Creative Ideas Article To Get The Day Started

Here is a great article to start the morning that offers 21 creative ideas for renewal time for residents. Although the article is geared towards current resident retention, many of these very inexpensive ideas would also be great for prospective prospects as well. In addition, making a good impresssion and keeping current residents happy is extremely important when it comes to resident referrals. If the individuals living at the community are not happy, then resident referrals will become nearly nonexistent, because no one will want to recommend the community!

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NOI...What Does It Mean??

No, NOI is not an acronym that you would associate with text messaging, which has slowly expanded, but at the sametime shrank the English language. NOI is a very important business associated acronym that you may not hear about very often.
NOI stands for Net Operating Income and is basically how a business measures their success. NOI refers to a company's operating income after operating expenses are deducted, but before income taxes and interest are deducted. If this is a positive value, it is referred to as net operating income, while a negative value is called a net operating loss (NOL).
You might think of NOI as the number of dollars a property returns in a given year if the property were to be purchased for all cash and before consideration of income taxes or capital recovery. By more formal definition, it is a property's Gross Operating Income less the sum of all operating expenses.
Essentially, in the real estate/apartment community world, NOI is the net cash generated before mortgage payments/taxes with housing and after specials are taken into consideration wit apartments. Therefore, the higher the NOI, the better for the apartment community, or homeowner.
Now you can say you know what NOI means.
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Megacommunities: Too Much Of A Good Thing?

Very interesting article about the complicated issues involving "megacommunities." Do the positives of these massive structures outweigh the consistent negatives?

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First Impressions: Don't Blow It!

It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. In this short time, the other person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanor, your mannerisms, and how you are dressed.
With every new encounter, you are evaluated and yet another person’s impression of you is formed. These first impression can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo, making these first encounters extremely important, for they set the tone for the all the relationships that follows.
Just like individuals have first impressions about people, prospects have first impressions about properties before they even walk in the leasing office door. Therefore it is so important to have a property that is well kept, especially the pathway leading from the front entrance of the property to the leasing office. Any unsightly things can cause a prospect to do an immediate 180 before they even see the actual product.
The leasing office is going to be portrayed by the prospect as something that is similar to the actual apartments available, so keeping a tidy office is of great importance. It's the little things that mean the most in the office: have the office staff professionally dressed; keep the office clean and orderly at all times; make sure the office smells good.
First impressions are such a critical part of the apartment industry, because once that first impression is made by the prospect, it's nearly impossible to reverse their opinion.
Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Traffic Down? Drive More Leads To Your Property!

There is no such thing as getting too much information about a community out into the public ear. Oftentimes, a community will be experiencing a very limited amount of traffic, but will also be doing a very limited amount of work to drive that traffic in. There's no big secret behind these two things being correlated. If the work is done to drive traffic in, the amount of prospects coming in the community's doors will increase and the amount of leases generated by the community will increase as well. It's that simple. Here is an article about some great ways to begin generating that all important traffic.

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Starting Your Day Right

I had the pleasure to meet Coach Bobby Bowden last night, who for those of you that don't know, is the face of Florida State University football and is also one of the most genuine human beings I have ever met. Coach Bowden was apart of football for nearly sixty years and never approached his job as something he had to do, rather he approached every day as another day to make an impact on one of his players' lives. Coach Bowden was a very inspirational person and one speech that he used every single year with his players is one that can be applied to every person's life. This speech is called "Holding The Rope."

["What does holding the rope mean? You are hanging from the edge of a cliff five hundred yards in the air. The only thing between you and falling to the ground is a piece of rope with the person of your choice on the other end.
Who do you know that you can trust enough? Who do you know has enough guts to withstand rope burn, watch blood drip from his hands, and still not let get?
Look around and ask, "Who can I trust to hold the rope?" Who will let his hands bleed for me? If you can look at every member of your team and say they will hold the rope, then your team will win!"]

Re-evaluate how you approach each day and don't view it as just another day to go through the routines of everyday life. Be the person on the other end of the rope that others can count on when it comes down to crunch time in the office when things must get accomplished. Take advantage of every opportunity presented before you and make the best of it!

Enjoy and have a great Wednesday!

The Model Apartment: More Than Just A Staged Apartment

A well-furnished apartment is an essential part of the marketing program for apartment communities and the great thing about an attractive model is that it expresses a lifestyle that cannot be verbalized. A model apartment could be the missing piece to any communities lease up puzzle, but there are some important details to remember when setting up a model apartment in a community:

1. Determining the number of models to setup.

• Often times it is beneficial to setup multiple models, depending on the community’s budget, if the community has numerous floor plans. Setting up multiple models could also allow for multiple decorating schemes, as well as make smaller apartments look more appealing with a creative furniture layout, or make those non-traditional floor plans (i.e., 2 Bedroom/1 Bath) have a more practical appeal.

2. Determining which apartment to use as the model.

• A less desirable apartment should be used as the model, rather than the best apartment available in the community. More desirable apartments with great locations will sell themselves without the use of a model staging. Decorating an apartment with a less desirable location will help offset the negatives and make this apartments location seem more appealing.
• Choose an apartment that is close to the office. Doing so will make the leasing agents tour more convenient, as well as make those time crunched prospects less likely to refuse a showing. The last thing a community wants to do is spend all of that money to stage a model apartment and not have every single prospect see it.
• Apartments that are on the first floor tend to be more convenient for model showing. In addition, some individuals have problems negotiating stairs, so the bottom floor will allow for the most convenience and accessibility for the prospects.

3. Decorating the model apartment home.

• Make the decorating and furnishing of the apartment truly alluring to the eyes. While the apartment should be decorated nicely, it should not be so exuberantly decorated that the prospect feels as if the apartment is out of their budget the second they walk in the door. Decorate the model apartment to appeal to the clientele that will be living at the community. If the community is a more modern and luxurious property, then nicer furniture placed in a more ornate setting would be more appropriate. If the community is a college property, then more comfortable furniture in a more laid back setting would apply. Don’t make the prospects qualify themselves out by walking into too nice of a model apartment.
• Don’t clutter the model. Setting up too much furniture in a model can make the apartment feel smaller, especially if the prospect has to constantly squeeze by furniture to maneuver through the room.
• Always make sure the model apartment is clean. Keeping the model in first-class condition should be the top priority with having a model apartment. If a prospect were to walk into an unclean model apartment, then he/she will automatically probably assume the property is one that does not care about its current residents if it doesn’t show its future residents the nicest thing possible.
In addition to these basic things to keep in mind when setting up a model apartment, here is a great article that shows, mathematically, how a model apartment can be beneficial.

Enjoy!