t able to write a letter on letter head and then demanded to speak with me, even though I was currently with prospective residents (who leased).
To ease the situation, Jessica remained calm and took control of the situation by providing her with a written letter utilizing what she had stating that we, in fact, had received her keys. The fact that Jessica was extremely professional regarding this very rude and hateful resident, I would like to send a shout out to her as she is a great example of what it means to be customer service oriented. Thanks!"

Morgan Miller
Leasing Professional-

Great job Jessica!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Future Of Guest Cards

2011-03-25T14:25:00.003-04:00

I, probably much like every other person that has the slightest interest in new gadgets, am really looking forward to getting an Ipad very soon. Obviously, for the sheer convenience of having what is basically a touch screen laptop, the Ipad will make traveling with a computer much more simple and convenient since the Ipad is only as thick as a couple magazines. In addition, the endless supply of apps available for the Ipad will surely absorb countless hours of my life, which I am completely okay with.

From a business standpoint, the Ipad is revolutionizing the ability to conduct business at the touch of a screen from anywhere business partners may be. With this being said the Ipad will inevitably replace the paper guest card as well in the apartment industry. Here is an intriguing article about how the Ipad will be able to be used to not only replace the guest card used now, but to also serve as a professional stall when a leasing agent may be with another prospect. If a sheet of paper highlighting the unique aspects about an apartment community is able to currently buy a leasing agent 5 to 10 minutes, just think how long an Ipad guest card could buy you. The prospect may ask you to wait while they finish up "learning" more about the highlights of your community on the Ipad!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: The Buying Cycle

2011-03-23T15:22:00.003-04:00

Getting prospects to stop at your community when looking for a new apartment home is in itself a challenge. Even then the hardest part is now that they are at your community, how do you get them to fill out an application before leaving, or at least keep them from visiting more communities?? Just as leasing agents have a sales strategy and techniques that they utilize to close the deal, prospects also have a set of steps that they take when it comes to finding their new home. Therefore, leasing agents can increase their odds of leasing to a prospect if they are able to break the respective prospects buying cycle.

Brent Williams posted a great article on Multifamily Insiders that really captures the buying and selling cycles that prospects and leasing agents go through when it comes to leasing apartments.

Make sure to read through the article, all the way down to the comments, because there are some great ideas spiraling from this particular blog.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Top Ten Social Networking Sites For 2011

2011-03-22T10:52:00.003-04:00

The realm of social media is continuing to expand every year as advances in technology is endlessly connecting more and more people. With smart phones and Ipads, individuals are now able to access their social media networks at their fingertips with the upmost convenience. Facebook is still the number one leader in social networking and will be that way from now until the next niche network is created. There are in fact many more social networking sites out there, but I personally am completely content with the management of just one. Here is a list of the top ten social networking sites for 2011, so take the time to see what each one has to offer. You never know...one of these could give Facebook a run for its' money one day. I'd be willing to keep my money on Facebook though.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Price Objection

2011-03-18T09:13:00.003-04:00

"In a recent Apartments.com national survey, 48.3% of residents said that their most important search criteria is the cost of rent. This does not mean it is their most important evaluation criteria or that apartment selection is price-driven. This is a common misunderstanding you can't afford for anyone on your team to have.

What is to misunderstand about renters telling us that they want the lowest cost rent? We are, of course, supposed to listen to our customers. However, even more important than listening to what they say is doing what market researchers do - measure behavior rather than intention.

The next time income-qualified prospects beat you up on price, first ask yourself, do renters in my market have an option with lower rent? If so, and they are still looking at your property, then price is not the core issue or they would all choose the cheapest option. Qualified prospects who say price is the bottom line in their evaluation when they know they can rent for less, are really just negotiating. If they are not choosing the lowest price option, then price is not their bottom line. So why do they pay more to rent from you? Isn't it because they value your amenities, location, or relative safety? Studies of consumer preferences show that we choose to spend more on all kinds of things to get options and extras of perceived value. The core issue with your renters is value - as it is with all people who have their basic needs met.

Since the core issue is value, if you raise it, you can raise occupancy."

-Great read brought to attention by Danny Soule-

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

Help! The Directions to my Apartment are wrong on Google!

2011-03-15T11:47:00.004-04:00

Question… How does Google direct people to your property?

With so many prospects using Google, Bing, or Yahoo to look up property details prior to visiting the community, it is important to ask "is Google giving prospective renters the best directions to the property?"

The other day I was using Google to locate a property while driving. The property had a very good internet presence, complete with an effectively optimized website, Google Place Page, ect. However, as I approached the property, my GPS told me to make a very odd turn that brought me into the property from an indirect rout.

This type of thing happens all the time with Google maps, and GPS units. The directions are incorrect or just inefficient. In the case above, the incorrect directions not only took me out of the way, but also drove me past one of the properties biggest competitors.

If you find that prospects are being improperly directed to your property, here is a quick fix to get them back on track!

1. Type your property name into Google maps and access your Google Place Page
2. Click on the "Get Directions" tab and request directions to your property
3. After the directions have pulled up, right click on the purple line to open up the tab that says "Report a problem"
4. Under "Which Element is Wrong" select Driving Directions.
5. In the box that says Problem Description, insert the correct directions.

We have seen Google make the correction anywhere from 2 hours- 2 months from the time of submission so be patient if the changes don't appear immediately.
There is no reason for your prospects to be driving in the back way to your property, or past your competitors. Take control of the tour before your prospects even step foot in the door. Make sure the directions to your property are correct!

CLASS Leasing: Facebook Page Tips

2011-03-10T15:33:00.002-05:00

There are many ideas and articles being tossed around in regards to designing the perfect Facebook Page for an apartment community and what exactly that entails. Facebook, being a social media website, or I should see "THE" social media website, is only beneficial if it is seen by many viewers. Taking the time and effort to create a page is great, but then it comes down to how exactly the page is made to be viewed by web surfers. Therefore, one of the better articles that gives some very useful tips to for designing an apartment community's Facebook Page came from Multifamily Insiders. In this article, Stephanie Burns outlines tips that range from the overall creation of a community's page right down to the daily posts that are shared with followers.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Apartment Ratings

2011-03-04T09:08:00.003-05:00

Anyone that is in the apartment industry, or even most people that have ever searched for an apartment online, have either come across, or are extremely familiar with Apartmentratings.com. Apartment Ratings is a website that allows "residents" and anyone else that has had an experience with an apartment community to post anything they would like that that individual deems as helpful information to future prospects interested in the prospective community. The website has a great concept behind it, but is often either taken for granted, or it is abused.

The screening process behind who can post on Apartment Ratings is extremely minimal and the main questioning is used to hopefully ensure that the individual posting is not anyone associated with employment at the community and that they were in fact a former or current resident of the community. From a prospects point of view, the website can be helpful to get a behind the scenes look at the community and learn about certain events, both good and bad, that have occurred at the property. What each individual must keep in mind though is that each posting must be taken with a grain of salt, because there is no way to actually prove that the posting is 100% truthful information. Just as the website can be a template for a resident to warn individuals interested in the community of potential speed bumps in the leasing process, it can also be a platform for a disgruntled resident to anonymously make-up harmful information to get back at a community for their particular transgressions.

From a management side of things, it is important to monitor what is being said about your community, because you do not want someone else making your online reputation for you. Managers are able to join Apartment Ratings for a yearly nominal fee (I believe it is currently $300) that will allow these managers to respond to postings to address each unique issue. In doing so managers will show that they are looking to reach-out to any resident that feels they were wronged to resolve their issue and in responding to any positive postings, it will show that the manager truly cares for these residents and will be a rapport building opportunity. The important thing to remember is that if a manager is looking to address these postings on Apartment Ratings, it needs to come from a credible screen name (i.e., ABCapartmentsmanager) and not from an anonymous source, because this could lead to a "fuel to the fire" situation in that any person that has posted negatively will feel that a manager is not confident enough about their community to step forward and take responsibility.

Apartment Ratings will always be a site that communities need to be familiar with to ensure their online reputation is on-par and in addition, will always be a site that residents will continue to post to express their feelings about apartment communities.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

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

2011-02-28T12:02:00.004-05:00

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

2011-02-25T09:08:00.003-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Oscar Night

2011-02-24T09:29:00.003-05:00

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

2011-02-22T11:16:00.002-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Leasing Apartments To Senior Citizens

2011-02-21T13:25:00.003-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Apartment Pride

2011-02-18T10:25:00.003-05:00

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

2011-02-14T15:45:00.002-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Top 10 Cities To Rent An Apartment

2011-02-09T10:23:00.003-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Renting Versus Buying

2011-02-07T13:20:00.003-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Effective Follow-Up

2011-02-03T09:58:00.004-05:00

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.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Online Marketing

2011-02-01T14:39:00.002-05:00

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

CLASS Leasing: Internet

2011-01-31T16:10:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share a great clip from the Today Show back in 1994 at a time when a new form of technology was being released. It's amazing to watch this video and just realize how far we have come in only 16 years in terms of technological advancement. Watching this video definitely makes you wonder...what new concept will we be marveling about now 16 years down the road??

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: College Properties

2011-01-29T09:43:00.003-05:00

Renting to students is a topic that I will definitely talk about more in-depth in future discussions, due to the fact that it is a huge market in the apartment industry, but it is an entity all in itself. There are certain things that must be done differently when it comes to leasing-up a student property, because you are dealing with a much more impressionable crowd than your typical renters. Students are typically concerned with what their peers are doing for living arrangements, so a property's reputation and word-of-mouth amongst students is huge for leasing success. Marketing at a student property can be very straightforward, because the majority of the material needs to be focused in a much more isolated area, being as many places as possible on the college campus. Jim Baumgartner from RentSoda posted a great discussion about renting to students on Multifamily Insiders and gives additional insight into the logistics behind running a successful student property.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Locator Marketing

2011-01-28T09:32:00.003-05:00

If you are currently in an area where locators are predominantly used by prospects, then it is in your best interest to establish a strong relationship with as many locators as possible. Locators are looking to accomplish two things: they want to find the ideal apartment for these prospects based upon the prospect's interests and price range; they would also like to find the properties with reasonable locator referral percentage payout for their gift of bringing prospects to the property. Locators will ask the main questions about the current price of an apartment community, as well as the amenities that the property offers to compare to what the prospect is looking for, but their final question will always be what the locator referral is.
With that being said if your property is neither the newest on the block, nor does it have the highest referral fee, then it is very crucial to establish a working relationship with these locators. Visiting the offices of the main locators to drop-off breakfast/lunch is definitely a good start to introduce yourself as a leasing agent. This in turn is a great lead-in into holding a locator open house to tour the property, so that way the locators are familiar with your product and will be able to personally tell these prospects what the property is like.
To push your property even more to the locators, purchase numerous 5x7 picture frames and in the picture portion of the frame insert a brief synopsis of your community's information. This is something that the locators can have as a desk reference for your property that will be easily viewed by prospects right as they sit down at the locator's desk. Prospects will be much more inclined to immediately ask about your property if it is the first thing they see when they meet with the locators.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Move-In Quickly

2011-01-27T10:30:00.005-05:00

Vacancies are an apartment community's worst nightmare and the longer apartments remain vacant, the more money that is continuing to be lost each month. Leasing Specialists strive to fill the vacant apartments as quickly as possible, by any means necessary, to get an apartment community fully leased up. There are times when the leases may be rolling in, but the move-in dates for these prospects may be after a specific deadline that a community has to meet (i.e., refinancing). Therefore, in order to expedite the move-in dates, it is often a great idea to throw-in a very inexpensive additional incentive for quicker move-ins, such as a DVD player, or to offer to waive a pro-rated move-in cost to get the prospects in the door sooner. With the gift incentive option, the cost of the DVD player could be as low as $40, but will typically get some prospects more willing to pay a little bit more of a pro-rated rent to move-in sooner. On the flip side waiving a pro-rated rent in order to sway prospects to move-in will not necessarily help the immediate income, but it will boost the occupancy in a hurry. Both options are absolutely worth the outcome of increasing your occupancy quickly, while also reducing your hold over loss. With either option use them sparingly, because you want the prospects to feel the urgency that this is a very limited opportunity for them to take advantage of.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Craigslist Keys MUST READ

2011-01-25T22:57:00.003-05:00

I will always be a huge supporter of marketing via Craigslist, because it never fails to be a full proof way to get great marketing out to the public and best of all...it's FREE!! With that being said Craigslist has come under a little bit of fire last year as a result of the extensive amount of spam that continued to be posted to the Craigslist website. Therefore there have been some changes to the website, ultimately for the better, but it's important to know what exactly has changed. Daisy Nguyen from Multifamily Insiders put together a great list of information about Craigslist that is a must read for anyone planning on posting to the site, which should absolutely be done. Taking the time to read through this list of guidelines is very important in order to get your listings on the site to receive the feedback that can come from Craigslist.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Marketing Idea For The Day

2011-01-24T09:48:00.002-05:00

When establishing a marketing plan for a community, it is always important to first determine where exactly the pre-existing traffic is coming from. Every community will be different depending upon the location, property style, floorplans offered, etc. More times than not a good source of traffic will typically come from word of mouth from current residents to friends and family. This is a great place to start marketing ones community, because if resident referrals are successful in a community then this is the easiest marketing one can possibly do. You don't even have to worry about driving around the city to distribute marketing material! With that being said a great way to push resident referrals to residents is to have a drive-thru breakfast once a month at the property. Pre-packaged bags with breakfast basics (i.e. fresh bagel, granola bar, fruit, juice, etc.) can be put together and a table can be setup at the entrance/exit of the property where residents will be passing-by. In addition, a resident referral flyer can be stapled to the bag, so that way residents can once again be reminded about the incentive available to them for referring potential prospects. This not only shows that a community cares about its' residents, but it's also a terrific way for residents to be able to brag to their friends how great their community is!

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Email Etiquette

2011-01-22T10:04:00.003-05:00

Since the adaptation of e-mail into the corporate world, it has all but replaced picking up the phone and dialing an individual's number as the most convenient means of communication. E-mail basically ranks in between a phone call and a text message as both a personal means of contacting someone, since you still have to have their specific e-email address, but not as personal as a phone call, since the message is still communicated without a face-to-face conversation. With that being said one must be careful when it comes to using e-mail as a source of contact, because just as with a text message, things can still be taken out of context with the slightest misstroke of a computer key. Therefore, Multifamily Insiders established some simple guidelines and rules to be followed when using e-mail and although many of these seem simple enough, you may be surprised to learn that you are guilty of a few of them.

Enjoy!

CLASS Leasing