Apartment Industry

A Dark and Virtual Storm Still on the Horizon?

It was a dark day on Wednesday, January 18, 2012—for some of us more than others.
Murphy’s Law was in full effect the moment my feet hit the ground that morning, and the string of mishaps continued when I got to work and turned on my computer. I opened Google to check my email, and I saw a thick, black bar covering the logo at the top of the page.

Here are three quick tips to help your email messages reach your subscribers’ inboxes, avoid spam complaints and maintain your status as a reputable sender:

By Jo-Anne Oliveri, ireviloution intelligence, Brisbane, Australia

Recently, I have been involved in the sale and purchase of a rent roll. I had the rare opportunity of consulting for both the buyer and purchaser. Let me say, this was the smoothest and least stressful rent roll transfer I have ever witnessed!

Now some might say there is a conflict of interest by consulting to both the seller and the purchaser, and yes, I would agree! I definitely had my reservations about consulting and advising to both of them, but I discussed my dilemma with both parties. They both agreed they would retain me as the consultant and adviser through the negotiation, transfer, settlement, transition and retention period. In fact, I even conducted the inspection and overview on the selling rent-roll, and prepared the due diligence report.

Regardless of our role within an organization, we will be asked throughout our careers to participate in, lead or evaluate various corporate initiatives. After all, most of what a company really ‘is’ is a series of interrelated initiatives.  These could range from the acts of sales, operations, marketing, and acquisitions to finding efficiencies, fixing problems launching new products, etc. Generally we would like to succeed in whatever initiatives we are involved. And hopefully we have positioned ourselves for success through our understanding and expertise, our dedication and will to succeed, and our preparation and focus. Additionally we may have benefited from multiple books, papers and degrees which exist to provide us tools or help train us to succeed at whatever task we undertake. But invariably, there will be times when success is not an option or when we fail after seemingly doing all of the ‘right’ things. In those cases what do we do?

Our next step should be to perform a postmortem. Think of the postmortem as a forensic analysis of the results of the initiative. Admittedly, the specifics of every project are going to be different. But if we were to approach each postmortem as its own totally unique situation, then it would virtually be impossible to be efficient in our analysis. Over time, we also need the ability to connect the information that we gain to make better future decisions. This is the exact same process that our minds go through as the act of learning. The problem with our mind is that it does not always evaluate the information clearly and unemotionally. That is why we must take a scientific approach to the data and performing our analysis.

No matter what our role is within the multi-family industry, there is always one word which is used more than any other; “community.” Some of us own communities, some of us develop communities, some of us design communities and others of us lease or operate them. And chances are that many of us live in an apartment, condominium or townhome community as well. So then why is it that there is so little ‘community’ in our communities?

When it comes down to this failure’s root cause, it can really only be one of two choices;

a.       Either the management team does not expend their energies in a manner that creates a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere that encourages interaction, or

How many times a month does your Leasing Office receive requests for updated Market Surveys? Do you cringe when you see these come through the fax machine or when you recognize other properties’ telephone numbers on your Caller ID? I think it is only human to react this way, especially, when you feel like they ask the same information month after month.

 The BEST Leasing Manager I ever knew (and it sure wasn’t me!) and I worked out a different way of obtaining the most accurate and reliable property information so that our Market Surveys were always easily updated. I use this technique as well when gathering market information for possible acquisitions as well.

 I dislike wasting time and I dislike “busy work.” Busy work, to me, is when a company hires a new or inexperienced Leasing Consultant and assigns him or her the task of doing the monthly Markey Survey. (And you know the person who USED to get this chore each month is secretly happy to be relieved of this!) So, the new person asks which properties to call and proceeds to do so. He or she sometimes never even introduces him/herself to the person who answers the phone and usually says something like this: “Hi. I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for my Market Survey?” When the person says yes, then the Consultant starts in with fifteen different questions as to the size of the units at your property, how much do they all rent for, what is the square footage for each unit style, are you running any specials, what amenities does your property offer, do you take pets, how much do you charge for Pet Fees and Pet Rent (often times interspersed with his or her own opinion as to these charges), followed by, “What is your current occupancy?”

And I'm not talking the married kind of engagement. (although that can be pretty pricey too)

I'm talking the price of engagement in regards to social media. I was not a bandwagon social media user. I wanted to understand how to engage and converse with our residents and potential residents before I jumped on the social media train. I also wanted to understand how to measure engagement and then translate that to value for our clients. 

For me, the  issue with social media is not the time it takes to post, blog or tweet, the issue is engagement. Are you maximizing on opportunities of engagement? Are you talking at your residents and prospects are talking with them? Having thousands of fans or followers are great but what are you doing with them?

What gives you the best engagement bang for you buck? I have included my top three.

DON'T BE A NEWS FEED HOG

Posting and tweeting are a marathon, not a race. If you clog up their news feed, they are sure to unfollow or unsubscribe. Studies show a post every 3-4 hours is the sweet spot.

INSIGHTS

Are you looking at your insights page? Your insights page has a wealth of information and demographics. Use that to your advantage when posting. 

FEEDBACK SCORE

Look at your most successful post (in terms of likes, comments, impressions, re-tweets, etc) and figure out your feedback score. For the posts with the highest feedback percentage, do you see a pattern of posts people engage with most... sports, fashion, decorating ideas? 

I benchmark everything. As a Director of Marketing, making sure my marketing team's time is well spent requires just that, benchmarking everything. Have we figured out the secret formula to social media, engagement and ROI.. not yet but I'm working on it. :-)

Happy posting!

Sparkle Hammond, M.Ed.  First Communities | Director of Marketing
shammond@firstcommunities.net
www.century-apartments.com | www.facebook.com/centuryapartmenthomes

By Steven Van Zile, Total Management, New York, NY

Within the past 24 hours, here are the maintenance issues I’ve experienced at the property where I reside: the maintenance person, loyal to this building for 33 years, responds to a clogged toilet by advising us to pour bleach down the toilet. Concurrently, the intercom buzzer is stuck and won’t shut off. And, of course, the elevator renovation that started out as a one week project actually turned into a three week project, providing 6^th floor tenants the opportunity to save money by cancelling their gym memberships.

It’s always seemed simple to me; as residents, we pay rent, maintenance fees, or mortgage payments and the property management staff provide services for the resident. Building and trust owners hire those property managers based on their abilities to keep churn rates low, vacancy at zero, and tenants happy all at or below a budget designed to re-invest in the property. So what happens when we tenants aren’t happy? Well, in today’s age of instant knowledge and access, a lot of renters turn to rating sites like Yelp or apartmentratings.com to spitefully pen scathing reviews in an attempt warn others. These sites might be seen as a threat, but if you’re really good at your job, more transparency can only help you, and reviews will actually help your business grow.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. - Martin Luther King

I’ve always felt like a leader. In my Girl Scout days, I was the tallest; therefore, I was in charge. When I started cheerleading, it just made sense that I was Captain. When I entered the work force as a Leasing Consultant, it was just months before I was tasked with training other Leasing Consultants and less than a year before I was managing them. In business, I’ve been in a “titled” leadership position since I was 19 years old! Being a leader is position I don’t take lightly by the way... I love to lead and I think I’m pretty good at it. But where it starts, I believe, is actually loving the role of a leader and taking it very seriously (ok, with a whole lot of fun mixed it).

Since it seems I’ve always been looked at as leader, it took me a long time to figure out why I so naturally slid into this role, in practically every situation I was faced with. And then it hit me…