Topic: I have 30 vacant apartments, Help!

I am a leasing professional, and recently our vacants have been high but never this high. I need ideas I ve tried open houses, free apps., waived 1/2 of security deposit and prorate. Anyone have other ideas?

Marketing key to any business. Are you posting to CraigsList Daily? Try posting flyers in neighboring stores, most are very willing to display your flyers. Try as many of the free advertising publications and websites that you can and update them frequently.

Not sure about the condition of your property. But first looks are important as well. Make sure the parking lot is free of debris and try updating the landscaping with a winter resistant bushes and plants, to look inviting for prospective tenants.
Decorate the entrance with attention grabbing, but inexpensive colorful displays. Maybe line fences with those rainbows flags or put up a few bold bright signs of your specials.

Maybe send a mailing to your existing tenants and offer them an incentive for referrals of new tenants.

I'm sure if you try these tactics you'll get these vacancies filled fast. I'll be curious to see how your rate is in 6 months.

Patricia, please don't panic and try to give away the farm to gain occupancy. First plan, then re-evaluate your marketing strategy. You can only decide your next step based on your property. First, why is there an occupancy issue? Did something happen? Was that within your control? For example, did the Corporate Office decide to raise rents excessively - perhaps your residents could not financially handle this. Sometimes in order to change a property's demographic and resident profile, rents are adjusted to weed out those who are not the best resident profile choice.

Second, evaluate your apartments. Make lists of pros and cons, then practice overcoming the cons either through word or action. For example, is your decor dated and if so, can you do anything about it? Sometimes just changing straigjt shower rods to curved one, double faucets for single lever, and using a soft beige instead of white on the walls helps differeniate you from your comps.

Third, let's talk "Specials." What makes you better than your comps, what makes you special? It is not always about who is charging less rent. You give better care to your residents. Implement the Resident Referral program. Others will disagree with this, but I am a strong believer in the Preferred Employer Program - then you can market to the employers of your exact sought after Resident demographic. I am also an advocate of Outreach Marketing in simple, realistic ways. There are a lot of ways to do that.

Many times I have come on board properties when they are at their worst! Sometimes, it takes a while for the other suggestions to work, so revamp your style! Make sure you are projecting confidence in your community, so fix things you can: cleanliness of office, organized leasing presentation materials (update them, give them a new look), a quite area to speak with Prospects, away from the area the Residents use to make complaints or pay their rent, if possible. Dress professionally, too, and make little give-away bags so that at the end of the appointment or visit, you can give something to the Prospect to remember you by. Use a dry erase board at your entrance listing ONE APARTMENT that is "Special Today." If you have to give a concession, this is the only apartment with the lower rent. I use one at every under performing property and it works every time (but I love to draw so it was fun for me.) Speed is not always what is most important but if after a couple of months your occupancy is not increasing, you need to talk to your Manager and RPM. Is someone higher up holding back the process?

Somewhere near the entrance to your community, invest in one really great LARGE bandit sign and attach balloons (if code allows) highlighting one floor plan you need to push. Maybe it is a townhouse that your comps don't offer? The location of this sign could be on a nearby corner of a busy street. Try to relax and breathe through this hiccup in the leasing process.

Good luck!

What city are you in?

More information would be helpful...
what market are you in, are these units all in the same building?
Would these apts be suitable for section 8 tenants?
Why so many vacancies? What's going on in the town where you are?
Demographics?

Is there a university nearby that you can work with to offer off campus housing to?

If these units are all in the same building, the problem is nobody wants to live in an empty apartment building... much like nobody wants to dine in an empty restaurant.
It's spooky and hints that something not so great is up.
Try to minimize the appearance of an abandoned building or of desperation.
Don't advertise or show 30 apartments, concentrate on one or two at a time.
We're going into the winter now and typically, only those who are down on their luck move this time of year.
Do you own the building?
If not, be thankful of that.

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therightnewz.com/?p=15699

"2000 Line up for subsidized housing".

"Police use MACE to control crowd"

Hello Janel,

Everything Mindy just wrote and I would like to add, check out the maintenance program and see what items are broke the most and how long has it been taking to fix the items? Is your property asking for feedback after every repair and who is correcting those issues that are brought forward?

What is the overall Customer Service like to the residents? Once a resident is in does your management staff keep in contact with the tenants, not just when rent is due, but over all to ensure that they feel like they are not just tenants, but part of a community?

Also when there are move outs is it being captured the reason the people are leaving?

Thank you all for your great ideas. I've printed them & I'm putting them to use.

My community is located in New Carrollton, Maryland near main highways, public transportation & walking distance from the shopping area. We have 26 buildings, 15 apts. in each garden style building & a 7 story highrise on the community. Our current occupancy is 94% down from our usual 99%. There was a storm in July that blew the roof off of 1 of our buildings which left 14 families without a home. When this happened we already had 7 vacants and we placed some of those residents in those apts. The rest moved in with family and our sister communities. The building was offline for 4 months and when it was back up we transferred those residents that were misplaced back and some of the other residents did not return leaving us with the 7 we originally had plus the ones which did not return. As that was going on we had a lot of move outs before school started as always and unfortunately the apts. accumulated extremely fast leaving us with more apts. than we had people to move into them and short of service techs. We hired contractors to help turn the apts over but our applicants were either could not wait for the apt rent ready date or changed their minds. So, here we are we all these apts. to lease and the pressure is on. :ohmy:

We have 24 hrs maintenance, beautiful clean grounds, we're pet friendly, resident events for almost every holiday and in between whatever we come up with, decent apts. I have had open houses, we are on Craigslist, put out balloons, daily outreaching, went up on our resident referral fee $400, gifts. I'm asking the current residents to bring in their business cards for a chance to win lunch on us for them & their co workers hopefully the coworkers will be interested in living here. We also consider all credit. We are the most expensive in the area but also, we provide great services, residents only pay electric in garden style (gas stove, gas heat, & water included) all utilities are included in the highrise, and we are the nicest. Most of the people that come in either cannot afford it or are denied due to management balances or low income and at this point everyone who is interested in moving in are not looking to move until next year, and of course I need them to move in TODAY because of my vacancy loos. Like you said the only ones looking to move are the ones that unfortunately are down on their luck which aren't many. I will continue to strive for these apts to be filled as my job is on the line. In addition, I take care of resident services and do service coordinator work as well so it's a bit more complicated. All in all I love my job as a leasing professional.

I will keep you all updated and will appreciate any other ideas you all may have. So far I have moved in 2 apts. today and have scheduled 2 for the weekend, :cheer: Yay!!!!

Thank you!
Patricia

What is your short term lease policy? That has been our mainstay for the "in-between" times. Call CORT and become one of their "partners" so that you can provide furnished apartments for short term leaseholders. You should also cultivate relationships with a couple of Realtors in your area. They are a viable source for new execs coming to your area who may need transitional housing until buying a house. Also, if you need an income generator and you have an onsite model, you can offer it is a Guest Suite for family members of residents for weeks at a time. I used to get great income on doing that. I would still perform Outreach Marketing, especially to the employers of your residents. If you have 4 move ins, you are doing very well. I hate reading that your job is in danger. This makes me crazy! It does not sound like the vacancy is your issue alone - there is a team there and everyone should be helping in the Outreach marketing efforts.

Do you have a military base nearby?

Become friendly with the off base housing officer(s).

If there is no military base; I bet you have the hometown recruiters, talk to the senior officer in command and find out how to get on their housing list for recruiters as they rotate in. Military recruiting assignments are typically 2 years long; with dependents, and are typically for non commissioned officers who will be eligible for a housing allowance. Get on their program that has the government paying you directly for the rent. Any problems with lease violations; you can get his chain of command involved.

New Carrollton is a hard area, a little off the rader for suburban Maryland searches and a long Metro ride into the city. Perhaps you need to consider talking to your bosses about offering lower first year lease rates. In DC a pro-rated free month isn't uncommon in some of the more difficult area right now. It lets you raise the rent on the full amount in the second year, if the economy allows while making you more competitive while you have such a high vacancy rate. You could try some short-term rentals for the weeks surrounding the Inauguration, a lot of staff are looking for places, that would bring in cash while you wait for spring. Can you hook up with any of the university internship programs and offer housing or would you do three month leases for the summer for interns, they would likely have co-signers or you could just get all three months in advance. With that many vacancies, I think you need to be creative, even if it means some short term tenants.

I do not like a prorated free month as a concession; especially if it produces a monthly discount that is uneven. It is okay if you have a monthly rent amount that is divides easily into the 6 or 12 month lease without producing a number that ends in anything other than a 5 or a 0 without pennies.

If your rent is 1245 and a 12 month lease would give you a monthly discount of 103.75. Change the rent to $1260 and your concession is $105 per month, or change the rent to $1200 per month and the concession is $100 per month. Why make it hard to compute?

What city are you in? what are they going for?

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Everything being equal and your amenities are in line with your competition what can you offer that will separate you from the competion? There is a way to offer a service and at the same time make money of the service and it can be transparent to the renters.

Not for everyone, but those that use the service have not been sorry. I will not use this section for a shameless promotion, but I can explain the program and ideas and see what you think. You can reach me on here or by private email allperfectgifts4u.biz

That little simple thing is the one thing that gives you the edge over the comp!

I would try asking residents at lease renewal or even move out (who are happy at your community) to post a review on apartmentratings. Make sure you are addressing any complaints.

So make separate adds for every vacant with a unique description and pictures of each actual unit.
(Craigslist rules do not say you can't post more than one add, it says you can't post duplicates of the same add.)

Remember that different prospects search for different features, so make sure to design adds with different appealing factors. The business professionals would probably not click on my add titled "level up!," but young people these days are very familiar with this term. (My son had to explain it to me!)

Get out in your community and invite people to come see your community. Hand out brochures and an item with your contact information on it. A bottle of water, a snack bar, a mini-flashlight, pens, etc.

Shop your comps to see first hand what they have to offer. Then you can tell all of your visitors what makes you better.
:-)

I would like too see whats availble If possible

We have studios, 1, 2, & 3br apartments. What size are you interested in?

whats the rent im totally looking for a one bed room need it sooo badly have an ok job hard worker and pretty friendly and a college student let me know have a blessed day :laugh: :laugh: ;) B)

washington dc ?

I am not a rental, but interested in taking over some rental apartment in the broward county area

Hello I'm in Detroit, Michigan and looking for apartments to renovate email me please.

all I can tell you is that people are getting tired of the rent going up & up 90% of the rent is way out of line. so people like me looking a lot harder and willing to sacrifice to pay less for rent. I am retired and they just keep jacking the rent up on me. so I am looking to move myself , what's happen is greed is taking over this country so all I can say is good luck trying to rent a place

What city are you in I may can help you ?

It will be good idea to contact consultant and advertise your vacant apartment by placing ads.

Anonymous wrote:

What city are you in?

san bernardino