CLASS Leasing: Renting Versus Buying

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

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Effective Follow-Up

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

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Online Marketing

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

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Internet

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??

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: College Properties

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.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Locator Marketing

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.

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CLASS Leasing

CLASS Leasing: Move-In Quickly

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